Killings of Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman

On October 26, 2016, Sydney Elysse Land (born March 24, 1995) and her boyfriend Nehemiah "Neo" Kauffman, 20, were shot and killed inside Land's apartment at The Union complex in southwest Las Vegas, Nevada. Their bodies were discovered by a neighbor the next day at 12:40 p.m. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (Metro) initially stated it had no motive and no suspects, though it believed two male perpetrators were involved and that there had been no forcible entry. Land's father later said Metro left evidence uncollected at the scene and failed to interview him or his wife, Connie Land.

Land worked as a restaurant employee at The Palm in Caesars Palace; Kauffman was a former Centennial High School athlete. The two were last seen alive by Land's friend Frankie Zappia, a convicted prostitute, who was with her own alleged pimp, Dominique Thompson, on the night of October 25.

Shane "Suga" Valentine, an associate of Kauffman's, became a person of interest after an October 8, 2016 dispute in which Kauffman accused him of being a police informant; Valentine allegedly threatened to kill Kauffman, Land, and a friend, then later fired shots into and rammed his car into the garage of Kauffman's mother's home. Valentine fled to California after the killings in the same vehicle. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to firearms charges related to the October 8 incident, receiving incarceration at Warm Springs Correctional Center, but was never charged in the killings. Metro cleared him as a person of interest a year later but reportedly renewed interest in him by October 2018.

Connie Land, Sydney's mother, pursued her own investigation, contacting media outlets and private investigators. She formed a bond with Las Vegas judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson, who had separately clashed with Metro over what she believed was inaction regarding sex-trafficking fronts, including a shop called Top Knotch, after her own teenage daughter reported suspicious activity there. Andress-Tobiasson came to believe Valentine was responsible for the killings and that she and her daughter, not Land and Kauffman, may have been the intended targets. She pressured Connie Land to share confidential text messages from a Metro detective, and the two women later had a falling-out.

Andress-Tobiasson faced judicial misconduct charges from the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline in September 2020 and resigned her judgeship in May 2021 as part of a settlement. Connie Land was found dead in August 2022, a death ruled a suicide. Andress-Tobiasson was found dead from a gunshot wound in her Las Vegas home on January 20, 2023, at age 55; the Clark County Coroner's Office also ruled this a suicide. As of October 2024, no arrests had been made in the killings of Land and Kauffman.