Her 911 call preceded Brandon Tenorio’s arrest in Kourtney Glover’s killing and a later first-degree murder plea.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A grandmother who told police she heard a thud, encountered her grandson attacking his girlfriend and escaped to a neighbor’s home became a key witness in a Las Vegas murder case that ended nearly three years later with a 20-years-to-life prison sentence.
Brandon Tenorio, 42, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Kourtney Glover, 36, and Chief District Judge Tierra Jones imposed the agreed recommendation on Sept. 10. The sentence closed the central criminal case that grew out of the grandmother’s Dec. 20, 2023, call for help from a northwest Las Vegas neighborhood. Police reports and later court coverage describe two distinct parts of the case: the immediate account of a witness trying to intervene and escape, and the legal process that eventually produced Tenorio’s admission of guilt. The grandmother has not been publicly identified in the reports reviewed for this story.
Her account began inside a home in the 3500 block of Mountain Valley Drive, near Fort Apache Road and Gowan Road. She told police she had been upstairs when a loud noise drew her attention. When she went to investigate, according to the arrest report, she saw Tenorio standing over Glover, who was on the ground, and hitting her with a hammer. The grandmother tried to pull her grandson away from Glover, police said. Tenorio pushed her aside. That account gave detectives a witness who said she had directly observed part of the fatal attack, an important distinction from evidence officers would document after reaching the scene.
The grandmother’s next actions shifted the episode from violence inside the home to an emergency call outside it. Police said she ran toward the garage in an effort to get away. Tenorio followed and dragged her back into the residence, the arrest report stated. During that encounter, he told her he was not going to kill her. She later escaped a second time, made it to a neighbor’s home and called 911. Early court records would list kidnapping and an assault count involving an older person along with the murder allegation. Those were accusations at the outset of the case; the conviction that ultimately resulted from the prosecution was for first-degree murder.
Metropolitan Police Department officers arrived at about 8:08 p.m. Tenorio walked out of the house with his hands raised, with blood visible on his hands and arms, according to the arrest report. Police quoted him as saying, “I did it. I killed her,” and telling officers that Glover was dead inside. The surrender gave investigators a second major category of evidence beyond the grandmother’s account: statements attributed directly to Tenorio at the time of his arrest. Officers then entered the residence and found Glover lying at the base of the stairs near the kitchen. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators documented physical evidence throughout the residence. Published accounts of the arrest report said police found a hammer with blood on it in a downstairs bathroom and three bloody kitchen knives in the kitchen. Police initially described Glover as having blunt-force and stab injuries. The Clark County coroner’s office publicly identified her two days after the killing as Kourtney Glover, a 36-year-old Las Vegas resident. Officials had initially announced the homicide without releasing her name. Tenorio, who was 39 when he was arrested, was described in the 2026 sentencing coverage as 42.
What Tenorio told detectives after his arrest added a different and more complicated layer to the investigation. Police said he reported believing that people intended to kill him and claimed that he heard voices “all the time.” He described a voice telling him it was time to kill or be killed and said he had received a message on the Signal app telling him to kill his grandmother. He also told investigators that he interpreted the presence of a gas truck outside as part of a plot and believed Glover was signaling someone with a light. Those were Tenorio’s reported beliefs during the police interview. The sources reviewed do not establish that any such plot, message or threat actually existed.
According to the arrest report, Tenorio then described attacking Glover with a hammer and later using a kitchen knife. Police said he claimed his actions followed his belief that Glover was involved in the perceived threat against him. Investigators also documented his account of what he did during and after the attack. The disturbing details were part of the police record, but they were not the only evidence on which the public account of the case rested. Officers had the grandmother’s reported eyewitness statement, Tenorio’s statements when surrendering, his later interview and physical evidence recovered from the home. Glover had already been pronounced dead before Tenorio was taken through the initial court process.
The first court phase reflected the uncertainty typical of a newly filed homicide prosecution. On Dec. 21, 2023, Justice Court records showed allegations including open murder, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon on an older person. Subsequent reporting based on police documents also described first-degree kidnapping counts. A justice of the peace ordered Tenorio held without bail. At that stage, he was an accused defendant and the allegations had not been proven. The case changed fundamentally before the 2026 sentencing because Tenorio later entered a guilty plea to first-degree murder, removing the need to describe the homicide itself as merely an accusation against him.
The sentencing hearing placed Glover’s relatives, rather than the grandmother or the arrest report, at the center of the courtroom account. Glover’s father, William Davis, told Jones he wanted Tenorio to serve his time and expressed strong opposition to leniency. Ashley Davis, Glover’s sister, framed the sentence in terms of an irreversible loss. “There is no sentence long enough to restore what he took,” she told the court. Their comments underscored a limit of any criminal sentence: the proceeding could determine Tenorio’s punishment, but it could not undo Glover’s death or resolve what her family had endured since December 2023.
Tenorio apologized and said he accepted responsibility. Special Public Defender Caitlyn McAmis told the judge that he had significant substance abuse and mental health problems that were untreated at the time. Her comments supplied mitigation for the court to consider but did not dispute the guilty plea. Prosecutors and Tenorio had already agreed to recommend a sentence of 20 years to life in exchange for the first-degree murder plea, according to the Review-Journal. Jones followed that recommendation. The final court outcome therefore rested on Tenorio’s admitted guilt, while the earlier police records remained important for understanding how authorities said the crime was discovered and investigated.
Seen across the nearly three-year case, the grandmother’s role was distinct from the later decisions made by lawyers and the judge. She was the person who police said encountered the violence, tried to intervene, escaped and summoned officers. Investigators then documented Tenorio’s surrender and statements. Prosecutors filed charges. Glover was formally identified. And, after the case remained pending, Tenorio ultimately admitted first-degree murder and accepted a negotiated sentencing recommendation. Those stages are related but legally different, and separating them helps preserve the distinction between what a witness reported in 2023 and what Tenorio formally admitted in court before his 2026 punishment.
For now, Tenorio is serving the sentence imposed for Glover’s murder, with a minimum term of 20 years under the life sentence reported by the court coverage. The sentencing completed the principal prosecution described in the available records. For Glover’s family, the last public proceeding ended not with a dispute over who killed her, but with statements about the permanence of her absence and the punishment for the man who admitted responsibility.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.