Woman pleads not guilty in FitzHenry's standoff

A Carson City woman pleaded not guilty Monday to charges stemming from a standoff with police Dec. 9.

Bexerly Mora, 46, is charged with two counts of driving her compact sedan at deputies, three counts of aiming a gun at someone and one count of discharging a firearm out of a vehicle.

Mora held police at bay for over an hour as she sat in her car in the parking lot of FitzHenry's Funeral Home on Edmonds Drive where her husband was formerly employed.

During that time sheriff's deputies said she pointed a .38-caliber revolver at police as they tried to coax her from the car.

According to a police report, she wanted to "take a nurse hostage by gunpoint, force them to shoot her up with drugs, then kill herself."

Dispatch logs indicate Mora has a history of depression and is under a doctor's care.

Police said Mora telephoned them from a pay phone at 7 p.m. and said she was armed and wanted paramedics to meet her at FitzHenry's and if she saw officers "someone would die."

After holding police off for more than an hour, Mora tossed away the weapon and drove to the rear of the business where officers pulled her from the car.

She has been in jail since the incident.

Defense Attorney Mike Roth asked for a reduction of Mora's bail, saying she isn't a flight risk.

"She's lived here for 31 years," Roth said. "She was a nurse at Washoe Medical Center for 12 years. Her daughter is in UNR."

Roth said since Mora's incarceration, she has been a model prisoner, even being chosen as a cellmate by jail staffers to assist with a "sensitive" inmate.

"She's really been doing very well," Roth said.

But District Judge Michael Griffin said the circumstances of the crime were too erratic.

"She drove a vehicle at Deputy (Bob) Guimont," he said.

Mora asked to speak to the judge saying prior to the incident a psychiatrist had given her medication that didn't work well with another medication she was already on, but Griffin cut her short saying making a statement on the record wasn't wise for her to do.

If convicted, Mora faces up to 45 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.