Woman arrested in Telegraph Street shooting

A Carson City woman was in custody Monday, suspected of helping two men barge into a Telegraph Street apartment and hold four people at gunpoint before shooting a fifth on April 14.

Stephanie Belzer, 21, was arrested by Mineral County deputies Saturday on a Carson City warrant at her parents' Hawthorne home on suspicion of felony principal to battery with a deadly weapon, principal to burglary and principal to false imprisonment with a deadly weapon. Detective Dena Lacy and Sgt. Bob White picked up Belzer on Monday from the Mineral County Jail to book her into the Carson City jail.

According to police reports, Belzer, Nathan Richardson, 22, his girlfriend Jessica Simpson, 18, and three others were in Simpson's apartment at 701 W. Telegraph St. when two men, their faces covered by knit caps with eye holes cut out, came in just before 11 p.m. and held the group at gunpoint. Taking aim at Richardson, one of the assailants fired a shot at his chest and the two men fled, Lacy said.

About 11:30 p.m. Richardson arrived at Carson-Tahoe Hospital where he was taken by helicopter to Washoe Medical Center. Because he was shot with a type of bird shot, Richardson's injuries were minimal and he was treated and released.

Sgt. White said Belzer's statements to investigators were "totally different," from the statements of the others in the room and those with her told investigators she was "acting strange," prior to the shooting. When officers looked in her car parked in the hospital lot, scissors and what appeared to be four knit eye holes were found inside.

Also, Belzer has denied returning to the apartment complex while Richardson and Simpson were at the hospital, but three witnesses at the complex say they saw her there, White said.

He said the motive for the shooting appears to be drugs.

"We believe it was a robbery gone bad. There were 34 grams of marijuana and $145 in that apartment and she went back to get that," he said.

Belzer's bail is set at $50,000.

n Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.