Reno is the destination of Ron Lafferty and Dan Lafferty’s flight after the murders of Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty, and the place where their weeks on the run end in arrest. The city first offers a rendezvous point and makeshift refuge; later, its casinos and streets bring the brothers within reach of the police.

Destination and Flight

After the four men decided not to return to President Richard Stowe’s home, Ricky Knapp drove west through Salt Lake City and onto Interstate 80, with Reno as their destination. Dan held a sawed-off shotgun in his lap in case police stopped the car. On the drive, Knapp asked what had happened at Allen and Brenda Lafferty’s apartment. Dan and Chip Carnes later gave conflicting accounts of which brother described the murders, and of what was said about them; both accounts placed the disclosure during the journey toward Nevada.

The group reached Wendover, where Ron and Dan went to bed in a motel room. The next morning, Knapp and Carnes had disappeared with the Impala and everything in it, leaving the brothers with little beyond their clothes. Ron proposed that they split up, hitchhike across Nevada, and meet at John Ascuaga’s Nugget in Sparks, a casino they had visited earlier that summer. Reno thus became not only a destination but the point around which their separate routes could converge.

A Makeshift Refuge

Dan hitchhiked from the westbound Interstate 80 on-ramp and rode to Reno in an eighteen-wheeler. He spent the night in a historic steam locomotive displayed in a city park, then waited around the Nugget until Ron arrived. Their reunion led to an unexpected offer of shelter: when a man named Bud dropped his wallet outside the casino, Dan returned it, and Bud invited the brothers to sleep on his floor. The next day they went water-skiing on Lake Tahoe, shared Bud’s sandwiches, ate dinner in Truckee, and were driven back to Reno.

For the next two weeks, Ron and Dan moved between Reno and Sparks, riding a free double-decker shuttle bus and making use of promotional food and other offerings from the gambling businesses. The shuttle driver let them sleep on the bus, hiding them beneath the seats as he drove into a fenced lot where it was parked overnight. Their refuge depended on small acts of help and on remaining unnoticed; it was temporary, and the brothers were still fugitives.

Arrest at the Casino

On August 7, the brothers went to Circus Circus, where they expected Debbie to be working. Dan asked Ron whether he should inquire after her, and Ron told him to go ahead. When Dan approached a pit boss, the man quickly disappeared. In the casino, Dan noticed men who appeared to be FBI agents watching from around corners. Police officers then rushed up behind the brothers and ordered them at gunpoint to stop. Ron and Dan surrendered without a fight and were taken to the Reno jail under extraordinary security.

The arrest closes Reno’s role in their flight: the city that had offered a meeting place, rides, meals, and hidden nights on a bus also contained the casino where the police found them. Their time there was a precarious interval between the killings and custody, not an escape from the consequences of the murders.