Friends raising money to ship body of Filipina nurse slain by husband
LAS VEGAS—Friends are scrambling to raise money to send home to the Philippines the body of a Filipina nurse slain a week ago by her husband in a horrific killing in their Las Vegas home.
Elizabeth Fisher, a friend of the victim, Daisy Casanta Dahan, posted a message on her Facebook page on Wednesday asking for donations to send the slain woman’s body to her home in Bohol.
“I am again asking all my friends, family and co-workers to please, please help us raise money so we can send Daisy’s remains to her family in the Philippines,” Fisher posted on her page.
“Another devastating news we just received today—Daisy’s grandmother in the Philippines just passed away today. This is hard for the family back in the Philippines.”
Fisher asked donations be sent to:
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This developed as the arraignment for the suspected killer, Richard Magdayo Dahan, the victim’s 40-year-old husband, was postponed for Thursday.
Dahan is being held without bail on a first-degree murder charge in the Friday killing of his 28-year-old wife.
He appeared confused Wednesday, and Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis delayed his initial appearance to Thursday to obtain a Tagalog language interpreter.
The victim’s friends were upset at the postponement. Fisher said that Richard Dahan’s request for a Tagalog interpreter was a ploy because he “speaks fluent English.”
Fisher, a co-worker of Daisy Dahan at Life Care Center, a nursing home and assisted-living facility on 6151 Vegas Drive, was outside the courtroom on Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported that Dahan said he might also try to hire his own lawyer.
Fisher said that she and her friends had feared Daisy Dahan was in a dangerously abusive marriage before she was killed.
Richard Dahan turned himself in at a police station a few hours after the slaying and provided a grim account of attacking his wife with a serrated chef knife, a meat cleaver and filet knife.
On Wednesday, he appeared in court in shackles, with a heavy bandage covering his right forearm, hand and ring and pinky fingers.
Police had said he had severe cuts on his hands and a broken finger when he surrendered.
He told investigators he was a kidney transplant recipient in failing health and recently lost his job as a chef at a Las Vegas Strip casino resort.
In a written statement, Dahan told police that Daisy Dahan wanted a divorce after a little more than two years of marriage, but he felt that was unacceptable because his parents stayed married until his father died.
They met in the Philippines and moved to the United States in 2011, where Richard Dahan’s relationship with his kids from an ex-girlfriend caused some tension in the marriage.
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