Jorge Portell appears in a mugshot from June 27, 2023. (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
A Nevada man beat his uncle to death with a 10-pound weight over a series of delusions on a global scale, police in Sin City say.
On June 27, law enforcement responded to a residence on Vegas Valley Drive after being told about a possible altercation, according to a press release from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
But by the time police arrived, the fight was long over.
“Arriving officers located an unresponsive man suffering from visible injuries,” the LVMPD press release says. “Medical personnel responded and pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.”
Jorge Portell, 27, stands accused of one count of open murder with a deadly weapon and kidnapping in the first degree. He is currently being detained without bond in the Clark County Detention Center.
Grim and shocking details of the slaying were relayed in an LVMPD incident report obtained by local Fox affiliate KVVU, local CBS affiliate KLAS, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week.
The initial 911 call was made by Portell’s mother and the sister of the deceased, Leonell Blandon, 56. She told dispatchers that her brother had called and said her son, his nephew, was “out of control.”
The defendant, the dead man allegedly said, was throwing chairs and other household objects at him. So, Portell’s mother left work and headed home in an effort to diffuse the situation. She was too late.
Portell’s mother, whose name is not being made public, told police that she saw blood on the walls and floor of the residence – and that her son was cleaning it up. When she asked her son where his uncle was, the man allegedly would not tell her. She left and called police.
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According to the LVMPD report, officers found the defendant still in the process of cleaning up the blood. An officer wrote that Portell went on to say that he had followed “the rules of engagement,” explaining that Blandon attacked him and that he had to defend himself.
Eventually, the defendant allegedly said, “I’m going to cut the bull—-, he’s dead in my closet.”
After more officers arrived, police found Blandon’s body in a closet that had been barricaded with a glass table among other items.
Blood was found throughout the bedroom, police wrote. There were also allegedly drag marks on the floor and a blood-covered dumbbell inscribed with the number “10.” Blandon’s body had clearly been hit in the head and several of his teeth were broken.
Portell allegedly confessed to the murder – saying he and Blandon got in a fight that ended with some 10-15 blows of the dumbbell to the deceased man’s head – but vacillated between regret for the killing itself and regret for not having killed the man sooner.
“Jorge initially stated he acted in self-defense while he was sleeping because ‘the individual’ and [redacted] were engaging in genocide and multiple murders,” the LVMPD report says. “They apparently had been coordinating with the military, classified branches, United Nations and the President of the United States, and were involved in a coordinated attack which included money laundering, and assassinations.”
Quizzed another time about the death of the man he described as “the individual,” Portell, who denied being related to Blandon, allegedly said: “The action I committed was inappropriate.”
Portell’s mother contextualized her son’s alleged conspiracy theory-laden confession. She told police her son had been having drug problems since he was 14 and that he was “mentally wasted” and would “talk crazy about the FBI and the government.” The defendant’s mother said her son never attacked her but that she had, in the past, often called the police on him for “aggressive behavior, drug use, and suicide attempts.”
Blandon had been experiencing homelessness in California, Portell’s mother said. He was staying with his sister and her son in order to get back on his feet. The victim, who came to stay there within the last week or two, had recently secured a job at a nearby McDonald’s.
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