Shiva Gummi (LVMPD) and Dr. Gwendoline Amsrala (UNLV Internal Medicine Department)
A 34-year-old man in Nevada will spend at least a decade behind bars for killing his wife, a recent medical school graduate, stabbing her multiple times because she spent the night out drinking with friends.
Eighth Judicial Circuit Cout Judge Tierra D. Jones ordered Shiva Gummi to serve a sentence of 10 to 25 years in a state correctional facility for the 2023 slaying of 28-year-old Dr. Gwendoline Amsrala, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Gummi reached a deal with the Clark County District Attorney’s Office last month and entered an Alford plea to one count of second-degree murder for killing his wife.
An Alford plea is functionally equivalent to a guilty plea in that it results in a conviction, but it allows a defendant to maintain their claim of innocence while conceding that the state has sufficient evidence to convict them at trial.
Jones also credited Gummi with 405 days of time already served.
During the sentencing hearing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly read a letter penned by Amsrala’s parents in which they praised their daughter as being a brilliant and compassionate young woman, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“Actually, we don’t have to explain who Gwen was or what her capabilities and achievements were, because all of the adjectives and nouns in the dictionary may fall short for her,” the letter stated. “Even after one year, the whole situation is still incomprehensible.”
Speaking on his own behalf, Gummi reportedly apologized for his actions and “all the pain” he had caused.
“I would gladly exchange places with my wife if I could,” he reportedly told the court.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, a 911 dispatcher with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department last April received a disturbing call from Gummi after he killed his wife and tried to take his own life by stabbing himself multiple times.
“I want to die, but I’m not dying,” he told the dispatcher.
When the dispatcher asked Gummi where his wife was, he responded, “Next to me.”
Then the dispatcher asked him if his wife could help him.
Gummi replied: “She’s dead.”
When officers arrived at the couple’s home, they found Gummi and his wife both lying in their bed. She appeared to have suffered numerous stab wounds to her arms, abdomen, and throat. Gummi was also critically injured from numerous self-inflicted stab wounds.
Amsrala’s mother, who lived with the couple at the time of her daughter’s death, told investigators that Gummi had been “upset with Gwendoline (Amsrala) after she spent the night at a friend’s house who was intoxicated after a night of drinking,”
Asmrala was a 2022 graduate of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV before becoming a resident a the UNLV Medical Center.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
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