The sheriff withheld the names of two deputies charged in a woman's death in the county jail. The state's own database made them searchable within a day.
On Sunday night, August 23, the Nye County Sheriff's Office announced that two of its deputies had surrendered for booking on charges of inhumanity to a prisoner, neglect of duty resulting in death, and involuntary manslaughter.
Under the heading SUSPECT(S), the release reads: "Will not be released at this time."
Twelve lines below, the same page identifies the woman who died. Stevie Miller, 30, of Pahrump.
By Monday afternoon, the withheld names were sitting in two government databases.
What the records show
Nevada's statewide custody system, Nevada S.A.V.E., is operated by the Attorney General's office and made public under NRS 228.205. It lists two men booked into the Nye County jail under consecutive booking numbers, both since released:
- Kyle Daniel Benes, 39, jail ID 26NY1556
- Carlos Alejandro Luna, 28, jail ID 26NY1557
The two links above go to the live database, and those addresses may not last. We keep our own copy of both records as they read on August 24: the S.A.V.E. entries for 26NY1556 and 26NY1557, SHA-256 3bc5dc67dc43173cdd2df3c6311b5fab01cdc8ef180af00cb5e677ce7378377d.
Nye County's own staff directory lists both men as deputies in the Sheriff's Office. County payroll records are more specific. Both are detention deputies. Benes earned $88,065 in base pay and $157,902 in total compensation last year. Luna earned $79,576 and $144,796.
Consecutive booking numbers mean the two were processed one after the other. Both are sheriff's office employees. Both were released. The sequence matches the only account the county has given of two deputies surrendering together and bonding out.
The custody records do not list charges, and the sheriff's office has not confirmed that these are the two men named in its release.
That assignment carries weight. Inhumanity to a prisoner, NRS 212.020, is a jailer's offense. It reaches a person who has custody of a prisoner, not an officer on a highway. A detention deputy is precisely who that statute is written for.
Why the county said it could not tell you
There is a widespread belief that officers cannot be identified until a case ends. In Nevada that belief is wrong.
NRS Chapter 289 is the state's peace officers' bill of rights.
NRS 289.057 the misconduct-investigation section, contains no secrecy clause. It covers timelines, suspensions and an officer's right to review his own file. Nothing in it shields a name from the public.
NRS 289.090 goes further, stating that most of those protections "do not apply to any investigation which concerns alleged criminal activities." A signed warrant for manslaughter is a criminal matter.
NRS 289.092 assumes a charged officer can be suspended without pay, since the statute exists to guarantee back pay if he is later cleared.
Under NRS 239.010, Nevada records are open unless a law makes them secret, and the agency carries the burden of proving otherwise. The county has cited no statute at all.
The district attorney already drew the line
Nye County District Attorney Brian Kunzi has fought with reporters over records access since 2024, when the Pahrump Valley Times reported that his office was blocking release of arrest reports.
Sheriff Joe McGill objected publicly at the time. "There's a certain level of transparency that we need to exercise, and he's not allowing us to do that," he said.
Kunzi's own written position was that his concern is timing, specifically the release of witness statements and investigative reports. He also said the sheriff's office is not blocked from releasing information "that provides basic facts of what happened," adding: "I have never said information cannot be released to the public."
A name is not a witness statement. It is not an investigative report.
Nye County has named its own arrested deputies before. Robert Cathcart in 2016. Michalean Soprano and Kevin McBrayer in 2019.
James Ramos in 2020. James Christiansen in 2022. Captain David Boruchowitz turned himself in at the county jail in 2022 and emailed the media his own booking photo.
One week apart, two different policies
Nye County had two deaths in custody in eight days this June. Miller on June 10. Christopher Stewart, 40, of Pahrump, on June 17.
On June 26 the sheriff's office addressed both in a single release. On Miller, it said the investigation was open and it could not release details.
On Stewart, it released body camera video, described his alleged conduct in detail, noted that autopsy results were months away, and then announced that deputies had acted "within the scope of law and policy" and shown restraint.
Both investigations were open that day. One produced video and a public clearing of the deputies. The other produced nothing.
The variable was not the stage of the investigation.
Two investigations, both run in-house
The sheriff's office opened an administrative investigation and a criminal investigation the day Miller died.
An administrative investigation, run by internal affairs, is about a job. It asks whether policy was broken and ends in discipline. Nye County has historically kept those findings private.
A criminal investigation asks whether a crime occurred and ends before a judge.
The August release is specific about which one produced the arrests: the criminal investigation developed probable cause, and a judge signed the warrant. The administrative findings have never been released, and the county has not said whether that inquiry has concluded. That matters, since NRS 289.057 bars suspending an officer without pay until all investigations conclude.
Both investigations were conducted by the sheriff's office itself. No outside agency appears anywhere in the release.
That departs from how the county handled its most sensitive recent case. When Sheriff McGill shot a man in October 2023, the Nevada Department of Public Safety ran the criminal review while sheriff's office internal affairs ran the administrative one.
A death inside the county jail received less outside review than a shooting by the sheriff.
The sheriff is also the coroner
Under NRS 259.020, Nevada sheriffs serve as county coroners. Nye County has no independent coroner. Autopsies go to Clark County, though the death investigation belongs to the sheriff.
When Stevie Miller died in the Nye County Detention Center, the official responsible for investigating her death also ran the jail she died in and employed the two men now charged.
NRS 259.050 adds a further requirement. An inquest must be held unless the district attorney or a district judge certifies that none is required. No inquest has been announced, so a signed certification should exist.
What the charges mean
Involuntary manslaughter, NRS 200.070, is an unintended killing during an unlawful act. NRS 200.090 sets the penalty at one to four years.
Neglect of duty resulting in death, NRS 202.595, covers anyone who "neglects any duty imposed by law in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons." Where death results, it is a felony. Prosecutors selected a statute about failing to act.
Inhumanity to prisoners, NRS 212.020, applies to a jailer "guilty of willful inhumanity or oppression" toward a prisoner in his care. A second provision states that a public officer guilty of willful inhumanity has committed malfeasance in office.
The operative word across two counts is willful. These are not accident charges.
The record this fits into
Six Nye County deputies were arrested between 2016 and 2022, and no outlet has ever reported what became of any of them.
In March 2021, deputies stopped Tyler Kennedy, saw on body camera that he was impaired, found fentanyl, and returned his keys. An hour later he killed Michael Durmeier, his 12-year-old daughter Georgia, and Lauren Starcevich. Four employees received written reprimands. No deputy was charged. When the district attorney asked the state to investigate, the state refused, citing a conflict.
In 2024, David Provenza, 70, called for help about a neighbor's dog and alleges in federal court that a deputy punched him and tased him four times. Body camera video was withheld seven months. McGill said no internal affairs review opened, since no complaint had been filed.
Federal inspectors have twice faulted the jail's medical care, most recently in a Homeland Security Inspector General report published in May 2025. The county lost its jail medical provider entirely in late 2024, costing it a federal detention contract. A replacement took effect in July 2025 and has never been publicly named.
One fact cuts the other way and deserves saying. These deputies were criminally charged. No Nye County deputy has been charged over a death in custody before. The sheriff's office built that case and took it to a judge. The silence around it is the failure. The charging is not.
Questions still unanswered
Sheriff Joe McGill can be reached at (775) 751-7000. District Attorney Brian Kunzi is at (775) 751-7080.
- What law allows the county to withhold the names of two people arrested on a signed warrant?
- Are both deputies suspended, and are taxpayers still paying them?
- Has the internal affairs investigation finished, and what did it find?
- Why did the sheriff's office investigate its own deputies rather than calling in the state, as it did in 2023?
- How long passed between Miller's return from court and the moment someone checked her cell?
Stevie Miller was ordered held on June 10. Held carries a plain meaning: the county took responsibility for keeping her alive. Hours later she was dead, and the county's own investigators found probable cause to believe two of its employees caused it.
Her name was public within a day.
Seventy-four days later, the county announced two arrests and declined to say who was arrested. The state's own database answered the question by the next afternoon.
Neither man has been convicted, and both are entitled to the same presumption of innocence Stevie Miller was owed. Identifications are drawn from Nevada S.A.V.E., operated by the Nevada Attorney General under NRS 228.205, the Nye County staff directory, and Nye County payroll records. Those records establish custody and employment; they do not list charges, and the sheriff's office has not confirmed the identifications. Case details come from Nye County Sheriff's Office releases dated June 26 and August 23, 2026, and reporting by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Pahrump Valley Times, KLAS, KTNV and FOX5 Vegas. Statutes are quoted from the Nevada Revised Statutes.
