A California mother was nearly strangled to death with a shoelace in a horror attack outside her Las Vegas hotel room.
Kailee Woods, 27, had traveled to Nevada City to see an Eagles concert on Sept. 22 and was staying alone at the Plaza Hotel on Main Street.
The single mother told police that a young man approached her while she was outside the hotel casino and asked to borrow her cell phone. She said he then followed her to her room and brutally assaulted her in the hallway.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, her sister Kristal Miller, 29, said Woods suffered a serious brain injury from lack of oxygen and was only alive because two men ran to help her after hearing the commotion. He also shared gruesome photos of Woods’ injuries and the crime scene at the hotel.
The suspect was later identified as Antonio Cortez Hernandez, 21. He appeared in court Wednesday after being charged with attempted murder, assault by strangulation and assault with a deadly weapon.
His charges were referred to the District Court for a custodial assessment, a District Court paralegal told DailyMail.com. He is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 15, where a doctor will evaluate him to see if he is mentally fit to stand trial.
He is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center on $500,000 bail.
Kailee Woods, 27, is pictured with her young son at his nursing school graduation. Before the terrifying attack, she worked as a home health aide.
A black shoelace on the floor of the hotel where Woods told police she was attacked.
Woods told police she was outside the hotel smoking with another man she had met that night when her attacker first approached her.
She said he claimed he had been separated from his friends and that his cell phone had died, so he needed to borrow one to ask a family member to pick him up.
Miller told DailyMail.com that his sister said he reminded her of her younger brother, who was well dressed and very polite, so she wanted to help.
Woods then asked for his phone back and told the man he was going to his room.
But after taking the elevator to the 11th floor, she said the man appeared out of nowhere in the empty hallway near her room.
Eager to go to sleep as it was around 3.30am and surprised that he had found her, she became irritated when he asked her to use his phone again.
His sister told DailyMail.com that he told her “you can’t follow people to their rooms” and told her to go to the lobby for help.
“My sister never gave her apartment number and I didn’t know her name,” Miller said.
He reportedly claimed he needed the numbers he had dialed from his phone, so she told him to move away from the door and went to get him paper and a pen.
Unable to find them, she tore a page out of a book she was reading and took out an eyeliner from her makeup bag.
Strangulation marks around Wood’s neck taken when he was in hospital after the near-fatal attack that occurred last month at The Plaza hotel.
Kailee Woods, 27 (right) pictured with her older sister Kristal Miller, 29
She told police that it was at that moment that she noticed he was carrying a black shoelace in his hands that had not been there before.
Miller recalled that her sister described having a “strange feeling” and knowing then that something was wrong.
She said he then asked her to help him write down the numbers, which she began doing in hopes he would leave.
She claimed he got upset and tried to grab her, so she threw the paper on the floor and ran down the hall while yelling ‘get away from me.’
His sister told DailyMail.com that a struggle ensued and he put his shoelace around her neck, squeezing it tightly until she fell to the ground unconscious.
Miller said his sister wasn’t sure how long she was gone, but when she woke up she started screaming and kicking a nearby door as he continued to strangle her.
Finally, two men in the room closest to the attack opened the door and saw the victim unconscious on the floor.
The attacker fled and the men were unable to catch him. But a black cord and a mysterious orange band were found lying in the hallway.
The men called police and an ambulance transported Woods to University Medical Center, where she was placed in the ICU.
Miller said her sister suffered a brain injury and doctors told her that if the attack had lasted just a few seconds longer, she likely would have died.
An image of the hallway of The Plaza Hotel where the attack occurred.
Woods described how he gave his attacker some eyeliner and tore a page out of the book he was reading to write a number moments before the assault.
Hernandez was arrested two weeks later, on Oct. 5, according to the police report.
He was charged with assault by strangulation, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon and is being held on $500,000 bail in the Clark County Jail.
Miller said her sister was initially subpoenaed to be present at Wednesday’s hearing, but the district attorney’s office told her it had been postponed.
Detective Dorethea Brewer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told DailyMail.com she could not provide any further details about the case because it is an active investigation.
Megan McCarthy of the LVMPD’s public records unit said that under a new 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that went into effect last month, mugshots from cold cases cannot be released.
Hernandez was also charged with theft for an unrelated incident. He appeared in court Monday for that preliminary hearing.
Miller claimed that hotel security initially wrongly reported that the attack was a possible one-night stand gone wrong.
“The head of security said it was domestic violence after she had a fight with a romantic partner, but that’s not what happened,” he continued.
‘They have video images and everything corroborates that it was a random stranger. He was never in her room and they did not take the same elevator or go up together. It bothered us a lot. “They weren’t taking it seriously.”
Miller added: “The attack was very brazen. He did it outdoors. We don’t understand how he got into the elevator without a room key. The family said they plan to file a lawsuit against the hotel.
DailyMail.com has contacted the hotel for comment.
The Plaza Hotel & Casino in Freemont is located on the Las Vegas Strip on N. Main Street.
Woods recovers at home while marks on his neck heal
Another angle of the hallway of The Plaza Hotel & Casino where the elevators are located
Miller explained that her sister was originally supposed to travel to Las Vegas with a friend who He was unable to make the trip at the last minute.
She added that she didn’t go herself because she just had a baby, but described her sister as very “independent.”
The concert was on September 20 and the attack occurred two days later.
Miller said Woods, a single mother of a seven-year-old son, is traumatized and has been struggling with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder since the assault.
She added that Woods worked as a home health aide, but is now terrified of being alone in a stranger’s house.
Miller said the ordeal has left her “sick to my stomach.”
‘We believe what he did showed premeditation and that he left his home that night with the intent and plan to hurt a stranger. “We hope he gets a long prison sentence.”
Miller created a GoFundMe to help his sister with her physical and emotional healing. As of Saturday, more than $3,200 has been raised toward their goal of $5,000.
She added: “I hope her story helps other women to be careful and not make the same mistakes my sister made that allowed her to be an easy target.”
The Plaza Hotel is one of the largest downtown properties located on the Las Vegas Strip. It has appeared in numerous films, television productions and music videos since its construction in 1971.
The hotel is 22 stories tall with 504 rooms and a 66,000-square-foot casino, according to the company’s press kit.
