Earlier this month on Oct. 6, a 32-year-old man named Yoni Barrios started slashing showgirls on the Las Vegas strip with a large kitchen knife. He killed two and hurt six others badly.
At the time he was arrested, Barrios was named as homeless by the judge and it turned out he was actually an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.
He also had a criminal record in California where he’d been previously charged with domestic violence in 2019 in a case that timed out.
Now, details are emerging about Barrios that throw into question the whole narrative around him.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
Media reports at the time of his stabbing portrayed Barrios as a poor illegal immigrant who was laughed at by showgirls on the strip and then went on a rampage.
Though his real background is full of money and privilege. It turns out he’d been working as a male stripper at various gay bars and mooched off men who he got to fall in love with him.
In LA, he’d often gone to the hottest nightclubs and posted photos of himself shirtless to seduce others, along with expensive clothing and jewelry.
Although friends say they think he wasn’t actually gay and only tried to seduce men for cash, he managed to build up quite a rich life for himself.
He’d supposedly moved to Las Vegas to try to become a top chef. His Oct. 6 stabbing attack occurred after he told a group of showgirls he wanted to show them his nice chef’s knife.
They weren’t so into it and a security guard told Barrios to kill himself and go away. That’s when he then went wild and started slashing and stabbing the girls, killing a young man and a young woman.
In a roughly 1-minute hearing, a judge ordered Yoni Barrios, suspect in the mass stabbings on the Las Vegas Strip, to be held without bail pending his next hearing. Two were killed, and six more were wounded. pic.twitter.com/x5O4bLhwVQ
— Rio Lacanlale (@riolacanlale) October 7, 2022
Diamonds and Deception
Several days prior to his deranged attack, Barrios had done an interview in Spanish with a TV station. He said in the interview he had no home and was looking to become a chef.
He also bizarrely said in the interview he’d been prescribed drugs by a pharmacist in LA that he believed were making him lose control of himself. He said at the time he had no money and no possessions to rely on.
What’s clear from past posts is at least in the recent past, he’d been enjoying a very rich and upper-class lifestyle, with diamonds and fancy watches and going to the best nightclubs in the city.
NEW: Per ICE source, the suspect charged in a mass stabbing on the Las Vegas strip that left 2 dead & 6 others injured is a Guatemalan national in the U.S. illegally, & he has a criminal record in California. I’m told ICE had no record of 32 y/o Yoni Barrios before this. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/y6VrDQyTOt
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 7, 2022
Next Up…
What’s the full story behind Barrios and his life as a gay-for-pay illegal immigrant? What about his bizarre claim about a prescription making him go crazy?
Hopefully, we can dig more into what’s going on here and led to these horrific murders. Barrios is due in court in January of next year and is being held without bail.
This article appeared in StatesmanPost and has been published here with permission.
