Sex worker faces murder charge after man OD’s in Strip hotel room

A Las Vegas woman who police said worked as a prostitute and sold drugs to a man before he died of an overdose inside a Strip hotel room faces a murder charge, court records show.

Heidi Warner, 22, was arrested at her southwest Las Vegas apartment on April 10, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. She faces one count of second-degree murder and another count of sale of a controlled substance.

An arrest report provided by Metro accuses Warner of “being a participant in the unlawful killing” of a Utah man named Senaca Higley, who was found dead inside his room at Caesars Palace on Feb. 26, 2024.

Surveillance footage from the resort, dated three days prior, showed Higley and Warner walking through the hotel lobby and to his room on the 17th floor, police said. About an hour later, cameras captured Warner, who wore a hooded sweatshirt that concealed her identity, walking alone down the hallway and eventually getting on the elevator to return to the lobby, according to the police report.

Higley was discovered after his ex-mother-in-law called police, concerned that she had not heard from him for some time.

Police said that Caesars Palace security conducted a welfare check on Higley after the phone call, and they found him sitting on a bathroom toilet, unresponsive. Security also found five blue “M 30” pills, which tested positive for fentanyl and acetaminophen, in a clear plastic bag, according to the report.

Later, an autopsy revealed that Higley’s cause of death, ruled accidental, was a “combined effect of alcohol, fentanyl, amphetamine, and multiple drugs/medications.”

During a follow-up interview, Higley’s mother-in-law shared that Higley had struggled with substance abuse in the past but had been sober for years, police said. She also noted that, though Higley had been widowed four months prior when her daughter died, he was “doing well,” regularly visiting Las Vegas for work.

Previously banned from Strip casinos

While investigating the circumstances of Higley’s death, officers searched the contents of his cellphone and found text messages between him and a woman named “Thalia,” the arrest report showed. Officers later determined that the phone number Higley had for “Thalia” was registered in Warner’s name.

Police also said that, after being arrested for prostitution on resort properties multiple times, a judge had issued Warner an “order out” judgment, banning her from all Strip casinos.

In Warner’s arrest report, police suggest that Higley had requested a date from “Thalia,” who they believe was also supplying Higley with drugs such as Adderall.

Higley allegedly withdrew $2,400 from an ATM the day he was seen meeting with Warner, according to the arrest report.

Court records show that Warner was held on a $75,000 bail, which she posted before being released on high-level electronic monitoring. Her next court date is scheduled for May 21.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.