Brandon Tenorio pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2023 killing of his girlfriend, 36-year-old Kourtney Glover.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A Nevada man who admitted killing his girlfriend inside a northwest Las Vegas home has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, nearly three years after police said his grandmother witnessed part of the attack and escaped to a neighbor’s home to call 911.

Chief District Judge Tierra Jones imposed the sentence Sept. 10 on Brandon Tenorio, 42, after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Kourtney Glover, 36. The sentence followed a plea agreement in which prosecutors and Tenorio agreed to recommend 20 years to life. The resolution brought the criminal case to its sentencing stage after an investigation that began Dec. 20, 2023, when officers were called to a home in the 3500 block of Mountain Valley Drive, near Fort Apache and Gowan roads. Early court records listed charges that included open murder, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, while the later plea resolved the case with a first-degree murder conviction.

Glover’s relatives used the sentencing hearing to focus on what the killing had taken from their family rather than on Tenorio’s explanation for his actions. Her father, William Davis, told the judge he wanted Tenorio to serve his prison term and made clear that he did not support showing leniency. Glover’s sister, Ashley Davis, told the court that Tenorio had no right to determine when her sister’s life would end. “There is no sentence long enough to restore what he took,” she said. The statements placed Glover and her family at the center of a hearing that formally set the punishment for a killing first reported almost three years earlier.

Tenorio made a brief statement of his own. He apologized and said he accepted full responsibility, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s account of the hearing. Special Public Defender Caitlyn McAmis told the court that Tenorio had significant substance abuse and mental health problems that had not been treated at the time of the killing. She described Glover’s death as a tragedy. Those comments were offered at sentencing after Tenorio had already admitted guilt. They did not change the basic question before the judge: what punishment should follow his first-degree murder plea under the agreement reached with prosecutors.

The case began shortly before 8 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2023. Police were sent to the Mountain Valley Drive residence after a 911 call reporting that a woman had been attacked. Metropolitan Police Department officers found Glover unresponsive inside the home and pronounced her dead at the scene. The Clark County coroner’s office later identified her as a 36-year-old Las Vegas resident. Police initially said she appeared to have suffered blunt-force injuries and stab wounds. Tenorio, then reported as 39, was arrested that night. Court records in the days after the killing showed that he was being held without bail as investigators and prosecutors developed the case.

A central witness was Tenorio’s grandmother, who was living at the home. According to an arrest report later obtained by the Review-Journal, she told investigators she had been upstairs when she heard a loud thud. When she went to find out what had happened, she saw Tenorio standing over Glover, who was on the floor, and striking her with a hammer. The grandmother tried to pull Tenorio away, the report said, but he pushed her aside. The police account is important because it describes what investigators said a witness saw during the attack, rather than a reconstruction developed only from physical evidence after officers arrived.

The grandmother then tried to get out of the home through the garage, according to the arrest report. Police said Tenorio followed her and pulled her back inside while telling her that he was not going to kill her. She was eventually able to leave again and reached a neighbor’s residence, where she called 911. The published arrest-report account does not identify the grandmother by name. Her escape provided police with a report of violence still unfolding at the house and gave officers a direct witness account before they entered. Initial court records later included kidnapping and assault allegations in addition to the murder charge, although Tenorio ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree murder under the 2026 agreement.

Officers arrived at about 8:08 p.m., according to the arrest report. Tenorio came out of the residence with his hands raised and blood on his hands and arms, police said. The report quoted him telling officers, “I did it. I killed her,” and saying Glover was dead inside. Officers entered and found Glover at the base of the stairs near the kitchen. Investigators reported finding a hammer with blood on it in a downstairs bathroom and three bloody kitchen knives in the kitchen. The evidence documented at the scene was consistent with the blunt-force and stab injuries police had publicly described when announcing Tenorio’s arrest.

Tenorio gave investigators a longer account after his arrest. According to police records, he said he believed people were trying to kill him and that he regularly heard voices. He described one voice as telling him it was time to “kill or be killed.” He also claimed that he received a Signal message directing him to kill his grandmother and that he viewed a gas truck outside as part of a plot against him. Tenorio told detectives he thought Glover was signaling to someone outside with a light. Those statements came from Tenorio during a police interview; authorities did not present his perceptions as independently established facts. His defense lawyer later cited untreated mental health and substance abuse issues during the sentencing hearing.

Police said Tenorio also described his actions against Glover during that interview. Investigators reported that he acknowledged using a hammer and later a kitchen knife after concluding, based on his own claimed suspicions, that Glover had set him up. The police account included additional details about the attack and Tenorio’s conduct afterward, but the essential finding for the later criminal case was no longer an allegation by the time of sentencing: Tenorio ultimately pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. His plea distinguished the 2026 posture of the case from the days immediately after the killing, when police and prosecutors were still describing accusations and presenting preliminary charges in court.

The legal process moved quickly at first. On Dec. 21, 2023, court records showed Tenorio facing open murder, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon on an older person. A day later, the coroner publicly identified Glover. By Dec. 27, a more detailed arrest-report account had emerged, including the grandmother’s statements and Tenorio’s recorded admissions to police. A Las Vegas justice of the peace ordered him held without bail. Those early proceedings did not determine guilt. They marked the start of a case that remained pending until Tenorio later chose to resolve the homicide charge by pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

At the 2026 hearing, the differing perspectives converged in one courtroom. Glover’s family spoke about a loss they said no sentence could undo. Tenorio accepted responsibility and apologized. His lawyer asked the court to consider serious untreated problems that she said existed at the time of the crime. Prosecutors and the defense, however, had already agreed to recommend the sentence Jones ultimately imposed. The hearing therefore closed one major phase of the case without changing what had become its central legal fact: Tenorio admitted that he murdered Glover and received a sentence requiring him to serve at least 20 years before the possibility of release under the life sentence.

Currently, Tenorio remains subject to the 20-years-to-life prison sentence imposed by Jones. The sentencing resolved the first-degree murder case arising from Glover’s Dec. 20, 2023, death, while leaving her family with the consequences they described in court. No later court development changing the sentence was identified in the sources reviewed for this report.

Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.