Vegas woman could be free in five years after shooting male model ᴅᴇᴀᴅ

A Nevada woman with a ‘firearm fascination’ and a grandfather suspected of being a serial killer may walk free after serving just five years for fatally shooting her model friend. 

Allysandra Blea, 20, was sentenced Tuesday to five years to life in prison for first-degree kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter in the killing of 23-year-old Mark Santiago Gaughan, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The sentence comes months after Blea, then 19, admitted to gunning him down as he snapped images of her and another woman during a weapon-filled pH๏τoshoot in August 2025. 

‘I don’t know anymore what is my purpose in life without my son,’ Caroline Gaughan, the victim’s mother, told the court and judge on Tuesday, according to the outlet.

‘The happy Caroline that was full of life is now gone. The untimely death of my son is so huge and painful.’

Blea insisted she ‘did not intentionally kill’ her friend, while her public defender argued she was under the influence of marijuana and vodka when she fired the ᴅᴇᴀᴅly sH๏τ. 

But investigators uncovered social media posts in which she repeatedly talked about wanting to shoot people in the face – comments detectives said she dismissed as jokes. 

In another chilling claim, she said her paternal grandfather, Joseph Blea, was a serial killer. 

Allysandra Blea, 20, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced Tuesday to five years to life in prison for first-degree kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter of 23-year-old Mark Santiago Gaughan

It comes after Blea, then 19, admitted to gunning down Mark as he snapped images of her and another woman during a weapon-filled pH๏τoshoot in August 2025 

He has been identified as a suspect in the infamous West Mesa murders, in which the remains of 11 women and an unborn child were discovered in a mᴀss grave in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2009. 

The killings remain unsolved, and Joseph – a convicted rapist currently serving a 90-year prison sentence – has denied any involvement in the murders. 

During Blea’s sentencing hearing, Mark’s mother sat at the witness stand and trembled as she delivered an emotional statement to District Judge Jacqueline Bluth, speaking for nearly 15 minutes about the night her son was killed. 

She recalled the promise they made to always stick together after her husband died – one they honored by living together, saying ‘I love you’ before leaving the house and checking that the other was safe at the end of every night.

Just hours before his death, she reached out to her son with a message that read: ‘Hello, how are you? Are you going home tonight? Let me know. Keep safe, and I love you.’

At 4.22am, he replied: ‘No, not tonight. Love you.’ 

It would be his final message. Less than an hour later, Mark was sH๏τ and killed with his own gun, a bullet fired by Blea striking him in the neck. 

His mother, Caroline, said she spoke with her son after he recently acquired his concealed carry license and after Blea said she had access to his firearm. 

Caroline Gaughan, the victim’s mother, gave an emotional statement to the court and judge for nearly 15 minutes during sentencing. She held up a framed pH๏τo of the pair in tears

On the day of the shooting, Blea was posing with Mark’s gun when she fired the weapon, striking him in the neck. He died shortly afterward 

District Judge Jacqueline Bluth said she had never received as many letters of support for a victim as she had for Mark

‘I tried to convince Mark to stop carrying that gun around her, but Mark trusted her,’ she told the Review-Journal. ‘Now, “not tonight” is my forever.’

She tearfully described her son as kind, family-oriented and thoughtful – a man who never missed a holiday or an opportunity to celebrate her. 

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She said Mark was a hardworking man who was employed at Nevada Distilling Company and dreamed of becoming a military pilot. He also pursued a modeling career on the side, signing with the Las Vegas-based TNG Agency. 

A cancer survivor since 2017, Caroline told the court that the grief of losing her son has taken a toll on her health, with elevated markers since his death, according to the outlet.

She said she still longs to hear his voice and that even spending five months in the Philippines, where she is from, could not heal the pain of her reality.

As she held up a framed pH๏τo of herself and Mark, about a dozen of his friends cried from the gallery. 

Blea, who did not speak during the hearing, dropped her head instead of facing the mother. 

District Judge Jacqueline Bluth agreed with Caroline after her heartbreaking words, revealing that she had never received as many letters of support for a victim as she had for Mark. 

Mark’s mother described her son as kind, family-oriented and thoughtful – a man who never missed a holiday or an opportunity to celebrate her 

Blea’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Blea, has been identified as a suspect in the infamous West Mesa murders. He is a convicted rapist currently serving a 90-year prison sentence

Blea’s public defender argued she was under the influence of marijuana and vodka when she fired the ᴅᴇᴀᴅly sH๏τ into Mark

‘The letters told the story of Mark and what a wonderful person he was, how much he absolutely loved his mom,’ Bluth said, according to the outlet.

But the judge also noted that she had never received as many letters of support for a defendant as she did for Blea, with family and friends describing her as patient, loving and gentle. 

Still, Bluth pointed to testimony from authorities who said Blea had shared pH๏τos of herself holding firearms to her head and discussed killing prosтιтutes before Mark was killed. 

‘I would be amiss if I didn’t say the individual presented to me in the phone dump is just such a different human than the one that’s discussed in those letters,’ she said, according to the Review-Journal.

‘The goth look and the stuff written online, I don’t know what that was about, but I do know that this was a case that should not have gone to trial.’

Blea’s sentencing comes nearly a year after the shocking killing of Mark in the early morning hours of August 23, 2025, near Las Vegas’ Northwest Valley. 

On the day of the shooting, Blea – who has a bullseye tattoo on her chest – and another woman asked Mark to pH๏τograph them during a weapon-filled Polaroid pH๏τoshoot, according to police. 

As the two women posed with the gun, she pulled the trigger, striking Mark in the neck. He died shortly afterward. 

Investigators previously uncovered social media posts in which Blea repeatedly talked about wanting to shoot people in the face

Blea’s sentencing comes nearly a year after the killing of Mark in the early morning hours of August 23, 2025, near Las Vegas’ Northwest Valley 

Though the shooting was initially reported to authorities as an ‘accident,’ investigators later found pH๏τos showing the two women posing with knives and guns, according to KLAS News.

In one image, Blea was allegedly seen ‘lying back [on the other woman]’ with a black firearm pressed toward her mouth and her finger on the trigger, police said. The other woman appeared to be holding a blade. 

Witnesses told police that Mark had brought the gun to the gathering before the fatal incident and believed the chamber was empty. 

At the time, detectives noted that Blea ‘was adamant that she did not intentionally kill Mark.’ 

‘She stated it was an accident and admitted she has never taken any firearm safety courses and believed the firearm didn’t have a bullet in the chamber,’ police said.  

However, a review of her social media accounts uncovered disturbing posts about her ‘love of shooting guns, owning guns, building her arsenal and shooting people in the face,’ detectives told the outlet.

In one case, police said she wrote: ‘I wish I could shoot people with real guns and get away with it.’ 

Mark’s death was ruled a homicide, months before Blea pleaded guilty in June to first-degree kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors recommended a five-years-to-life sentence for the kidnapping charge, to run concurrently with the involuntary manslaughter charge, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence, the Review-Journal reported.

‘I think from the defense perspective, we have tried to explain that the significant amount of alcohol and marijuana in a 19-year-old girl is what led to this horrible accident,’ Chief Deputy Public Defender Robert O’Brien told the outlet.