Two Pahrump teens accused of murdering their mother were denied bail Thursday.
The Nye County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday announced the arrests of the pair identified as Dakota Salvidar and Michael Wilson. They did not enter a plea during their court appearance.
Sgt. Adam Tippetts said the department responded after the woman was reported missing from her home at 6381 Wedgewood Street in Pahrump on Monday.
According to an arrest report, a man from Idaho called the office to ask about a welfare check done the week prior on Dawn Liebig, 46. He told Detective Gibbs he didn't trust the kids living at the home, but the deputy who responded said it was possible she was in Las Vegas.
Deputy Armendariz followed up and said in his report that her cell phone was at the home, then he opened a missing person report on Liebig. It was unclear if he spoke with either of the suspects during that visit.
Gibbs then contacted a man who was not identified. The man told him the sons, Saldivar and Wilson, had different stories about Liebig's disappearance. He told Gibbs that Liebig had multiple disabilities and he believed her to be dead "due to the type of family she is in," the report said.
Detectives Gibbs, Cox and Parra went to the home to speak with both teens, however, the 17-year-olds denied knowing what happened to Liebig. After additional interviews and a search of the teens' phones, deputies said their stories were inconsistent.
When Wilson was confronted with a text that said "my mom passed away," he confessed to officers, saying he and Saldivar had stabbed their mother to death and buried her body in a two foot deep grave. Wilson told detectives she asked them to kill her, according to the report.
Wilson, who said he was adopted by Liebig and had lived with her for five years, then led detectives to Liebig's shallow grave and the murder weapons buried nearby.
It was unknown if Saldivar was also adopted. The two have an older brother, Michael Liebig, who was reportedly in jail at the time of the brothers' arrest.
In a follow-up interview with Saldivar, he said they decided on July 19 to murder their mother because "they couldn't take her complaining."
Detectives on Tuesday noticed Liebig hadn't been active on Facebook since July 19.
"im [sic] a mom that hope she did okay.i [sic] want my boys to become the men i [sic] hoped for.i [sic] live for them," the bio on that Facebook page reads.
That night, they waited for her to sleep, planning to stab her jugular vein so she would die quickly, according to police records. Wilson stabbed her neck and she reportedly cried out, "No!" Saldivar then struck her with a hammer 20 times in the head, according to statements in the report.
Saldivar told detectives their mother was crying out for them both to help, not realizing it was her sons who were attacking her.
The attack lasted 25 minutes and the two stopped only when the hammer went through their mother's skull, the son said. He then stabbed her in the back of the neck with a pocket knife, then took her to the mountains to bury her, the report noted.
In police interviews, the sons said they needed to care for her animals. At the home, deputies found 20 cats, some malnourished.
Saldivar and Wilson were both arrested for open murder, conspiracy to commit murder and domestic battery with a deadly weapon.
They were taken to Nye County Detention Center and were processed as adults, Tippetts said.
The teens are scheduled to appear in Pahrump Justice Court on Aug. 9.
