Longtime Las Vegas journalist identified in suspicious death

Mikki Zaferatos says the stunning events played out “like horror-movie stuff.”

“I could not process what was going through my brain,” Zaferatos said Friday, two days after she learned Wednesday that her brother, Matthew Scott Kelemen, had been found dead at a business in downtown Las Vegas.

Kelemen was a gifted and well-known journalist whose work was featured in several publications for more than two decades. Most recently he contributed to Las Vegas Magazine. He was 56.

In a phone call from her home in Apopka, Florida, Zaferatos said Clark County coroner’s office officials called her at her home about 3 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday to inform her Kelemen’s body was found inside a container being stored at a business in the 100 block of North Third Street, near Fremont Street.

“I got this call that from the coroner’s office, and I’m thinking, ‘What is going on in Clark County?’ Then they asked me my relationship to Matthew Kelemen, and I said, ‘That’s my brother.’ I thought maybe he got in a car accident or something,” Zaferatos said. “And they told me, ‘They found his remains in a box.’ That was how I found out. It is so rough. A rough couple of days. I’m barely holding it together.”

As Zaferatos described from her conversations with the Metropolitan Police Department, Kelemen’s housemate, 63-year-old Joseph Del Rivo, dropped off the box on Monday, saying he or someone would be back to pick it up in about a week.

On Tuesday, Del Rivo reportedly hired a moving company to pick up the container. When the box was retrieved from storage, employees detected a foul odor and contacted Metro.

Officers took note of Del Rivo’s name, as the moving company called him to tell him the box could not be moved. Del Rivo was immediately a suspect in Kelemen’s death.

Man suspected in death dies in Utah crash

In an unrelated series of events Tuesday, Utah Highway Patrol officers pursued a car driven by Del Rivo in Utah, Metro said in a Thursday news release. Del Rivo was killed as he flipped the vehicle.

Zaferatos said that on Thursday, Metro officials told her Del Rivo used the Bounce luggage-storage app to store the item. The app can be used through several businesses for those looking to drop luggage as they prepare to leave town, or large items for short-term storage. The container was described as a large crate.

“We believe that might have been one of my brother’s amplifier boxes,” Zaferatos said. “Matt played the guitar and he had amplifiers, and it was a big black box.”

As of Friday, the Clark County coroner’s office hadn’t officially released the identity of the body found in the container. Efforts to obtain comment from Metro on Friday were unsuccessful.

Kelemen was single, survived by older brothers Steven and Vincent; and his younger sister, Mikki. The family saves all of Kelemen’s writing from Las Vegas, an extensive body of work dating to his move to the city in 2003. He spent several years as a staff writer for the now-defunct 944 and City Life magazines.

Freelanced for local publications

He also freelanced for Las Vegas Weekly and Vegas magazine. Among his last stories were a piece about Janet Jackson and a preview of Memorial Day Weekend, which were published this week.

Zaferatos said Kelemen had told the family this past Thursday that he had planned to move out of the room he’d leased in a rental also occupied by Del Rivo.

Kelemen’s last conversation with his family was with his brother, Steve, about his living arrangement.

“He’d only lived there for about six months, but he kept telling my brother what a strange guy this was,” Zaferatos said. “He said he was really uneasy living there. ‘The guy was a disgusting slob,’ were his words. Matt said, ‘OK, I’m going to tell him. I’m just worried about how he’s going to react.’ ”

The sister said from her conversations with officials she expects her brother’s death was the result of being struck from behind by a hammer or blunt object. As she said, “I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine him deserving anything like this.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram. Review-Journal staff reporter Casey Harrison contributed to this report.