https://news3lv.com/news/local/video-vault-07-16-2020
The death of entertainer and nightclub owner Harry Wham
by Tom HawleyWed, July 15th 2020 at 5:40 PM
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) โ One of the more sensational trials in Southern Nevada history took place 37 years ago.
It followed the death of entertainer and nightclub owner Harry Wham.
"A few years ago, he opened the Keyboard Lounge," said News 3's Dan Burns on February 13, 1983. "The lounge grew and so did his popularity. People who knew him to say he's done a lot of things in his life. An Alaskan bush pilot, an inventor, a scuba diver for Metro's search and rescue team, just to name a few."
Harry Wham first arrived in Las Vegas in 1949 and led a small orchestra at Club Bingo, which today is the site of the Sahara Hotel and Casino.
In the late 1950s, he and his then-wife Toni ran the Sportsman's Lounge in Big Bear, California where they also entertained.
A few years later he was back in Las Vegas, founded a SCUBA outfit called Whamco Divers and continued singing and playing piano at a variety of venues.
In 1979, he and his new wife Peggy were licensed to run the Keyboard Lounge on Vegas Valley just east of Maryland Parkway. It was a modest bar with a piano and an attached Chinese restaurant. The entertainment was provided primarily by Harry and Peggyโwho performed under the name "Stormy".
The word "stormy" also could have described their marriage, and the two were known to have loud arguments in front of the employees at the Keyboard Lounge.
Things seemed to come to a head when Peggy shot Harry in the arm during one of their altercations at their home on April 2, 1981. But Harry was not seriously hurt and did not press charges. He said it was just an accident.
In early 1983, Harry was struck by gunfire once more.
"Less than two weeks ago, another attempt was made on Wham's life," reported Burns. "He was wounded in the neck during a robbery at his home. Wham said a white man and a black man robbed him two weeks ago. Witnesses said they saw a black man leaving the scene of the shooting Sunday."
The ethnicity of the assailants would play a role in the trials that were to follow. At the time Harry shrugged it off. After a brief stay in a local hospital, he was once more back entertaining at the Keyboard Lounge.
The third time getting shot proved lethal.
After a long night at his club, Harry arrived home around 4:30 a.m. on February 13. Someone was waiting.
"Some say it had all the makings of a contract hit. He was shot in the head two or three times," said Burns. "His wallet was still with him, and the murderer didn't touch an expensive videotape recorder on the trunk of the car."
At first, the media seemed sympathetic to Harry's wife.
"He told her if he was ever killed not to worry. He would be over on the other side playing the piano somewhere."
Within days, however, a conspiracy theory emerged, and the direction of Burns' reporting changed dramatically.
"Well-known Las Vegas entertainer Harry Wham was gunned down in his garage last Sunday," began a follow-up story. "Police say it was a contract killing. Yesterday, four arrests were made. Wham's Stepdaughter, Kathy Faltinowski, Faltinowskiโs boyfriend John Parker, his brother Joe Parker, and Wham's wife Peggy."
The four had paid another man to carry out the shooting so that Peggy could gain full control of the Keyboard Lounge.
"Wham's sister Sally Cook testified against her," said News 3's Donna Cline in September 0f 1983. "Telling a packed courtroom how Wham plotted the murder with an alleged lover of hers and his brother, Douglas and John Parker."
Peggy Wham was found guilty of if Murder, use of a deadly weapon and conspiracy. She received two sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, while the Parker brothers were given life with the possibility of parole.
"Everybody's blaming me for this," said a distraught Cook after the sentencing. "And I feel that both of my parents are responsible for this and she should have had the help she needed when she was growing up. And I still feel it's unfair that she got life without parole, because the Parkers are going to be walking the streets in a few years and that she's going to rot in hell for the rest of her life."
Faltinowski reached a plea deal by agreeing to testify against Snow and eventually ended up serving two years in Prison.
Hired gunman John Oliver Snow was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to die by lethal injection. He has gone through multiple appeals over the decades but remains on Nevadaโs death row today at age 77.
Peggy Wham was released from prison in 1998 while battling late-stage esophageal cancer and died the following year.
The Keyboard Lounge eventually became the Smuggle Inn and was in the news again last year, when it was closed down for selling cocaine to patrons. The business is shuttered today.