Video shows final hour of basketball player’s alleged murder victim
Video released this week shows a woman less than an hour before police said she was killed by a former pro basketball player and his friend.
Chance Comanche, 27, and Sakari Harnden, 19, were indicted earlier this month on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. They are accused of killing 23-year-old Marayna Rodgers, whose body was found Dec. 15, hidden by rocks in a ditch on the outskirts of a Henderson residential area.
Comanche played one game with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in April. He was in Las Vegas on Dec. 5 for a 7 p.m. NBA G League game in Henderson.
According to transcripts of a grand jury hearing held last month, police said Harnden asked Comanche for help killing Rodgers.
In an interview with police, Comanche said he pretended to hire Rodgers as a sex worker, tied her up inside a car and then helped strangle her with an HDMI cord, a Metropolitan Police Department detective testified during the grand jury hearing.
Police wrote in an arrest report that Comanche also told officers that Harnden strangled Rodgers.
Rodgers’ boyfriend told police that Rodgers and Harnden were working together as sex workers and had planned to “spend the evening together meeting NBA players” the night of the G League game, according to the arrest report.
After Rodgers did not return to an Airbnb the next morning, her boyfriend realized the location services on her phone had been “turned off or disabled.”
Her boyfriend also told police that Harnden was upset with Rodgers for telling other people that Harnden implicated her own boyfriend in a double murder in California, the report said.
According to transcripts from the grand jury hearing, Comanche told police that Harnden was upset with Rodgers because of a dispute over a Rolex watch. Comanche said that Rodgers “made comments to mutual friends” about wanting the watch, and that she would shoot Harnden to get it, the detective testified.
Video that prosecutors showed to the grand jury depicted Rodgers and Harnden walking into a liquor store at about 1:40 a.m. on Dec. 6.
“The information that you have is that the homicide occurred probably early 2:00 a.m.- ish?” Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci asked.
“Correct,” the detective replied.
Surveillance footage from a Henderson neighborhood near Horizon Ridge Parkway and Gibson Road showed a vehicle pulling into a cul-de-sac at about 2:20 a.m.
The detective testified that the car resembled the vehicle seen at the liquor store. Prosecutors also showed grand jurors a video of Comanche and Harnden together in a grocery store at about 5 a.m. on Dec. 6.
Messages between Comanche and Harnden showed the two appearing to plan Rodgers’ killing, and Comanche appearing to attempt hiring someone else to kill the woman.
Comanche and Harnden continue to be held in the Clark County Detention Center without bail. They are set to appear in court again on March 28.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.