A former player in the NBA G League has purportedly confessed to strangling a woman in Las Vegas as part of a murder scheme, wherein he posed as a customer of a prostitute. Court documents unveiled on Tuesday shed light on the chilling details of the alleged crime.
Chance Comanche, aged 27, made an appearance in a Sacramento County court and voluntarily agreed to be extradited back to Nevada, where he will be confronting charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
According to a Las Vegas police affidavit supporting the arrest, Comanche, standing at 6 feet 10 inches, and his former girlfriend Sakari Harnden, aged 19, collaborated in the strangulation of Marayna Rodgers, aged 23. The incident purportedly took place in the early morning hours of December 6, shortly after the Stockton Kings’ game against the NBA G League Ignite in Henderson.
The police affidavit revealed that Comanche, who was apprehended in Sacramento last week, confessed to the plot during questioning by Las Vegas police detectives. It was alleged that Harnden and the victim, both involved in sex work, had a dispute over a Rolex watch.
The sinister plan involved Comanche posing as a customer, binding the hands of Rodgers and Harnden behind their backs for sexual purposes. The affidavit detailed that, once Rodgers was restrained with a zip-tie in the back of a car, Comanche used an HDMI cord to strangle her for approximately 10 seconds. He claimed to have stopped when he heard Rodgers struggling to breathe. According to the court record, Sakari also participated in choking Marayna with both hands.
After the victim’s death, the pair allegedly disposed of Rodgers’ body in a ditch off the side of the road, covering it with rocks. Comanche reportedly returned to The M Resort Casino, where the Kings were staying, at 6 a.m. The surveillance footage from the hotel showed him and his teammates leaving at 8:50 a.m. Harnden was captured leaving the hotel room at 10:24 a.m., visibly upset, and she was subsequently arrested on December 13.
Comanche, a former student of Beverly Hills High School in Southern California and the University of Arizona, was released from the Kings shortly after his arrest. He informed detectives that he had met Harnden through a dating app approximately 1 ½ years ago. Although their dating relationship was short-lived, they stayed in touch.
The police stated that Harnden had an ongoing feud with Rodgers over the coveted Rolex watch. Allegedly, Comanche had offered to help Harnden find someone to carry out the murder, but when unsuccessful, the duo decided to execute the plan themselves.
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Outside the Sacramento court on Tuesday, Comanche’s defense attorney, Michael Goldstein, conveyed that they had no comments and would let the legal process unfold in Nevada.