Gun, ghost, coffin emojis: How ex-NBA player Chance Comanche confessed to strangling woman in Vegas
Former NBA player Chance Comanche has admitted to collaborating with his girlfriend in Las Vegas earlier this month to strangle a woman to death from the backseat of a car "like how killers do it in the movies," according to authorities and court documents.
The former Beverly Hills High basketball star told Las Vegas homicide detectives that he conspired with Sakari Harnden to kill Marayna Rodgers in the early hours of Dec. 6, a court filing said. Comanche told detectives that he strangled Rodgers with an HDMI cord from the back seat of a Mercedes-Benz before Harnden choked the 23-year-old Rodgers with two hands around her neck, the court filing said.
In a court hearing Tuesday, Judge Diana Sullivan was told that Clark County Dist. Atty. Steve Wolfson intends to combine all the cases against Comanche and Harnden. Sullivan said Comanche will remain jailed without bail. The judge set his next court date for Feb. 8.
Comanche, 27, who played briefly for the Sacramento Kings in October and the Portland Trail Blazers in April, was playing for the Stockton Kings of the NBA G League at the time of the killing. The team was in Las Vegas for a game the night of Dec. 5, and the court filing alleges that he and Harnden planned the killing days earlier through numerous text messages — some including emojis of a gun, a ghost and a coffin.
After they were unable to find someone to kill Rodgers for $3,000, Comanche and Harnden, 19, decided to carry out the killing themselves, the filing said. In a text message to Harnden on Dec. 4, Comanche wrote: "If you get a nice little thick piece of rope or sum sturdy I can do it from the back seat. Like how killers do it in the movies."
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According to the court filing, Harnden and Rodgers were prostitutes and acquaintances who had argued over a Rolex watch and the fact that Rodgers had revealed to others that Harnden had cooperated with police about a boyfriend's involvement in a double homicide in Stockton earlier this year. The boyfriend, Iosua Sataua, was arrested in May along with a 16-year-old boy in the case.
The night of the killing in Las Vegas, Harnden told Rodgers that Comanche was a trick who was into kinky sex and wanted to tie them up and have sex with both of them, according to the court filing. Rodgers agreed, and while sitting in the front passenger seat of Harnden's Mercedes-Benz, willingly allowed Harnden to bind her hands together with zip ties, the filing said.
"Chance made reference to fluid coming out of Marayna's mouth, which caused them to believe Marayna was dead," the filing said.
Comanche and Harnden placed Rodgers' body in a ditch and covered it with rocks, according to the court filing. The next morning Comanche boarded the team bus headed for the airport.
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Las Vegas homicide detectives interviewed Comanche in Stockton on Dec. 15. The court filing said he confessed to the killing and told detectives where Rodgers' body was located.
A criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas court Dec. 18 charged Comanche and Harnden with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Comanche appeared in a Sacramento County court on Dec. 19 and waived his extradition to Nevada.
A prosecutor said Tuesday that separate murder, kidnapping and conspiracy cases will be combined so Comanche and Harnden can be tried together. At his initial court appearance Tuesday, Comanche stood in shackles and responded, "Yes, ma'am," to Sullivan's questions about whether he understood the charges against him.
In 2015, Comanche, a 6-foot-10 center, led Beverly Hills to its first CIF Southern Section championship since 1969, averaging 20 points and 16 rebounds a game. He chose Arizona over offers from Louisville and Gonzaga, and in two seasons averaged 4.6 points and 2.8 rebounds a game.
Comanche declared for the 2017 NBA draft, forgoing the remaining two years of his college eligibility, but was not selected. Since then he has bounced around the G League and in 2021 played for a professional team in Turkey.
The Trail Blazers signed Comanche to a 10-day contract in April and he appeared in one game, scoring seven points. He wasn't re-signed but landed with the Sacramento Kings on a 10-day contract in October. The Stockton Kings released him shortly after his arrest.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
