LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A 19-year-old woman charged with murder and kidnapping appeared in Clark County Justice Court on Thursday and the judge ruled that her bail shall remain at $500,000.
Sakari Harnden and Chance Comanche 27, were arrested and charged with crafting and executing a plot to kill Harnden’s friend, Marayna Rodgers, earlier this month.
The victim went missing on December 5 and was found dead in Henderson ten days later. A series of text messages revealed that the two suspects initially attempted to have a third party kill the victim. Comanche, a former NBA G-League basketball player, first mentioned the plan in a text message on November 30.
His team, the Stockton Kings, traveled to Las Vegas at approximately 4 p.m. on December 4 for a game and checked in to the M Resort. Police provided a timeline of his movements after he arrived, which included getting into a gray Mercedes that matched the description of Harnden’s car just after midnight on December 6.
Police secured a search warrant and also tracked the suspects’ movement through cell tower data, noting that the two suspects appeared to travel together from the hotel to a liquor store where they met the victim. Investigators reported that all three of their cell phones used the same tower at 1:21 a.m., which “would suggest to detectives that Sakari, Marayna and Chance were all traveling together in the same vehicle.”
Police obtained surveillance video that showed the gray Mercedes pulling into the liquor store parking lot, where they stopped to purchase alcohol and returned to the vehicle. All three phones utilized a different tower at 2:18 a.m.
The victim’s phone stopped working at approximately 3:35 a.m. Both of the suspects’ phones were tracked to a nearby tower less than 15 minutes later.
Video footage indicated that Comanche returned to his hotel and left the resort with his luggage at 8:50 a.m. Police added that Harnden was seen “leaving the hotel room, visibly upset and crying,” at approximately 10:24 a.m.
She was located by police and taken into custody by an LVMPD CAT team on December 13. She declined to speak to detectives.
Comanche was taken into custody by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Bureau at his team’s practice facility on December 14. He was booked into the Sacramento County Jail and is awaiting extradition to Las Vegas.
Harnden is due back in court for a preliminary on February 8. Comanche’s bail will be set in court but he does not yet have an appearance scheduled in Nevada.
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