Suspect in double homicide denies it was him
Underwood formally charged with murders
The suspect in the August homicide of two Las Vegas teens denied responsibility for their deaths but told detectives that neither victim was a “good person,” according to an arrest report.
Chance Underwood, 19, was arrested Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of Timothy Allen Bailey and Harlee Andrew Deborski. Both 19-year-olds were killed Aug. 2 at a home on the 7800 block of Airola Peak Street, near West Grand Teton Drive and North Hualapai Way.
About 8:50 p.m. Aug. 2, one victim’s father called 911 from his home. He told dispatchers he was asleep when he heard five gunshots and found both teens with head wounds lying on the floor of the home, the Metropolitan Police Department report said.
The man said he didn’t see anyone running from the scene. Deborski’s family has said the shooting happened at Bailey’s home.
The victims were pronounced dead at the scene, Bailey from a gunshot wound to the back of the head, and Deborski from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.
Deborski’s father, Jason Deborski, has said the two teens knew Underwood, who was arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder. He said he believed Harlee Deborski hadn’t spoken to Underwood in about a year and a half, and that he was unaware of any disagreements between the two.
Underwood told police that he felt “put aside” by one of the victims, who “rejected him as a friend.” He said that neither victim was a “good person,” the report said.
Because of redactions in the report, it was unclear to which victim Underwood was referring. Prosecutors on Tuesday formally charged Underwood with two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, court records show.
Underwood was identified as a suspect after surveillance footage from several homes in the area showed a person wearing a gray sweatsuit and a backpack walk toward the home where the shooting happened about 8:20 that night, the report said. Witnesses also saw the same person run through the northwest Las Vegas neighborhood about 8:50 p.m., and detectives found two blue latex gloves with a “dark material” on them along the route the person was seen, the report said.
Underwood was identified as the person in the surveillance footage through someone who called police after he saw the footage on social media, the report said.
Asked to quantify how sure the person was that Underwood was the person in the surveillance footage, the tipster said he was 70 percent sure, the report said.
A security officer also told police he saw a person wearing a backpack and blue latex gloves walk into the home, but he didn’t see a firearm in that person’s hand.
The security officer drove away after that person knocked on the door about 8:45 p.m., the report said. The security officer said the home was a “problem house” in the area.
He drove away because “he assumed the male was one of the many people that come and go from the residence,” the report said.
On Thursday, police found a gray sweatsuit and backpack in Underwood’s home that matched those in the surveillance footage. Underwood said he was at his mother’s home when the shooting happened Her home is about a half-mile from where Bailey and Deborski were shot, the report said.
A detective wrote in the report that when he asked Underwood “why he killed them, he would get tears in his eyes and say it wasn’t him.”
Underwood remained in the Clark County Detention Center on Tuesday without bail, jail records show.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.