Metro Police
Chance Underwood
Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019 | 7:15 p.m.
After a day’s work, the man was home, briefly catching up with his son before he settled on a living room couch to watch TV.
He closed his eyes.
Five gunshots rattled the man awake.
And when he stumbled into the front of his northwest valley house on Aug. 2, he saw his son and his friend. Both were shot, according to Metro Police. Both were 19. Both were mortally wounded.
Timothy Allen Bailey and Harlee Andrew Deborski died at the scene.
Police on Thursday arrested the alleged killer, Chance Underwood, also 19.
An arrest affidavit released on Tuesday outlines the suspect’s mysterious steps through the neighborhood, near Grand Teton Drive and Hualapai Way, before and after the shooting, how he raised suspicion for wearing a hooded sweatshirt in near triple-digit temperatures and how he had snapped on blue surgical gloves right before the killings.
Underwood admitted to not liking how one of the victims — whom he considered a friend — had replaced him with the other victim, whom he considered a bad person. And since his friend viewed the other person positively, he must’ve also been bad, police said.
But Underwood’s eyes welled up when detectives asked him why he’d shot the victims, police said. He told them it wasn’t him, according to the affidavit.
Investigators put together a timeline that implicated Underwood.
At 8:40 p.m., about 10 minutes before the killings, a security guard said he'd seen a young man walking through the neighborhood.
Noting that it was suspicious for someone to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt in “extreme” heat, the guard trailed him.
The suspect crouched down next to a utility box and rummaged through a backpack. His hands now had rubber gloves on, the guard told police.
The guard continued surveilling until the suspect stopped in the 7800 block of Airola Peak Street and knocked on the door of a home the guard recognized as a “problem house,” police said.
The guard drove off. Meanwhile, one of the victims came to the door and was shot on the spot, police said. Near the entrance, the gunman fired two more rounds toward the second victim, missing, police said.
Then he stepped inside, firing twice more, this time hitting the victim, police said.
Security cameras caught the suspect’s escape, police said. At one point, he fell. Police later found both rubber gloves in a nearby trail.
The suspect ended up at Underwood’s house, which was about a half-mile away, police said.
After Metro released surveillance footage showing a man in a hooded sweatshirt, a tipster contacted investigators. Although the suspect’s face was blurred, the tipster said, the suspect’s distinct walk and his white sneakers made it likely that Underwood was the suspect.
Detectives served a warrant at Underwood’s house, where they found the sweatshirt and backpack witnesses had described as the suspect's.
Underwood could not explain where he was at the time of the shooting, police said. If he was home, why had the cameras and a security guard caught him walking through the neighborhood? He admitted to owning the clothes and granted that he could have been out of his house, though he wasn’t sure or couldn’t remember, police said.
Underwood said he had access to blue rubber gloves like the ones the alleged shooter had apparently used, police said.
Underwood was being held without bond at the Clark County Detention Center on two counts of murder, and one count each of burglary and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. He’s next slated to appear in front of a judge on Sept. 19.
