Former GOP Congressional Nominee Daniel Rodimer Charged With A Murder On Las Vegas Strip

Former Republican congressional candidate and retired pro wrestler Daniel Rodimer was charged with the murder of Christopher Tapp.

Rodimer turned himself into the Clark County Detention Center hours after the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police (LVMP) identified him as a suspect in Tapp’s murder.

Authorities say Tapp, who served 20 years in prison for a murder and rape he did not commit, was discovered with critical injuries inside a Resorts World hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip on October 29, 2023. He was taken to the hospital but was pronounced dead on November 5, 2023.

Officials first assumed that his injuries were the result of an “apparent overdose” and “fall,” according to court documents.

In January, the Clark County Coroner’s Office ruled Tapp’s death as a homicide due to “blunt force trauma to the head.”

The LVMP conducted a suspicious death investigation and discovered that the murder victim was arguing with Rodimer inside the hotel room before he was found and taken to the hospital.

According to the arrest warrant, Rodimer became upset after Tapp offered his stepdaughter cocaine.

“‘If you ever talk to my daughter again, I’ll [expletive] kill you,'” a witness then heard the former pro-wreslter say according to documents. “Immediately after hearing Dan say this to Christopher, [the witness] heard two loud banging noises.”

According to these documents, a second witness told the police that she saw Rodimer “knock” Tapp “to the ground,” thereby causing the latter’s head to “hit a small table.”

“Dan proceeded to punch Christopher throughout his head and body,” the documents stated.

Additionally, the documents revealed that another witness told an individual attending the hotel room party that the victim slipped, fell and hit his head on a coffee table.

Other witnesses told police several people used cocaine during the party.

“I watched you nearly murder somebody and I had to take your [expletive] hands off from his neck as he laid there and you ran away and I spent the next two hours trying to take care of him,” Rodimer’s wife, Sarah Rodimer told her husband in a text message obtained by investigators. “Nobody should have to watch their husband murder somebody.”

“I watched you murder somebody like let that sink in you psychopath,” Sarah had then stated in another text according to the police.

Detectives had later monitored the Rodimers’ phones in early January.

Rodimer’s Las Vegas lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, mentioned in a statement emailed that Rodimer was “voluntarily surrendering to authorities and will post a court-ordered bail.”

“He intends on vigorously contesting the allegations and asks that the presumption of innocence guaranteed all Americans be respected,” the suspect’s attorneys said in their statement.

Rodimer was the GOP candidate for a congressional seat in Nevada. Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rodimer during the campaign.

“Dan Rodimer, we’re with you all the way, Dan,” Trump said during a rally in 2020.

Throughout that campaign, Rodimer fought against accusations of police run-ins and arrests after records showed that his ex-girlfriend and wife called 911 on him twice in 2018.

In one incident, a woman called about a domestic dispute incident. Another time Rodimer’s wife accused her ex-husband of taking $200,000 worth of cash, guns and jewelry from their home.

“As for [Nevada Rep.] Susie Lee [(R)] using 911 calls, the government documents Susie refers to in her smears clearly state nothing more than a verbal argument occurred and no crime was committed,” his ex-wife said in defense of her husband on his former campaign website.