In the long run, Chase Scott Christman couldn’t fight the evidence linking him to the brutal slaying of two men and a woman in an Ahwatukee apartment nearly a year ago.
The Mesa man’s texts, his blood, digital evidence given up by his cellphone and some of his initial statements to Phoenix homicide detectives convincingly connected him to the July 14 slayings of Merissa Honeycutt, 27; Anthony Frederickson-Ceccarelli, 25; and Samuel Lott, 37.
Last week, Christman, 32, received three consecutive life sentences for his guilty in April to three counts of first degree murder and three counts of armed robbery in the case.
The victims’ bodies were discovered around 7 a.m. July 15 in the master bedroom of a second-floor unit of the Array at South Mountain Apartments on S. 48th Street near Warner Road after firefighters had answered a neighbor’s report of smoke.
While the fire didn’t amount to much, the bloody scene that Christman tried to cover up by setting the blaze was horrifying: Frederickson-Ceccarelli had been shot in the head. Lott had three stab wounds in the neck and a gunshot wound in the shoulder. Honeycutt was stabbed 29 times in the head, torso and limbs.
All that carnage resulted from a $300 drug deal gone bad.
Phoenix detectives relatively quickly unraveled the case, arresting Christman four days after his victims were discovered.
County Attorney Rachel Mitchell praised the detectives’ work, noting, “this was a particularly vicious act with one victim being stabbed nearly 30 times. This defendant tried to cover his tracks by setting the crime scene on fire.”
Christman arguably simplified the detectives’ work.
“Chase was confronted with the presence of his blood on the interior of the front door to his apartment and his cellular device location showing he was there,” detectives said in the arrest affidavit.
Though “Chase stated the cuts on his hands are from when he fell on his skateboard,” it said, detectives didn’t find a skateboard in his apartment – but did find a gun.
Further linking him to the crime were extensive texts between Christman and one of the victims.
Lott listed himself on his Facebook page as an Oklahoma resident who lived in Mesa and owned S&L Sports Cards and Trading, which was not registered with the state Corporation Commission and did not appear to have a physical address.
Frederickson-Ceccarelli lived in the apartment, and it was unclear if Honeycutt lived with him.
The deadly chain of events that led to the slayings began prior to Christman’s arrival at the apartment just after midnight July 14.
“Chase would buy drugs from the victims and owed money to them,” detectives’ affidavit said.
Police found extensive texting on Frederickson-Ceccarelli’s phone in which he and Christman negotiated a drug deal, though the victim was concerned about an unpaid debt the killer owed Lott.
Those texts showed that while Frederickson-Ceccarelli told Christman he was weighing $300 of an unnamed drug, he wanted to know if the suspect would pay Lott a $540 debt.
“Chase said he is hurting financially,” the affidavit said, paraphrasing one of the texts.
Police said other cell phone evidence suggests Christman arrived at the apartment shortly after midnight July 14, stayed until around 3 a.m., then returned around 8 p.m. that same day and stayed until 6:30 a.m. July 15, less than an hour before smoke from the fire he set triggered neighbors’ calls to the Fire Department.
The affidavit indicated it took no more than about two hours of interrogation before police caught Christman in a series of lies about his whereabouts July 14.
Initially, the affidavit said, “Chase denied knowing where their apartment was and stated he had never been there.”
But detectives confronted him with pings from his cellphone that placed him at the murder scene.
A second man, Dorian Rice, also is accused of three counts of murder to driving Christman to the apartment complex the first time. He is currently awaiting trial..
Christman was convicted in a California conviction in 2013 on charges related to his participation in a riot in downtown Huntington Beach on July 28, 2013, that followed the conclusion of a weekend surfing and skateboarding competition.
He and eight other people were arrested in a melee in which rioters broke store windows and doors, using a stop sign as a battering ram.
He pleaded guilty in October 2013 in Orange County to vandalism, incitement to riot and refusal to disburse upon lawful command. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and 80 hours of community service. His drivers’ license was suspended for a year and he was ordered to pay about $4,800 in restitution.
A student at Northern Arizona University at least from 2011-2015 – he also lists himself on LinkedIn a second time as a student there from 2011 to the present – Christman also piled up a series of other charges in Arizona on charges ranging from speeding and felony theft to underage drinking and criminal trespassing.
In a YouTube video he posted nine years ago, Christman recited a rap song he made that he said referenced his past struggle with drugs.
Introducing his “song,” he said:
“A few days ago, I wrote this new track. It’s about them while I was using drugs, hitting my rock bottom, and today being clean. And I’ve been performing at the meetings I’ve been going to lately.
“A lot of people have been saying good things about it, and it’s really inspiring. So I put it on Facebook. I’m not going to add a beat to it, because it’s more powerful coming from the heart and being acapella. But I hope you guys like it.”
One of his Facebook accounts and his YouTube channel contain several rap songs by recording artists, though his own work does not appear.
While two of the slain victims had little social media presence, Lott posted frequently on Facebook and early in 2024 had written several posts expressing his grief over the fentanyl-related overdose death of his younger brother on Dec. 28, 2023.
“He had some of his closest friends pass away and it really messed him up, but especially his old girlfriend Jessica that died in front of him at the house,” he wrote on one post.
“And it took him to a very dark place in his life the drugs and alcohol consumed him for a very long time,” Lott wrote, saying his brother “was trying to mask and drown the pain and never actually saw help for it.”