Ex-GOP candidate and former pro-wrestler Dan Rodimer arrested for Las Vegas hotel room murder

A two-time Republican congressional candidate and former pro wrestler was arrested Wednesday for an October murder in a Las Vegas strip hotel room.

Daniel “Dan” Rodimer — who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in 2020 — turned himself in at the Clark County Detention Center at around 6 p.m. after police had issued an arrest warrant for him on one count of murder, 8 News Now reported.

The failed GOP candidate, who lost congressional bids in Nevada in 2020 and in Texas a year later after faking a southern twang, is accused of beating Christoper Tapp, 47, in a Resorts World hotel room on Oct. 29, 2023.

Tapp — who said he got a “second chance at life” after spending two decades behind bars for a murder and rape for which he was later exonerated — suffered brain bleeding and blunt force trauma to the head and died in the hospital days later.

The coroner ruled his death a homicide and the Clark County District Attorney’s office called the slaying “willful, deliberate, and premeditated.”

Rodimer, 45, is accused of attacking Tapp after he allegedly offered the former WWE wrestler’s stepdaughter cocaine during a party in the hotel room, according to the arrest warrant obtained by the local CBS affiliate station.

“If you ever talk to my daughter again, I’ll [expletive] kill you,” a witness said they heard him tell Tapp.

Immediately after, the witness heard two loud banging noises, the document states.

Detectives initially believed Tapp’s death was an accident due to an overdose and fall as he had cocaine in his system, according to his autopsy.

But after further investigation, they learned that the victim had been involved in some sort of altercation in the hotel room on the fateful night.

A second witness told officers that she saw “Dan knock Christopher to the ground, at which time Christopher’s head hit a small table. Dan proceeded to punch Christopher throughout his head and body,” according to the files the station obtained.

But a third witness claimed that Tapp slipped and struck his head on the coffee table as he fell, the documents state.

Investigators received clarification — and some of the most damning evidence — from Rodimer’s own text conversations with his wife Sarah Rodimer.

“I watched you nearly murder somebody and I had to take your [expletive] hands off from his neck as he laid [sic] there and you ran away and I spent the next two hours trying to take care of him. Nobody should have to watch their husband murder somebody,” Sarah texted her husband following the altercation, according to police.

“I watched you murder somebody like let that sink in your psychopath,” she then added in another text, the documents show.

Rodimer, a father of six, and Tapp reportedly knew one another through the classic car and racing circuit, a family attorney told 8 News Now.

The Republican’s attorneys told the station that their client “intends on vigorously contesting the allegations and asks that the presumption of innocence guaranteed all Americans be respected.”

It’s not Rodimer’s first run-in with police or accusation of aggressive behavior.

In 2011, he was hit with misdemeanor battery charges for assaulting a man at a Florida Waffle House after he asked Rodimer to leave his female friends alone, according to the Daily Beast.

“When I asked him to leave the girls at our table alone and to please just move on, he grabbed me by the neck and threw me into a chair and onto the floor,” Rodimer’s victim told police in a statement obtained by the outlet.

Rodimer who appeared intoxicated was bragging about how he loves to “f–k” people up as he left the breakfast joint in Naples, police and witnesses said.

“As Dan was leaving the restaurant he was using profanity and stated how much he enjoys hurting people,” cops wrote.

In 2020, the accused killer lost the race for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District to Democratic Rep. Susie Lee by just 3%.

He then left The Silver State for Texas to take another shot at elected office.

The Republican, who was born in New Jersey, was accused of adopting a fake southern drawl to try to win over Texas voters.

He came in eleventh place in the 2021 GOP primary for Texas’ 6th Congressional District.

Rodimer’s victim was also the subject of many news articles and even a Dateline episode featuring interviews he did about his wrongful conviction.

But Tapp never got to see the episode, which aired last month — long after his death.

The Idaho resident was tried and convicted of the 1996 murder and rape of 18-year-old Angie Dodge and served 21 years in prison for the crimes that he did not commit.

He was exonerated in 2019 after DNA samples left on Doge’s body were matched to her neighbor at the time, Brian Dripps — who confessed to the rape and murder and said he acted alone and didn’t know Tapp, according to the Innocence Project.

“I’m so thankful that I’ve been given this second chance at life. I’ve wasted 20 years of my life for something I never did, but I also grew up over those 20 years,” Tapp said in a now-tragic statement following his exoneration.

He was awarded $11.7 million in damages in 2022 after suing the city of Idaho Falls as well as its police department for the wrongful conviction, East Idaho News reported.

Rodimer posted $200,000 bail for the murder charge and is due back in court on April 10, according to 8 News Now.