In the early morning hours of July 16, 2020, Grant Draper, a 21-year-old male, was killed in Phoenix, Arizona, following a night of heavy drinking with his brother and two acquaintances that descended into conflict. The evening began with Grant, his brother Lane Draper, Jordon Nez, and Roessel Jackson gathering at Nez's apartment with a plan to stay the night before heading to work the next day.
As the men consumed alcohol, tensions arose, and Grant reportedly had negative interactions with both his brother and Nez.
The precise sequence of events that led to Grant's death is obscured by the intoxicated state of the three survivors, each of whom provided conflicting accounts to investigators. During the night, Grant was fatally attacked with a knife; the murder weapon was never found. Jordon Nez claimed to have blacked out and to have no memory of the critical moments. He told police he awoke the following morning to find Grant's body surrounded by a large amount of blood, which he says he began to clean up in a panic. When questioned, Nez admitted it was possible he had done "something" to Grant.
Lane Draper provided a different timeline, stating that he left the apartment around 2:00 a.m. and woke up later that morning in his truck at an unfamiliar location. He claimed that after using his truck's GPS to navigate back to Nez's apartment, Nez met him outside and warned him not to call the police. An investigation of Lane Draper's truck led to the discovery of a knife, though it was not confirmed to be the weapon used in the killing.
On July 22, 2020, authorities arrested Jordon Nez and charged him with the second-degree murder of Grant Draper. As the case moved forward, Nez's defense team pointed to the other men present that night, identifying Lane Draper and Roessel Jackson as potentially responsible for the death. This defense strategy led to a prolonged legal battle over the defense's request to access GPS data from Lane Draper's truck, which they argued was crucial to their case. The matter eventually reached the Arizona Supreme Court. The final outcome of the murder charge against Jordon Nez is not detailed in publicly available online records.
