Matthew Wasar, a 42-year-old White/Caucasian male from Peoria, Arizona, was killed on June 21, 2014, when a simmering family dispute with his younger brother, Christopher Michael Wasar, exploded into fatal violence outside an apartment complex near 85th Avenue and Grand Avenue. Police were called shortly after 1 p.m. to reports of a confrontation between the brothers, and responding officers found that what had begun as a personal argument had ended with Matthew mortally wounded from a gunshot
to the chest.
In the months leading up to the shooting, tension inside the family had grown dangerously personal. Christopher’s then-wife, Jessica Graham had become involved in a romantic relationship with Matthew, a situation that left the younger brother feeling betrayed and humiliated. Later court records describe Graham as both Christopher’s spouse and Matthew’s partner, underscoring how deeply intertwined the three adults’ lives had become. On the afternoon of June 21, Christopher and Jessica decided to confront Matthew. Armed with a handgun, they went to his Peoria apartment, where he had been living with a roommate, Brady McGonigle, in what appears to have been an attempt to put distance between himself and the collapsing marriage. According to court filings, the couple forced their way in and held the roommate at gunpoint while they searched the residence, looking for Matthew and demanding to know where he was.
When Matthew was not found inside, Christopher and Jessica left the apartment and soon spotted him sitting in a vehicle outside the complex. What happened in the next few moments would be dissected later in both police reports and courtrooms. Investigators later alleged in federal forfeiture filings that Christopher approached the vehicle, confronted his brother, and that Matthew stepped out holding a knife before the argument escalated. Other reporting based on witness statements painted a more chaotic scene: Christopher was seen opening the car door, pointing a gun at Matthew, punching him in the face, and then firing a single shot into his chest at close range as the two argued. Neighbors and Matthew’s roommate watched the confrontation spill from private resentment into public tragedy in the parking lot of their otherwise ordinary Peoria complex.
As Matthew collapsed beside the vehicle, his roommate called 911, and officers arrived to find him gravely injured. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, his life ending that same afternoon. Christopher did not vanish into the crowd or escape for long. According to contemporary accounts, he attempted to leave but was quickly taken into custody by responding officers, who were already working from the roommate’s detailed description of the armed break-in and the parking-lot shooting. When questioned, Christopher told police that he had fired in self-defense, claiming that Matthew had rushed him with a knife, but witnesses — including Jessica herself, according to later summaries — reportedly told investigators that the attack was unprovoked and that Matthew had not posed the kind of imminent threat Christopher described.
The legal system moved quickly to formalize the consequences of that June afternoon. In the immediate aftermath, Christopher was arrested and booked on serious state charges, including second-degree murder, kidnapping, and burglary, reflecting both the armed intrusion into Matthew’s apartment and the fatal shooting that followed outside. Over the next year and a half, the case worked its way through the Arizona courts. By December 4, 2015, the original murder charge had been resolved in the form of a felony manslaughter conviction, and Christopher was sentenced to five years in prison for killing his brother. Later federal court orders explicitly describe Matthew’s death as the result of Christopher’s gunshot and treat the homicide as a settled fact in the backdrop of subsequent firearms prosecutions, underscoring that law enforcement and the courts regard the case as solved and Christopher as the sole person legally responsible for Matthew’s killing.
