Farmington • The shackles that chained his fidgeting hands clinked loudly as Christopher Fritz stood in a Davis County courtroom Wednesday and offered a simple apology for shooting and killing his best friend in December 2016.

“Taylor didn’t deserve this,” Fritz said of 24-year-old Taylor VanCamp. “And neither does his family. I just really am sorry. I’m sorry for what I’ve done and what my actions caused, and I wish I could take it all back.”

Fritz, now 21, pleaded guilty in November to murder, a first-degree felony, for shooting his friend in their Layton home after a drunken fistfight in the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 19, 2016.

Calling the shooting “a senseless act,” 2nd District Judge David Hamilton on Wednesday sentenced Fritz to a 15-years-to-life term in the Utah State Prison — the only sentence the state allows for such a conviction.

Barbara MacPeek, VanCamp’s aunt, told the judge before sentencing that it’s difficult for her family to grasp the possibility that Fritz could be released in as little as 15 years, but she said she understood the law and what was allowed. All she could do, she said, was pray for Fritz and his family.

“I just can’t understand how a person can lose such control,” MacPeek said, “that they can end the life of [someone] who they call their best friend.”

Fritz and VanCamp were friends for years, lived in the same home and worked at a Domino’s together.

After working a late shift together and spending several hours drinking on Dec. 19, the two ended up wrestling and fighting each another. The fight, prosecutors say, began over insults thrown at each other’s romantic interest.

The two tussled in the kitchen, wrestled down a hallway and barged into the room of another roommate. VanCamp tried to hug Fritz and de-escalate the situation, according to testimony, and the two went to their respective bedrooms.

But Fritz then looked in the mirror, saw blood on his face and “snapped,” he later told police.

He retrieved a handgun from his drawer, opened his bedroom door and fired at VanCamp, who was sitting on his bed across the hallway.

Investigators found 16 bullet casings at the scene. Multiple rounds struck VanCamp as Fritz entered the room, prosecutors said. A medical examiner said VanCamp would’ve died within minutes.