Court Documents: Informant Said Missing Player Was Shot by Former Teammate
June 30, 2003
WACO, Texas (AP) A police informant told authorities that missing Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy was shot in the head with a 9 mm handgun by a former teammate after the two had an argument, according to court documents released Monday.
The teammate and former roommate, Carlton Dotson, told a cousin that he got in an argument with Dennehy while they were shooting guns in the Waco area and that Dennehy pointed a gun at Dotson as if to shoot him, the informant said.
But Dotson instead shot Dennehy in the head with the pistol, the informant said. Dotson said he then drove home to Hurlock, Md., and got rid of the guns along the way, the informant said.
The search warrant affidavit released Monday was filed June 23 in McLennan County by Waco police detective Bob Fuller.
District Attorney John Segrest declined to comment Monday, referring questions to Waco police. Fuller did not return a phone call to The Associated Press on Monday.
A message seeking comment was left Monday on an answering machine at Dotson's home in Maryland.
Waco Police Chief Alberto Melis said no body had been found and no arrests have been made, and he would not elaborate on any evidence. Waco police spokesman Steven Anderson has said authorities believe "potential suspects" include fellow Baylor basketball players.
Dennehy was reported missing by his family on June 19, and his sport utility vehicle, its license plates missing, was found last week in a mall parking lot in Virginia Beach, Va.
Melis said officers were treating the disappearance like a homicide because his department got a call "from an outside source" that said a homicide had occurred in the Waco area and the victim could be associated with a local university.
Dennehy transferred to Baylor in hopes of making what he called a fresh start after getting kicked off the team at New Mexico because of his temper.
The 6-foot-10, 230-pound center accepted a scholarship to play basketball at the Baptist school and told friends he had become a born-again Christian. He was a B student and rarely missed a class.
"It's a fresh start," he said when accepting a scholarship in May 2002. "I feel great. It's a new coach, a new team, a new set of personalities."
Over the weekend, Baylor coach Dave Bliss called Dennehy "a gem" and said: "The team, the university and all the members of the Baylor family and myself are in tremendous disbelief. ... No part really seems real."
Before he disappeared, Dennehy was attending summer school at Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university with more than 14,000 students.
At Baylor, he was not eligible to play basketball for a year, but he practiced with the team and sat on the bench during games.
The junior from Santa Clara, Calif., majored in speech communication and dreamed of playing in the NBA, then working in public relations for his favorite team, the
Sacramento Kings, said John Cunningham, a speech communications professor at Baylor.
When Dennehy did not call home on Father's Day, June 15, his mother, Valorie Brabazon, and his stepfather, Brian Brabazon, got worried. When Dennehy's girlfriend called his parents looking for him, they started calling his friends.
What the stepfather found out - he will not give details - upset him so much that he decided to call the university.
Brabazon also said that someone had recently broken into Dennehy's SUV and stolen money from him, and that Dennehy had told Baylor coaches he was scared.
Dennehy played two seasons at New Mexico, where he averaged 10.6 points and 7.5 rebounds as a sophomore and was named honorable mention All-Mountain West Conference in 2001-02.
He was removed from the team after losing his temper during practice, less than two weeks after he argued with a teammate during a game, kicked a chair and stormed out.
Team doctors said a medical condition may have contributed to the outburst, but would not say what it was.
Dotson, a 6-foot-7 forward, averaged 4.6 points and 2.5 rebounds in a reserve role with Baylor last season. He was not expected to return next season.
He came to Baylor after spending two seasons at Paris Junior College, where he attended after originally signing with the University of Buffalo out of high school. He never went to Buffalo.
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