Murder at Baylor — When Silence Became the Crime Pt.1 | Signal 51 Chronicles
Signal 51 Chronicles examines the 2003 murder of Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy, who was shot twice in the head by teammate Carlton Dotson and left in a gravel pit for over a month. Hosts John Henry and retired Fort Worth police sergeant Jake White discuss the investigation, the discovery of Dennehy's vehicle in Virginia Beach, and the early investigative steps that led to Dotson's arrest in Maryland on July 25, 2003—five weeks after Dennehy disappeared on June 16.
About this episode
Key takeaways
- Dennehy went missing June 16, 2003 and his body was found shot twice in the head; Dotson was arrested July 25 after an informant in Delaware reported Dotson had admitted shooting Dennehy during an argument
- Dennehy's 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe was discovered without license plates in a Virginia Beach parking lot, prompting wider investigative efforts across state lines
- Both Dennehy and Dotson reported feeling threatened and purchased guns out of fear, though other teammates like Tommy Swanson did not report similar safety concerns
- In 2003, investigators lacked modern tools like license plate readers and social media to track suspects; the case relied heavily on traditional methods and informant tips
Q&A
How did authorities identify Carlton Dotson as the suspect?
An informant in Delaware told law enforcement that Dotson, who had returned home to Maryland, told a relative he shot Dennehy during an argument while the two were shooting guns.
What made investigators suspicious of threats reported by Dennehy and Dotson?
Only those two players claimed to feel unsafe, while other teammates including Tommy Swanson did not report similar concerns, and there was no corroborating evidence from the rest of the team.
How did the discovery of Dennehy's vehicle help the investigation?
Finding the Tahoe without license plates in Virginia Beach indicated foul play and expanded the search from Waco to multiple states, though in 2003 modern tools like license plate readers were not available to track its route.
Episode notes
Welcome back to The Signal 51 Chronicles, where “just one more question” turns into an entire investigation.
In Case 2, Part 1, John Henry & Jake White open the door to one of the darkest chapters in college athletics — the 2003 Baylor basketball scandal. What begins as a missing player quickly spirals into murder, institutional panic, and a moral standoff no playbook could prepare anyone for.
This episode isn’t about box scores or brackets. It’s about what happens when a young man vanishes, a university circles the wagons, and one assistant coach is forced to decide whether protecting his career is worth sacrificing the truth. Along the way, we dig into early investigative blind spots, pre-social-media policing, internal warnings that went unheeded, and the quiet moment where integrity became more dangerous than silence.
No hot takes. No hindsight heroics. Just a cold case that was never really cold — and a reminder that sometimes the most important evidence isn’t physical… it’s ethical.
This is Case 2, Part 1 — and the nightmare is just getting started.
00:00 – Murder at Baylor: A Missing Player and a Bad Feeling
06:56 – What Signal 51 Means and Why This Case Still Haunts
10:25 – A Political Traffic Stop and the Problem With Power
19:23 – Baylor in 2003: Faith, Basketball, and Cracks in the Foundation
26:34 – Patrick Dennehy: Talent, Transfers, and Rising Tension
30:53 – A Disappearance That Didn’t Add Up
34:26 – Then vs. Now: How Modern Policing Would’ve Changed the Case
42:10 – The Break in the Case
43:21 – The Choice That Changed Everything (Part 1 Ends)
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Read Transcript
When authorities pulled the body of a Baylor basketball player from a remote gravel pit, they expected merely a homicide. What was uncovered instead was a conspiracy. The discovery ignited an investigation that exposed a sweeping web of lies and corruption in southern Baptist country.
This is the Signal 51 Chronicles, episode 4. Murder at Baylor. Thou shall not kill.
Good afternoon or morning or evening, wherever you're taking this all in. I'm John Henry. I'm joined here by my Compadre Jake White and welcome back to the Signal 51 Chronicles.
This is the 4th episode, I think, of the reincarnation of the Signal 51 Chronicles. And for those of you who have been with us since the beginning, you know what Signal 51 means. Signal 51 is police code for investigation.
We dig into stories mostly in DFW, but we will probably venture out. Real cases, real people, and crazy twists that you swear were fiction. In that producer's chair over there on the other side of me is our dear Ashley.
Hello, friends. Notable alum of TCU. We're from Bosu, baby.
That's right. Here in here in Fort Worth, she's celebrating the TCU soccer's advanced to the Final Four. It's awesome.
You were a soccer player there. I was. 2010 to 2012.
Dominated. Now we sucked. There's a reason that Eric got the program because we were terrible.
But what that means is that you guys were on the ground floor. Yes. We were Eric's first spring season here of this.
He's done amazing stuff with that program. It's been awesome. He has done a great job.
Last year they went to. It's a double day first round or second round or something. I think they were six.
They went to sweet 16. Maybe they were. Yeah, sounds right.
Sounds right. Now we also learned this week, Jake, that Ashley is a. Do it.
Do it yourself home improvement pro. Have you all been watching my videos? Yeah.
Chronicles of the of my house move. My move. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You got a new house I guess.
Yes, I moved it. You're turning a bathroom. I moved the.
The house from Austin and Grandbury. Oh, you picked it up. I moved it.
And so it got here and it's really it's well intact and I broke I could have lived in it. But decided instead to go in. Reno the bathroom in the kitchen and.
Everything's renovate our everything's demoed. So the bathroom's done, the kitchen's done, and then I'm tearing out sheetrock in the back because I found the leak yesterday. Hey, any surprises on the demo?
Yeah, I have a leak. Well, the leak, but I have the original shipwrap and the original hardwood floors throughout the entire house. Oh, that's cool.
Oh, wow. Okay. So you did, you did, you've done the bathroom and the kitchen?
Yeah, I'm done. I just was recording why I went and now I'm at it. Did this yourself?
Yeah. All by yourself. My dad and my mom helped and then we had another, they worked with the volunteer fire department, my parents, or my dad does.
And one of his friends picked up some stuff from my house was taking it to go put it in his house and decided to come back and help us. You'll see him soon on my videos. Wow.
Jake, tell us about your most recent do-yourself home improvement project. Zero. Oh, yeah, no, my mom.
No, I'm not talking about Reese. I'm just the Annie. Oh, I don't, I do zero do-it-yourself projects.
Zero. We are the do-it-yourself family. My mom is very crafty and my dad hates it.
My dad always gets drug into something. Yeah, that's not, I'm not a handyman either. I was raised to be an academic and when I fell with that too, so I just, I became a journalist.
I mean, I feel like that's academic. Yeah, that's academic. I don't know about that.
I don't know about that. All right, well, I'll look for my, we'll look for our invitation to the my housewarming party. Housewarming party, yeah.
Did you all get the invitation of the Christmas party? We did. Yeah.
Perfect. And y'all are on Mike's show this week. And we're on Mike's show this week, yeah.
So yeah, we're doing this. I mean, people are going to see this a month after, but y'all are on Mike's show this week. That's right, that's right, that's right.
So yeah, so we're, we have restarted the signal 51 through Mike Rhyner Sunset Lounge. You have W. Yeah.
DFW. Yep, Sunset Lounge, DFW. See, yep.
So we will be on that show. Of course, you won't see this episode for another still January. Still January.
But we're picking up on the first show air on Monday, December first. Monday, December first. So you will, by the time you see this, you will be three episodes in.
Yeah, that's okay though. They'll get over it. And they will get over it.
We all get over it. We, you know, it gives us time to make sure that the that we can edit correctly. That's right.
That's right. So, uh, so yeah, we don't do any do it yourself, probably do yourself, probably home improvement projects. We do this, we do the signal 51 chronicles.
I was going to say y'all can always come to my house. I have a job for you. I can make a job for you.
I'm so I could screw up a demo job. I'm that bad at that. Just tearing stuff up here.
It's fun and fun fact when I was in high school. A friend of ours owned a construction company. So I would go and like when I wasn't playing soccer, I would go and hang out with them and go demo houses.
Who would have thought I would be doing it in my actual home ownership life? It's a good lesson you learned there. Absolutely.
Would take on popcorn ceilings, sledgehammer walls. It was fun. Absolutely.
A blast. So this signal 51 thing that we we've been doing for a few years, took a break, we come back. Where did it all start?
Started out of bar, of course. Oscars pub on Camp Louis Boulevard, 33. 63, 33, 33.
63, 63, 34. 63, I don't know. 63, 300 blocks.
63, 300 blocks of Camp Louis. Jake here is a retired fourth police sergeant. He has great stories to tell.
I am the editor of FourThink, the executive editor of FourThink magazine. Down the street from Oscars, it can't be. It's very handy that it's down the street there.
You get there when times of need. Four things is a business lifestyle magazine, and it's one of two titles at Panther City Media. Fourth magazine, the monthly fourth magazine, being the other.
So Jake and I were sitting in the bar. One night, and we decided we should we could we should combine our two expertise as his and police work. Mine is storytelling.
And we said he's got his own great stories, as I mentioned, and we'll get into some of those at some point in time. But we decided we should do a podcast. And here we are.
At an undisclosed location in Fort Worth, Texas. Undisclosed. The exactly.
Well prepared to do this. Unlike some of the other stories. We are prepared to do that.
Don't sell this too high. I don't know how prepared we're, you know, we're clear headed. If you will.
Exactly. So I'll be I will. I will see you with my Coug Zero.
And Jake will probably have a dip a Copenhagen in his mouth and and a Coug Zero. And a Coug Zero. And we'll discuss.
Police work. All right. You ready to go to the police blotter?
I want to do it. Got a good one today. It was it was a hot story back in the day.
I was actually I was actually not part of this story, but I wrote the story. I once covered the city of Fort Worth for covered City Hall for four-star telegram. You are a source on Wikipedia when I was looking it up.
I was a source on Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah. Henry Comma John.
You know you've made it. You know you've made it. You've made it.
You've made it. You're on Wikipedia. So the deadline here is Fort Worth.
March 2011. By my reckoning recollection, that is that would be a couple of months, six weeks or so before the City Council elections. A candidate for City Council contends that a minor traffic citation, he received three weeks ago downtown was politically motivated, allegation that Fort Police deny.
Paul Rudicill who's running against District 2 incumbent Sal Espino said he was ticketed for unnecessary use of a car horn only after a police officer on bike patrol realized he was a council candidate and not one he says that the Fort Police Officer Association was supporting at the time. Mr. Rudicill who I'd run into before this, I would call him a spark epistol.
I got in trouble for calling somebody a rabble rouse or last week. You did. And Paul Rudicill was a rabble rouse.
Hot head. He says, quote, this is typical politics being played in the police department. He added that he pleaded not guilty in his waiting trial to contest this miscarriage of justice.
He looked down at the political advertisement on my car and said, since you're running for City Council you should know better and that he will be ticketing me. Police denied this claim immediately. Rudicill allegedly said to the police, quote, I will have your pension under my microscope.
According to the police report, Rudicill who was behind the lead car stopped at an intersection became upset that five bicycle officers were in Sundance square mind you five bicycle bicycle officers crossed in front of a traffic, crossed in front of traffic when the light turned green to assist another officer at fifth and Main Street. So he's trying to get across or these cops are trying to get across to help somebody. Officer PJ Reinhardt who wrote up the report you're familiar with officer Reinhardt.
The name, yeah, he's still he's still on is he still with he's probably read by long retired. I don't know. Anyway, he pulled up next to Rudicill's car and told him to quote calm down.
Rudicill rolled down his window and yelled at a very angry voice at the officer how the officers cut across traffic. The report stated. Rudicill said that he merely used his horn to quote warn officers that he had a green light so that he would not hit him.
Wait, back that up or this is what he told me okay that he used his horn to quote warn officers that he had a green light so that he wouldn't hit him. Okay, just kind of beat this. Yeah, I'm sure just a just a light short beep.
According to the report, Rudicill's quoted as saying I'll have you know I'm not one of those who's pro police while telling another officer who replied the other officer replied you were making that quite obvious Mr. Rudicill. State law specifies that motorists shall use a horn to provide audible warning only when necessary to ensure safe operation.
The city's retirement system at the time was a looming campaign issue for council mayor candidates. The city staff has said the system has an unfun at the time had an unfunded liability of more than $700 million. The council at the time was set to vote on modifying the formula that sets retirement benefits for new general fund employees.
And of course the pension I still is hot topic when police and firefighters contracts are renegotiated and it's been re they've been renegotiated. How long do those things last? 10 years.
The contract? Yeah. Four.
Four years. Four or five. So they've renegotiated four times since then.
The POA responded to this and they said quote it's unfortunate that Mr. Rudicill chose to use his candidacy as a platform to bully the very people that have made this city a safe place to live. If he is willing to make decisions such as this based on his limited perspective of reality as a candidate, we cannot afford to see what he will do as an actual elected official.
I believe Rick Van Halton was the president in those days. Okay. The POA had always supported Rudicill's candidate, Salas Pino, in this district two north side of Fort Worth and at the time it was north of a 20th century district did so it's not all of north of eight 20 but some of eight north of eight 20 stockyards.
The stockyards area for sure. Yeah that's where it is certainly now. Paul Rudicill argued his case on social media.
The issue is very simple Mr. Rudicill wrote on Facebook. Five bike officers had nothing better to do than congregate on the street corner.
Just awaiting for him. Exactly. The light changed green and the car in front must not have known and I tapped the horn.
Now when I spoke to him he denied Rudicill denied that he yelled at police officers even though I'm seeing yell several times you know okay just not out of characters what you're describing. Yeah okay all right. First time I saw him was at a some sort of town hall and and he marched up to his microphone like all any good activists and he you know shouted just started screaming yeah just very sternly yeah screaming but you just say his speech was direct didn't yell but it was direct any Rudicill's finished by saying you know the officer conducted himself professionally and I said I guess we'll take this up in court.
You were had a run in or not a run in necessarily but had any any type of encounter with an elected official. No candidate. No none whatsoever.
I these stories they're kind of humorous in the sense that I strongly doubt that that officer had any clue who he was most cops by nature are not overly political. Well they're political from the standpoint of their own interest right like anyone. A pension.
Sure like any. Hey but when it comes back to city elections. No well he claims that you know they saw that he had Paul Rudicill for city council sticker on his car probably plastered magnet thing plastered inside of it but I will I would be willing to bet that if we had that officer here right now at the time he would have no clue who Paul Rudicill was nor what he stood for.
Not at all what he stood for so I have yeah the odds of that being politically motivated are ridiculous and Rudicill he embodies the this concept where people get so pissed when the police enforce the law right oh yeah and sometimes they are minor infractions I'm you know who I get I get a ticket I'm pissed right usually I'll be like well I was speeding or whatever but you know it's kind of like you have something better to do than well go see that I mean the same thing go scream to your legislators don't scream at the cops the cops didn't write the laws if you don't like that it's a law on the book then elect someone who will repeal that law bill speeding hey well that's what I'm saying don't complain about it so anyway yeah so and and you never know the guy might be elected you know if you see you know that could he could be to have influence over your career so you're not going to just revoke that pension all together yeah you're not going to piss him off intentionally the the the police did you get to the end of it yeah so one he didn't get elected right he did not get elected no wonder what the outcome of his he was he was he was I don't know I don't know he was Rowley defeated yeah by mr. Espino good guy Salas Spino district two by the way now represented by mr. Carlos Flores proud graduate of Nolan high school okay um and then and then as far as I know Paul Rudd that was only that was Paul Rudd stills only in count of his step into public life I doubt I he probably got some mad he sold his house and moved out of Fort Worth moved out of Fort Worth moved to Alito probably so who's not moving to Alito well he's a quitter then I like the ones who just keep going and going we there's a bunch of those oh man we need to talk about that one of these days yeah those are pretty funny oh man they're there they're they're they're every year they're perennial candidates all right we ready to get into this this tragic case not too far from here in Waco in 2003 we were talking of course about the world's largest Baptist University and the period of dread that it's suffered the first time because we know Baylor has since 2003 he's undergone another terrible scandal but it probably wasn't as bad as this one the the the art briles and the I don't know they're both pretty bad yeah they're both pretty bad they're both pretty terrible they're both bad but in 2003 the nearby brases was overfilling with the filth of the most vile sins of mankind and instead of molding ambassadors of the Christian Messiah the 180 year old 185 year old institution was devoid in many ways of the gospel of Christ what happened there was indeed the worst possible scenario before the Penn State scandal emerged before the second Baylor scandal there was this Baylor scandal it's now been 22 years since the school's lowest moment perhaps the most notorious moment in all of college athletics of all time even to this day a basketball player was shot dead execution style by former teammate and left to decompose on a gravel pit for more than a month before he was found the story was everywhere nationwide coast to coast on every national network their coach will learn about him a little bit even as he attended the funeral in California of his deceased player was scheming to keep hidden a deep secret that would in his career there simply was no dignity in life or death no angels only centers there were no believers only doubters as the good book of Ephesians instructs instructs put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil but we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places the New Testament describes six dreams of Joseph we're all you're aware of Joseph the mother of Mary the mother of God each communicated knowledge instruction and warnings the ultimate message do not be afraid now who knows of a bar rouse's dream a nightmare was divinely inspired or merely the result of his circumstances but through them he resolved to do what was right to do to do so knowing his career in livelihood would be in peril I spoke to Ralph several years ago a bar rouse he's a fantastic individual and he told me I had a nightmare while this was going on he was then just in the first few months his coach at Baylor and that nightmare he said was clarifying clarified everything for me he said I don't have nightmares but here's Patrick and Carlton showing up in my dreams what became known as the Baylor basketball scandal took on three angles a player was murdered a coach tried to bury the truth behind a slander and a young assistant a bar rouse was placed in an impossible situation and he chose truth over his career in the end the scandal didn't hinge on the murderers instability or the NCAA's punishments that followed or the lawyers of the or the layers of institutional failure it hinge on one man pressing the record button because he understood something no rulebook needed to tell him you don't lie about a murdered kid you don't let a grieving family watch their son's name be dragged into the mud and you don't trade integrity for a win-loss record our society tends to focus on the sensational the killing the cover up the courtroom but the real heart of the Baylor scandal lies in a quieter moment it's a 28-year-old coach sitting at home alone and in his car holding a small recorder knowing that he was about to cross a point of no return he could protect his job or he could protect the truth he chose the truth and it cost him everything during the summer of 1856 the annual union Baptist Association was presented a report on the status of the fledgling Baylor University then just a little more than 10 years old after its charter in 1845 as quoted the professors and teachers continued to command the public confidence in a very high degree with healthy tone of moral feeling that has pervaded the entire institution it was written by one of the founders in the early days it was a reputation that only grew as generations passed and was no doubt a big reason why Patrick Dennehy and his parents decided Baylor was the place to continue a promising career with NBA prospects Dennehy had transferred from New Mexico and set out the 2002-2003 season under the NCAA transfer rules those have changed yeah that's a lot different now isn't it yeah Carlton Dotson too had wondered a bit to start his college career it's a typical journey for many after a senior year at North Dorchester High School in Herlock, Maryland Dotson played a season at Buffalo before transferring to Paris Junior College in Texas the 2002-2003 season marked his first at Baylor he was a junior forward his experience as a junior transfer was typical too learning the new system takes time he was at times frustrated while averaging 4.4 points in 28 games quote he was competitive and he played hard said Tommy Swanson a former star at North Crowley who was a freshman in 2002-2003 but in the same recruiting class as transfers Dotson and Dennehy just like the rest of us he wanted the team to do well Patrick as well we were stacked with talent said Matt Saiman who played at Baylor from 2000-2004 and wrote a book about the episode titled The Leftovers quote Patrick was an unbelievable talent and we all saw that when he came on board he would help us they were both great I really enjoyed playing with Doddy so in 2002-2003 the Bears are going to be pretty stacked returning a number of key players to a team of the year before went 14-14 average but they got better as you went on in addition to Dennehy becoming eligible junior college transfer Harvey Thomas gave Baylor's best hopes for an NCAA tournament birth since last making the tournament in 1988 and of course the tournament is a promise land for for division one basketball teams Dennehy and Dodson were buddies even sharing an apartment for a time a person who was close to the program told me at the time that a relative of Dodson's had alerted a coach about the players' mental stability Dodson appeared delusional at times saying he heard voices soon after that Dennehy reported that he felt threatened said this source though he was vague about specifics of the perceived danger whatever it was both Dennehy and Dodson bought guns out of fear for their safety said Tommy Swanson our guy from North Crowley with every team you have different personalities you're not going to click with everyone I had a working relationship with everyone Tommy Swanson also told me that never did he feel unsafe at Baylor so on the week of June 16th 20 2003 Dennehy vanished three days later a stepfather filed a missing persons report with the wake up police said Tommy Swanson quote we were bewildered not knowing what happened teammates and I were learning everything as things were reported on the news we were kept in the dark as much as anyone else Dennehy's whereabouts were anybody's guess some teammates figured that he like many college students extended a weekend trip they were said to have been payments made to Dennehy's AAU coach a common back alley corruption in the college game certainly back then and some that weren't made some coaches feared the AAU coach had stashed him away literally holding him hostage until another payment was issued the worst fears were beginning to take root however when Dennehy's 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe was found without a license plate in a strip mall parking lot in Virginia Beach Virginia searches for any sign of him proved fruitless a gun was found outside of the apartment of Harvey Thomas the player who allegedly made the threats against Dennehy though police cleared Thomas of any suspicion quote nobody knew Ralph said I'm following the lead of the other coaches who had been there as soon as that missing persons report was filed by his parents it obviously took on a greater importance it was clear that something was a miss let's let's let's discuss some things here from the perspective of a retired police sergeant now keep in mind you're not at never where homicide investigator but so let's say when you hear that a college athlete has been report missing what typically would be the first investigative steps that a law enforcement might take well it's a different now than then right technology is advanced at a crazy level compared to 2003 you know obviously first you're gonna I mean you're gonna talk to as many people as you possibly can to see you know is there something to foul I think like they mentioned you're gonna talk to all the players all the players coaches friends the list goes on to see right that's back then now I mean obviously you're looking you got social media pages you can look at you've got text messages between you know the players friends etc well and they they found his car in Virginia right so almost certainly there's probably a camera wherever that car was left on a street yeah we'll get to that second that brings up a hole that's entirely different all right we'll go ahead there's a lot more value sorry for blowing up now you're fine you know I mean would you like to think that it's just like any other missing person yeah is it no I mean he's a D1 college basketball player right at a huge school so so there's gonna be news coverage of this there's gonna be news coverage really frankly there's probably gonna be you know more resources invested and defined in it because what happens I mean obviously you know no city wants bad coverage this is gonna get national coverage almost immediately much like it did so there's a kind of a political at angle to be a political spend to it for sure so like said I mean back then what are you doing really back then it was a sit and wait game right I mean like I said technology is not where does that now you know you're putting out bulletins if you will social media there was no real social media at all social media back then there's really no way to you know outside of news coverage I mean there's no way to really get the story out there so really it's kind of a sit and wait game I mean you're waiting for the body dead or alive and it's also right and it's also like three days wait three three days since he sees since they was last seen so like I said there were there were some speculation that maybe an AAU coach was hiding him away waiting for a payment from from the basketball program or someone affiliated with the basketball program which is like which is a common occurrence or certainly back then those rules have changed too now that they can actually be players can it's a wild twist though to kidnap somebody you're waiting a payment yeah I just kind of saying you know say at the house for a couple days yeah see what I was supposed to but anyway you had that as a possibility so the vehicle turns up across the country I don't know how many miles that is thousands of miles to 1500 miles away at least vehicle turns up with no license plates so from your investigator's perspective what does that discovery suggest the panic planning both I mean it's who's from there you know it would be the one yeah I mean yeah there's the why there right like I mean there's a whole slew of things that are going to go into why was it found there you're trying to put that story together but again now you take a car from Waco Texas to Virginia Beach Virginia you're going to be captured on license plate readers hundreds if not thousands of them in that commute yeah right so you're they're going to like the difference now so if dad reports at January 19th one of the first things are going to do the the company that the biggest one is flock right they're the ones that have most of the license plate recognition recognition cameras they're immediately that's going to be if that's probably the first first resource that the police check and they're going to know within moments minutes maybe hours of dad reporting him missing okay it hit in on I-35 in Hillsboro it hit you know just trying to take a path it hits somewhere in Arkansas it hits somewhere in Tennessee over and over and over and over and you're going to have timestamped images of the license plate of the vehicle so they're at that point they're going to know they're going to have a really good trail of when the car left Waco and when it got to Virginia so talk about that the flock in the in the cameras and everything else how are those it catches an image how does the Waco police get that that that picture that that information or where it is they they read their read so they just go to a database and see put a license plate in and they can tell where where it was going to pull up a like sort of an image of the license plate and an image of the vehicle so they also these threats that the guys claim they were getting denihian dots and both said that they were and they felt unsafe that they they might need to feel unsafe let's put it that way that they believe they might have been in danger so how would how would investigators corroborate threats of that of that kind i mean i think that's good because it's just the those two reporting it right i mean how many's on a d1 and c double a basketball roster how many players 15 yeah somewhere around there right and walk on something like that i mean why just those two you would think that if there was something yeah and Tommy Swanson said he didn't have the same feelings of being unsafe and none of the other players really said hey these guys are constantly complaining about this right nope so i don't know i mean you're that that one's a little you know that's kind of post post crime if you will that story coming out uh-huh some a little i'd be you know a little bit suspect of the validity of that no i'm not saying you know it wouldn't happen or whatever but again why why those two and why were they not talking about it a lot now you had you you yourself had sources within neighborhoods and communities so like that you might possibly talk to them or did you know anything about Baylor basketball at all well i mean if there's death if there was a tie to him for sure i mean that's that's the i mean that's the value of informants right right i mean if it's in a certain neighborhood hey what's going on and typically those good the good informants are gonna know the twists and turns and what everyone's doing and what all the rumors are and what's you know what's fact what's fiction it'd be hard in a college basketball program because you it's not really ripe for having an informant right like i mean there's not much criminal behavior attached to right right typically uh but you know say narcotics because drugs are always somewhere in the thought of a situation even like this right and if you had a sergeant narcotics for example and you're on this investigation with that with that detective might come to the sergeant narcotics say ask around your your source you're yeah i mean if there was if there was see if see if there's any tie at all yeah i mean i think if there was some information pointing them pointing them to that particular sector crime or involvement in the dope world then yeah i mean we would definitely ask around then but again i mean it's it's rare i mean we're not talking about run of the mill people let's face it right i mean they've excelled at a level they're playing a sport at a D1 college you know frankly yeah i mean their life their lifestyle is a little bit different yeah do we have environments where you know we've uh we had one here a few years ago it was i don't remember the school they were at but they were involved in a murder and i don't even know if they were D1 athletes their football players they shot tilled someone over at that apartment in East Fort Worth you know we've had the scandal that are sounds like another case we need to dig into i don't remember that one yeah it was a few years ago all right you know they had the the drug scandal at the very own D1 institution right here in Fort Worth yeah yeah um were you around for that one Ashley yeah there was a couple soccer players they got tied up in it yeah yeah that would have been a while story or time of time yeah yeah um but again i mean like i said these are not normal run of the mill kids i clearly i did not play a D1 sport okay it wasn't for a lack of of conning to or lack of confidence all right but i would think that their day their semester their school year as a whole is so structured it would be hard to be tied up into something into like a like entirely consumed by some CD underworld right i mean you have practice i mean there's a D1 athlete sitting at the end of the table exactly i mean actually they certainly aren't dealing stuff they you know at the very least they might be you know wait they were totally dealing at TCU though they allegedly allegedly oh there's that that whole thing you i mean i was actually so not to get off topic but i was there and like we were all at practice didn't know it was going on we were missing four players and we were like where are they because we don't we don't miss practice it was bad so yeah so that was pre-NIL so they needed spending money yes we'll get into that in a little as this story of like a table did not happen for some people yeah well well there's definitely a subject a topic for letter conversation as this story advances nobody again going back to verifying the threats i mean these are going to be hard threats to verify in most cases right i mean especially in 2003 because frankly like i said if they hadn't been talking about it if it's just them to you know are they going to interview the rest of the team yes yeah if they've never if they if dinner he and and dots and never shared any of these concerns with any of the the rest of the team which if they were true they would have i'm quite certain of that they're going to be hard to verify now but again maybe they did chairman maybe i mean maybe they were verified i don't know anyway there was uh no good outcome here i break in the case occurred when an informant in Delaware told told law enforcement authorities at dots in callton dots and who returned home to Maryland told a relative that he had shot denny during an argument while the two were shooting guns on july 21st dots and was arrested in Maryland and charged with his teammates murder on july 25th of 2003 five weeks after he went missing denny's body was discovered off a road in wakeo he'd been shot twice in the head according to the autopsy report so let's stop it right there join us next time for episode five murder a bailer thou shalt not kill see you next time i don't know what you're like this is a stolen water media production