PAULA LAVIGNE: It’s 2006. Two guys in their 20s are driving down US1 in Miami in a black Infiniti SUV. The AC’s blasting. The music is blasting.
BRYAN PATA: Yo, we’re on our way to my crib jamming to that Rick Ross. You know, US1 goin’ south. So, you know, just ridin’.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The driver is a football player at the University of Miami, Bryan Pata. The guy next to him in the passenger seat is a sports writer from the Miami Herald. His name is Manny Navarro. Manny has his camera trained on Bryan.
MANNY NAVARRO: I was a young reporter who wanted to do something cool. MTV Cribs was sort of big back then.
PAULA LAVIGNE: MTV Cribs was a show where celebrities led camera crews through tours of their houses. Manny wanted to make something similar for the Miami Herald. But in Manny’s version the celebrities would be University of Miami football players, the Hurricanes.
MANNY NAVARRO: So my idea was just make these guys personable, tell a story that is unique in Miami. These are Miami guys playin’ for a Miami football program. Bryan was really the first guy I threw the idea across.
BRYAN PATA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m down. I’m– I’m down. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
MANNY NAVARRO: And, you know, I got the camera on him ’cause I want to make sure I get the audio and the video, you know, the whole thing.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The two guys head to Bryan’s apartment complex. It’s called The Colony where several other University of Miami players live. It’s classic Florida with corridors on the outside of the building, like a motel.
MANNY NAVARRO: We get to his apartment. He just, like, runs in there. He starts pickin’ stuff up, moving stuff around. He’s like, “Don’t record yet.” And– he says, “How do you we want me to– where do you wanna start?” I said, “Well, why don’t you open the doors.” This is what they do on MTV Cribs, right? They open the door. They welcome you in.
BRYAN PATA: What up, y’all. This is my crib. I’m Bryan Pata, University of Miami, (UNINTEL). If you walked in, this is– you know, it’s a townhouse, two bedroom, two and a half bathroom.
MANNY NAVARRO: You know, he’s kinda, like, givin’ me the tour, opening cabinets up and showin’ me stuff.
BRYAN PATA: This is my cabinet right here. I love puddin’.
MANNY NAVARRO: But he was just– he was so happy to kind of be the star of the show. You know, I think in his mind, I think he started to think like, “Yeah, it’s only the Miami Herald right now. But I could do this for MTV. Like, this is, like, a nice little practice run, you know?”
BRYAN PATA: Here’s some of my family during the Florida State game, my two sisters, my cousin. This is my mom right here. And this is my girlfriend, Jada.
MANNY NAVARRO: I just remember the feeling, “Oh, this kid is so happy with his life.” He knows that the best is yet to come. Like, “This is good. Life is good. I got a girlfriend. I got a dog.”
BRYAN PATA: Other than that, this is me, Bryan Pata.
MANNY NAVARRO: Very good, man.
(Overtalk)
BRYAN PATA: Thanks a lot, man.
MANNY NAVARRO: Cool– cool house, here. (INAUDIBLE)
BRYAN PATA: All right.
MANNY NAVARRO: But it was sort of this feeling of, “Things are gonna get better.”
PAULA LAVIGNE: It seems that way, listening to the recording. Hearing Bryan’s enthusiasm, his giddiness, except for one thing. A few weeks later, Bryan Pata would be dead.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: We do have a breaking story. A University of Miami football player has been shot and killed. Tamara Cho’s live in Kimball with the very latest. Tamara.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Michael Jacky, Miami-Dade police, confirming tonight Bryan Pata, UM’s defensive lineman was shot and killed tonight. We are told that–
PAULA LAVIGNE: From the outside looking in, it was the kind of case that police should have been motivated to solve quickly. A star player on a major college football team murdered near campus just a few months shy of the NFL draft. But that is not what happened.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Instead weeks turned into months, which eventually turned into years. And Bryan’s murder remained unsolved. But almost 20 years later, someone is finally set to stand trial for the murder of Bryan Pata. I’m Paula Lavigne from 30 for 30 Podcasts, this is Murder at the U, the story of how two University of Miami teammates found themselves on opposite ends of a murder investigation and what happened when a team of ESPN reporters brought that investigation into the light.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Episode one: Chillin’ with the Canes. As a reporter, I try to stay out of the story. But sometimes the work you do to get the story and what you uncover changes it. That’s exactly what happened here. And that story starts in 2017 in the office of Ben Webber.
BEN WEBBER: I was a feature producer at ESPN.
PAULA LAVIGNE: One of the shows Ben worked on at the time was College Game Day, ESPN’s weekly show about college football.
BEN WEBBER: Glad to have you with us. How great it is just to have college football back on a full (LAUGH) Saturday. College GameDay ruling–
PAULA LAVIGNE: In August 2017, Ben received an email from an odd source.
BEN WEBBER: I got an email that said the Miami Police Department was interested in helping us tell this story– in an effort to try to find new leads.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The story was more than ten years old. And it was about the unsolved murder of a University of Miami football player, Bryan Pata. Is it unusual for police departments to pitch stories to ESPN?
BEN WEBBER: (LAUGH) I’ll say in my– 25 years here, that’s the first and only time that that has happened.
PAULA LAVIGNE: But Ben looked up the case. And as he was scrolling through the results, he found a video of a press conference about this murder. It had happened only three months earlier.
BEN WEBBER: It’s sort of a pretty regular press conference.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Ben would be the first of us to watch this press conference. But we’ve all come to it over and over again. In many ways, it was the reason we all got pulled into this case. The press conference was at the Miami-Dade Police headquarters in a nondescript fluorescent-lit room. Detectives in ties and police officers wearing tan uniforms stood in rows. In front of them at a table sat a family, Bryan Pata’s family.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: And who wants to start?
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Miss Pata– your– your first name is?
JEANETTE PATA: Jeanette.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: J-E-A-N-E-T-T-E?
JEANETTE PATA: Yes.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s mom, Jeanette Pata, wore a colorful striped blouse. In her hands she gripped a magazine with Bryan, her youngest son, on the cover. The photo showed a young man with locks squinting in the Miami sun. He wore a bright white Miami Hurricanes football uniform with the number 95 on the shoulder.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: It’s been ten and a half years. How much easier is it for you to cope ten and a half years later?
JEANETTE PATA: This is not easy for me. Because ten years and a half we never find– hear– we don’t hear nothing. You know, we waited so long to find the answer, “Who killed my son?” Nobody know how I feeling.
BEN WEBBER: Jeanette was answering a question. And then I think she just was overcome with emotion and– and– and thought about ten and a half years have gone by. And we still don’t have answers.
JEANETTE PATA: My– my heart, you know, I cry, crying. And your cry don’t help. But sometimes before I go to bed (UNINTEL) I have to pray. I say, “God– I– I am in your hands. One day you’re gonna find the answer, the– the answer for my– for my son.”
BEN WEBBER: And then– then the tone and tenor shifted pretty quickly.
JEANETTE PATA: I don’t think you even be workin’ this case anymore. Because the case is closed, nothing.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The room went silent. Jeanette Pata had just accused the Miami-Dade police of ignoring her son’s case.
BEN WEBBER: She insinuated that the Miami PD had done nothing. And it became a little bit more accusatory and ramped up the uncomfortable nature of that press conference. I don’t know what the police officers expected to get from that press conference. But– but I can almost guarantee that it wasn’t this.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Next a reporter addressed the lead detective in the case, Miguel Dominguez.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: And within the ten years, have there been any leads?
MIGUEL DOMINGUEZ: Yes. Yes. We’ve– followed a multitude of leads. Obviously we don’t have anything solid enough to make an arrest at this time.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Dominguez stood directly behind the family. His head was shaved clean. And he had a long horseshoe mustache.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: So what are you asking from the public?
MIGUEL DOMINGUEZ: We believe that there’s somebody out there with first-hand knowledge. (CLEARS THROAT) This is the– whoever’s responsible for this– we believe that either somebody close to him, a friend, a family member, somebody has to know who was involved in this. And we’re hoping that we get a phone call.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Is it fair to say that after that press conference, after that plea, that Dominguez didn’t get the phone call with the new evidence or the new witness or new information that he was waiting for?
BEN WEBBER: Yeah, I think that’s really fair. And I think that’s what led them to reach out to us at ESPN.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Like Ben said, this was an unusual pitch for College GameDay. But he was intrigued. So he set up a call with the detectives on the case to find out more.
BEN WEBBER: So the case is still open on your end, right?
DETECTIVE: Right, right. It’s still– it’s still in a open status. And we’re still working on it.
BEN WEBBER: So what’s goin’ on right now from your end to advance it? Is there anything? Or is it kind of in a lull?
DETECTIVE: As– as far as any fresh new leads that came in, no. No, nothing. You know, we’re kinda at a standstill.
BEN WEBBER: So this is a hypothetical. You don’t– you know, if you– if you can’t answer it, that’s– that’s fine. But h– how ultimately do you guys think this case is gonna get solved?
DETECTIVE: By somebody coming forward and having– first-hand knowledge of– of whoever the perpetrator is. Or the guy, you know, told somebody what he did. We believe there’s somebody out there that knows.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Here is what Ben knew. The case had gone unsolved for more than a decade. And at the same time, Miami-Dade police were convinced that someone somewhere knew something.
BEN WEBBER: So in September and October, really started to dig in and do a lot more research on Bryan, on the murder and then went down towards the end of 2017. So I was making a quick trip down to Miami and started to do initial interviews and then realized this could turn into something big.
PAULA LAVIGNE: So he began to build a team.
BEN WEBBER: We have a feature producer that lives in Miami. Let me see if he has a willingness to help out or be involved in this project.
DAN ARRUDA: My name’s Dan Arruda. I am a feature producer with ESPN. And I’ve been living in South Florida since 2015.
PAULA LAVIGNE: When you got the call about working on this project, what did you remember of Bryan’s story?
DAN ARRUDA: I clearly remember it being a national sports story. And it led SportsCenter for several days. Bryan Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami gunned down yesterday at the age of 22.
PAULA LAVIGNE: So– so take me back to that at the beginning. Like, how did you start off with this? And– and you get this call. Like, what– what do you do next?
DAN ARRUDA: I literally just began to pile up interview after interview and just try to gain a stronger kind of understanding of who Bryan was and how big, for lack of a better word, his life was and how complicated and layered it was. Bryan was the youngest of nine siblings. In the spring of 2018, I interviewed several family members including Bryan’s mother Jeanette and his twin older brothers, Edrick and Edwin. They were the closest in age to Bryan, only two years older.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: We would to school together. We would play football together. We would do everything together.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Tell me about Edwin and Edrick.
DAN ARRUDA: I think the first thing you notice about Edwin and Edrick is their size. These are two guys who played collegiate football. And they– they carry a certain swagger and confidence with them. I think the second thing you’ll notice is just how kind they are.
DAN ARRUDA: Here I am, I’m coming into their lives asking about the worst memory of their life. There’s every chance they’ll be guarded and wary about sharing their thoughts with me. But they were as open and as honest as anyone could have hoped for. So for the weeks and months after the shooting, police really–
BRYAN’S BROTHER: Tight lipped.
DAN ARRUDA: Tight lipped, not telling you much.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: Not telling much. Till– till this God damn day, tight lipped.
DAN ARRUDA: At what point do you and the family start getting frustrated with the lack of progress?
BRYAN’S BROTHER: Three years later and were givin’ us false hope.
DAN ARRUDA: What do you mean by false hope?
BRYAN’S BROTHER: Pumpin’ us up. We got it. We gonna– we gonna do everything we can. We gonna do it. And– we– we know who did it. And it was, you know, yeah, just bullshit. I think that’s just a freakin’ method that they use to kinda, you know, console the family. You know, like, give them hope and still have hope.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: They used that for many years until it got silent. So we started calling the officers. Weren’t answering. So many different damn detectives were assigned to the case. It was just– now, who is this sergeant? Now, God damn, who was this God damn sergeant? Now, who is this? Oh, we don’t– now, such and such is assigned to that case. And, like, wow, what the hell is goin’ on? Confusion.
PAULA LAVIGNE: What do you remember about meeting Bryan Pata’s mom?
DAN ARRUDA: We met for the first time in 2018. Jeanette was in her 60s at the time and spoke with a thick Haitian accent. She was incredibly warm and kind. What was Bryan like when he was a little boy?
JEANETTE PATA: Bryan was funny boy and liked to laugh and make a joke and making people, you know, happy. Even you sad, he try and make you happy. Anytime he come into the house, see me layin’ down in the bed, “Mommy, move. Move, Mommy. Can I have a place to sleep here?” I say, “Go, go– sleep in the garage.” “No, Mommy I want sleep with you.”
DAN ARRUDA: Eventually our conversation shifted over to the investigation, Miami police, and her feelings about them.
PAULA LAVIGNE: What were her feelings about the police?
DAN ARRUDA: Frustration. You could just tell she was angry and had lost all her patience with them.
JEANETTE PATA: I’m– now I’m waiting for answer. This is– is over too long. Why it take so long to find out what– who killed my son? Eleven years. Eleven years.
DAN ARRUDA: Have you kept in touch with the police all these years? What– what have they told you?
JEANETTE PATA: (MAKES NOISE) Nothing. Sometimes we call. They don’t answer. They do nothing in the case.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Jeanette raised Bryan and his siblings in Little Haiti, a community in northern Miami with one of the largest concentrations of Haitian Americans in the country. In the ’80s and ’90s, if there was a headline from Little Haiti, chances are it was a story about crime. The truth is the family had always feared one of them would die young. They just never thought it would Bryan.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: Yeah, so many people died around us, we were lucky. I expected one of us to get killed. And– I remember saying to myself when I got to college, I’m like, “Goodness, thank God that nobody got killed.” I say it all the time like, “Man, nine of us. And nobody got killed, especially with our older brothers, man.” And– you would never think the last child in college his senior year could get killed.
PAULA LAVIGNE: You would never think it. Especially because Bryan had been on track to be a football star. For the Patas, football was supposed to be a way out of Little Haiti. So Edwin played at Florida International University and Florida State. Edrick played two seasons at a junior college in San Jose before transferring to Virginia Union University.
PAULA LAVIGNE: And Bryan of course chose the University of Miami. Bryan would join the University of Miami at a high point for that school’s football program, a program that took kids like Bryan from Miami’s neighborhoods and turned them into NFL stars, a program known simply as The U.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Take a look at Coral Gables. It’s a place of (UNINTEL), of recreation and cultural activity in many forms, learning at the University of Miami for young people of every age, study everything (INAUDIBLE PHRASE).
PAULA LAVIGNE: When you drive from downtown Miami to Coral Gables, it’s like you’ve traveled to a different more affluent world. Luxury cars fill up parking lots. There are fountains in the middle of the roundabouts, and well manicured lawns surround giant Mediterranean-style houses. Coral Gables is its own city, a city built around a medium sized private university, the University of Miami.
BILLY CORBEN: The second you drove around this town, and you saw how beautiful the place was and you saw the lifestyle that college students have when they’re here, it’s why it got the reputation as Suntan (UNINTEL).
PAULA LAVIGNE: Billy Corben is a lifelong Miamian. He’s also the director of two 30 for 30 films about the University of Miami. He’s a little obsessed with the police.
BILLY CORBEN: My grandfather graduated from the University of Miami School of Law about 70 years ago before the current campus even existed. He has had season tickets to the Miami Hurricanes since he was a student there 70 years ago. I am also a graduate of the University of Miami. I’m profoundly in debt, not indebted to, but in debt as a result of my attendance at the University of Miami.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Today the University of Miami carries the legacy of being a hard-hitting, trash-talking football program with a chip on its shoulder. Billy says that story began in 1979 when Miami hired Howard Schnellenberger to be their head coach.
HOWARD SCHNELLENBERGER: It’s gonna be our objective to move the program forward in such a manner that we can rank with the very best in the country. (MUSIC)
BILLY CORBEN: Howard came in with no resources, with– with not a lot of money, with not an opportunity to send assistant coaches on the road, buying plane tickets so they could go scout players in other states. And then the creative solution was, “Why don’t we recruit Miami and plant our flag here?”
HOWARD SCHNELLENBERGER: Well, we recruit heavily in state and heavily in South Florida. The bulk of our– talent comes from this area.
BILLY CORBEN: And that became a real point of pride for a lot of people in Miami.
PAULA LAVIGNE: And Schnellenberger’s strategy? It worked.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Miami’s played a great football game. They certainly deserve to be national champions.
PAULA LAVIGNE: By the end of the 1983 season, Miami’s football team won its first national championship ever.
BILLY CORBEN: Winning is obviously the best pitch you could make to a kid in Liberty City or in Little Haiti just to say like, “Come and be a part of this winning tradition and create an opportunity for yourself not only from high school to college, but from college to the NFL.” (MUSIC)
PAULA LAVIGNE: As the team won, they became notorious for their antics on and off the field, antics that earned them their national bad-boy reputation. Take one incident from 1987 when the Hurricanes played against Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. The team walked off their plane wearing top to bottom military fatigues and sunglasses.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: The Miami squad made noise the moment it reached Phoenix.
PAULA LAVIGNE: They looked like extras in a Rambo movie. The image is iconic. Media coverage at the time tilted strongly against the Hurricanes.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Are these guys really thugs? Or did they just put on this kind of image for the Fiesta Bowl?
PAULA LAVIGNE: Because Miami recruited locally, their team was largely made up of players from Miami’s Black neighborhoods. Once they were Hurricanes, these players became celebrities almost overnight. When sports reporters would moralize about the team, they’d use code words like “inner city.” But you could tell they meant Black.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Well, they– they have that reputation ’cause they’ve had a lotta problems with police. They’ve had– they’ve had fights with fellow students. They’ve had– one player was arrested for allegedly hitting his girlfriend.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Any idea why? I mean, are they just some problem kids?
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: I– they give the excuse that they live in a big city. But that doesn’t condone anything.
BILLY CORBEN: We had this college team on the rise. And it was a college team made up predominantly of Miami kids. And it was a major point of pride for everybody in this town, particularly when the team played with an “us against the world” mentality. And Miami had this “us against the world” mentality.
PAULA LAVIGNE: This “us against the world” mentality would only grow stronger after an NCAA corruption scandal hit the football program in 1995. (MUSIC)
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: University of Miami players reportedly took cash prizes for big plays in violation of NCAA rules.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The accusations became part of Miami’s lore. There were out-of-control football dorms, run-ins with the police, trips to strip clubs on official visits, money, sex, drugs, you name it. The NCAA banned the Canes from playing in a bowl game for one season and hit the team with other sanctions.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: The NCAA put the school on three years’ probation for handing out unauthorized financial aid to football players.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Their probation undermined the team’s standing and performance for a while. But the talent pool of recruits was still strong. By the end of the decade, the Canes were back.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Dorsey, Clay Craig (PH) wants it all. Goin’ to the end zone. Touchdown. Right end slide to André Johnson. Great call.
BILLY CORBEN: These are years in which the Miami Hurricanes should have won three national championships in a row.
PAULA LAVIGNE: By 2001, Miami fielded what many considered to be the best college football team of all time.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Well, Miami has erased all doubts about the national champions. They are clearly the national champions of college football in the year 2001.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Those early 2000’s Miami teams had guys like Ed Reed, Jeremy Shockey, Santana Moss, Willis McGahee, Devin Hester. The list goes on. These were the teams Bryan was watching as an elite recruit at Miami Central High School. In 2003, when Bryan was a high school senior, he and his brother Edrick watched Miami play Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.
EDRICK PATA: And– we watched the championship game. When they lost, he started to cry.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: It is fourth down, the final play. Unless they can stick it in the end zone. Dorsey (PH) under pressure. (INAUDIBLE PHRASE) Wait, the Buckeyes win.
PAULA LAVIGNE: That game cemented Bryan’s decision to become a Hurricane.
EDRICK PATA: He says, “I’m goin’ to that school. That’s who I want to play for. I’m goin’ to Miami.” I said, “All right, made your decision.” “Yeah, I’m goin’ to Miami.”
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Why was it important for him to go to Miami?
JEANETTE PATA: This– he– he go to Miami because I’m here. That’s why maybe. He don’t want to leave me because sometimes he say, “Mom, I want you– I want you cook food for me. Anywhere I go, you have to cook for me because I love the food.” So that’s why.
PAULA LAVIGNE: From the players and coaches, all the way down to the athletic trainers and equipment managers, there are a lot of people who make up a powerhouse college football team, easily 200. (APPLAUSE) You can feel that when a game is about to start.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Waves and waves of people pack onto the field. It’s part of what makes college football so different from other sports, the sheer numbers. And so within this giant team, you have position groups within defense and offense. Bryan played defensive end. And the guys on the defensive line were among his closest friends.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Ladies and gentlemen. (NOISE) It’s number 93. Dwayne, called Catfish.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Dwayne Hendricks, AKA, Catfish, went on to play for the New York Giants. But back in college, Dwayne was on the defensive line with Bryan. Eventually they became roommates.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: How do you spend your free time?
DWAYNE HENDRICKS: After games I remember this that– we would go to, like, small little bars to get wings. Between me and him, we’re tryin’ to pound back 50 to 100 wings on average. (LAUGH) In the off season, you know, we trained and then, yeah, we went out a little bit to some clubs and things like that. Nothin’ too extreme.
PAULA LAVIGNE: As their friendship grew, Bryan started inviting Dwayne to his family’s house for dinner.
DWAYNE HENDRICKS: I remember him bringin’ me to his mom’s house. Haitian people cook the same thing that Jamaicans cook. And we had rice and peas. And I remember that. And it– it tasted the same way. So it brought me back to my high school days. And with his family being Haitian, and my family bein’ Jamaican, I think we have some of the same values. Work hard, you know, keep your head down and– and y– you get things that you want out of life.
DWAYNE HENDRICKS: It’s because of them, the Patas, that I didn’t get homesick because that was my home. It was my second home. And quite honestly I didn’t call my mom as much as I should have because I already had people that I looked at as my mom– as my mom. I looked at his brothers as my brothers.
ERIC MONCUR: Everybody used to think that we were related, and we were brothers or somethin’ like that.
PAULA LAVIGNE: That’s Eric Moncur. Eric and Bryan were actually rivals back when they played for different high schools in Miami.
ERIC MONCUR: I thought that I was the number one defensive end in Dade County. And then all of a sudden (CLEARS THROAT) this dude’s ranked ahead of me. And– you know, I was mad about it. I was pissed. I used to say his name wrong on purpose. Who is this Payta (PH) kid? Like, who is Payta, Bryan Payta?
PAULA LAVIGNE: But they became friends when they started playing together on the Hurricanes. Bryan gave Eric his nickname.
ERIC MONCUR: Was like, “Edie, this– this is your Haitian name.” (LAUGH) I’m like, “All right, man, whatever.” So then ever– ever since then, everybody’s been callin’ me Edie.
PAULA LAVIGNE: In his junior year, Bryan got a camcorder.
BRYAN PATA: University of Miami at night. The dorm’s over there. And this is the front entrance of the school.
PAULA LAVIGNE: And started making videos of his time in college.
BRYAN PATA: You know, check the boy out good. You know what I mean? Excuse me, check my biceps out.
PAULA LAVIGNE: He carried that camcorder around everywhere. These tapes capture Bryan as a football player hanging out with his teammates before early morning workouts.
BRYAN PATA: What’s up, bro. Wake up.
MALE VOICE: Why?
BRYAN PATA: We got a long day today, (INAUDIBLE).
MALE VOICE: What?
BRYAN PATA: Fucking we got practice in the mornin’, class, study hall, practice in the afternoon. (INAUDIBLE)
PAULA LAVIGNE: They capture Bryan’s love of cars.
BRYAN PATA: What you noticin’, boy?
MALE VOICE: We can hear you. Hey, Pata, you know, somethin’ to show y’all on my cars and whatnot.
PAULA LAVIGNE: They capture him joking around on campus.
BRYAN PATA: No bullshit, no funny face. (LAUGHTER) Come here, boy.
PAULA LAVIGNE: And cat-calling women on the streets of Miami.
(Inaudible Conversation)
BRYAN PATA: How about maybe sayin’ somethin’ for camera?
(Inaudible Conversation)
BRYAN PATA: You don’t say nothin’– you ain’t got nothin’– check anyway.
PAULA LAVIGNE: They’re a perfect time capsule of Bryan’s life and that mid 2000s pre-smart phone era. (NOISE)
(Inaudible Conversation)
CHRIS ZELLNER: He had that smile though, like, that laugh.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Chris Zellner played tight end and was also one of Bryan’s friends.
CHRIS ZELLNER: And I’ll tell you that shit lit up the room. He made everybody laugh. Oh, he was just one of those guys that you wanted to be around.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Smiling and goofy and kind of annoying. That’s how a lot of people at the U remembered him. Like, Carol Walker, his academic advisor.
CAROL WALKER: Bryan was a jokester. If he knew there was some little thing that annoyed you, but you couldn’t be mad at, he would do it. So for me it was the gold chain and it was kinda– whatever the charms were, they clanked all the frickin’ time. And I couldn’t stand it.
CAROL WALKER: And I was like, “Put it in your shirt. I’m so tired.” But then again, that’s how I knew he was comin’ down the hall. (LAUGH) Bryan would go, “Ms. Walker, Ms. Walker.” And then he would just keep saying it. (LAUGH) And I would be like, “Do you want anything?” And he would just laugh ’cause he knew that got on my nerves.
PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s mischievous sense of humor stood out on the team, that and his love for his mom. He put his daily phone calls with her on speaker so his teammates could hear. Here is his teammate Dave Howell.
DAVID HOWELL: And you would hear her talking. Then I was like, “Oh, she sounds so sweet.” You know, she would– she would always be askin’ him, “Did you eat? You know, how are you doin’? How was your day?” You know, and– just the level of affection he showed to his mom, and he demonstrated it to everybody. He didn’t just kinda hide in the corner like, “Oh, hey, mom, just callin’ you real quick.” He showed it. And anybody who you speak to knew, you know, his mom.”
PAULA LAVIGNE: On the outside, Bryan seemed carefree. He could make anyone laugh. His family and teammates loved him. He was about to celebrate his first anniversary with his girlfriend Jada Brody. He had every expectation of going to the NFL. But there was also this. In the months before his death, something had been troubling Bryan.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: There was somethin’ botherin’ him. And– he was tryin’ to say it, you know?
BRYAN’S BROTHER: But he didn’t know how to express it and tell us. He didn’t want to burden you with it, but he kept it in. And– and then this is the thing that hurt us, man. It was, like, man if– if you just would open up, just tell us what the heck is goin’ on. So did somebody threaten you? “No, don’t worry about it, man.”
PAULA LAVIGNE: But he did tell his brother that he was having nightmares.
BRYAN’S BROTHER: “I keep gettin’ away, man. But they keep chasin’ me. You know, like, bad nightmares.” I don’t really– I think his girlfriend said that at the time that– she would wake up, see Bryan sleepin’ in the closet, you know, because he’s fightin’ these things in his dreams, in his sleep.
PAULA LAVIGNE: He never told his brother who might be chasing him. But Edrick knew the reason Bryan might have felt safe sleeping in his closet. It was because of what he kept in there.
EDRICK PATA: He would go in the closet and just be hiding. And, you know, he would go– try to go grab his gun, you know, that his concealed weapons that he had.
PAULA LAVIGNE: When Bryan gave that tour to Manny Navarro, the Miami Herald reporter, weeks before his death, there was something in the apartment he didn’t want on video.
BRYAN PATA: I gotta hide my gun, man. (LAUGH)
MANNY NAVARRO: Well, you got a license for ’em, man.
BRYAN PATA: Yeah, I got a license here somewhere.
MANNY NAVARRO: Yeah, I mean, they’re strict, man. You know what?
BRYAN PATA: Oh, don’t– don’t add them– the gun thing on the paper or whatnot, please.
MANNY NAVARRO: No, I don’t mean the paper.
PAULA LAVIGNE: The thing is Bryan Pata wasn’t the only one on the team with a gun.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Reserve safety Willie Cooper was shot and slightly wounded outside his off-campus apartment– by a gunman hiding in the bushes.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: We carried them for protection because you just never know when you need it.
PAULA LAVIGNE: That’s next time on Murder at the U.
PAULA LAVIGNE: And later this season.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguin’ with somebody. “Well, come and get it then. You know where you can find me.”
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Well, I’m actually gettin’ a little bit uncomfortable with– this whole thing.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Yeah, what’s he doin’ with all this cash in the car? And I say somethin’ ain’t right.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: This is an assassination. And there’s more to this than meets the eye.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: A lotta people thought we had a killer amongst us.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: I stopped looking into it because I was warned that these people will literally come up in your house and kill your family.
ARCHIVAL RECORDING: Does MDPD know who killed Bryan Pata?
