PAULA LAVIGNE: Previously on Murder at the U.

 

MALE VOICE: I just remember the feeling of, “This kid is so happy with his life. He knows that the best is yet to come.”

 

MALE REPORTER: Bryan Pata, senior defensive lineman for Miami, gunned down yesterday at the age of 22.

 

DAN ARRUDA: For the weeks and months after the shooting, police really–

 

MALE VOICE: Tight-lipped.

 

DAN ARRUDA: Tight-lipped, not telling you much?

 

MALE VOICE: Not telling, man, until– until this goddamn day. Tight-lipped.

 

DAN ARRUDA: How, ultimately, do you guys think this case is gonna get solved?

 

MALE VOICE: By somebody coming forward and having firsthand knowledge– of whoever the perpetrator is.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: November 7th, 2006 was a mid-term election night in Miami.

 

MALE REPORTER: Well, thank you very much. And we have much more coming up on South Florida tonight. We’ll have a live report from Washington with the latest information on the key U.S. House and Senate races.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: At the State Attorney’s office, Prosecutor Herbert Erving Walker III was finishing up his day when his pager started to beep. (BEEPING)

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: You know, the call was like, “Hey, you got this homicide scene you need to go to.” On more complicated cases and high profile cases, the prosecutors will work alongside law enforcement, which is what we did in this case.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: So instead of heading home, Walker drove 14 miles south from the prosecutor’s office downtown to the crime scene. He pulled into the parking lot of a complex called the Colony Apartments. Already a crowd of onlookers had gathered.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: It was a pretty wild scene, because they had television cameras already there. So when I pulled up, you know, the area was roped off and police cars everywhere, lights flashing. And so I had to, you know, pull my little Corvette under the– police tape.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Walker got out of his car. Officers and crime scene techs from the Miami-Dade Police Department buzzed around him.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: You know, looking for fingerprints, photographing the scene, preserving the evidence, trying to rope off the area to make sure that the scene isn’t contaminated. And then I was escorted by one of the uniformed officers to the location of the crime scene, where the body was laying, you know, on the sidewalk outside the apartments. And he found face down, so that it would appear that he may never have even seen the person coming.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Like most everybody in Miami, Walker was a fan of the Miami Hurricanes. So when the detective on the case told him who the victim was, Walker recognized the name immediately. Bryan Pata. And that led him to some conclusions about what might have happened.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: Now, Bryan was a defensive lineman, so he’s a big, strong guy. So he would be able to handle himself physically with any guy, and maybe any couple of guys. But we didn’t have a sign of a struggle. He didn’t have clothes torn. He didn’t have the shrubbery near the sidewalk disturbed. So it seemed, based upon the scene that we observed, that the person approached him from behind and basically put him down.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Walker and the police worked the crime scene carefully. They stayed there all night.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: Typically– going out to a crime scene– on homicide duty, you’re there, you look at the scene, you approve the search warrant. You might be there for an hour and a half, two hours and you’re– you’re gone. I was there for, like, you know, 12 or 13 hours, until the sunrise. And we were trying to uncover every stone.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: One reason law enforcement was being so careful in Bryan’s case? They knew they were being watched.

 

FEMALE REPORTER: Authorities aren’t saying much about this murder investigation and if they’re searching for any suspects.

 

MALE REPORTER: If they have a suspect in mind or an idea of a motive, they are not saying.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: When the media’s there and the lights and the cameras, people tend to, you know, put on their best face and put forth the– the best effort. And like I said, I’ve done a number of high profile cases. I’ve done cases on Court Television and things of that nature. But this, with a young up-and-coming football player, that’s just, you know, that’s explosive.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: All through the night, the police canvased the Colony Apartments, knocking on every door. But they turned up no eyewitnesses. There was no security camera footage. There was no obvious trace of the killer other than the bullet that had pierced Bryan’s skull.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: How did this NFL-bound player on one of college football’s biggest teams end up dead that night in Miami? Starting in 2017, more than a decade after the murder, we began digging into Bryan’s life to try to find an answer to that question. What we found was a team that was on edge, even before one of its players was killed.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: I’m Paula Lavigne. From 30 for 30 Podcasts, this is Murder at the U Episode 2: An Execution. Whenever I begin reporting on a crime I start by looking at the immediate context. There are often clues in the backstory. And in this case, the major story line at Miami before Bryan’s murder was about the team’s low morale. It turns out Bryan’s death came in the middle of a precarious time for the U.

 

MALE REPORTER: Coach Larry Coker says he will discourage his players against owning guns after a shooting incident involving two of his players last week.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: One morning that summer, before the 2006 season even got started, a different University of Miami football player was shot outside his home.

 

MALE REPORTER: Reserve safety Willie Cooper was shot and slightly wounded outside his off-campus apartment– by a gunman hiding in the bushes. He was very fortunate, because– one of his teammates– another scholar athlete, Hurricane player Brandon Meriweather, happened to be packing. And he returned fire with his semiautomatic.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: No one was killed and Willie wasn’t seriously injured. Police determined that it had been an attempted robbery, and that Brandon Meriweather was justified in returning fire. But the details of that morning were quickly overshadowed.

 

MALE REPORTER: The Miami Police said it was a lawful shooting, and Coach Coker will be talking about the incident when his players begin practice for the fall football season.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Overshadowed by the fact that players seemed to be walking around with loaded guns. The reaction from the press was judgmental. One local columnist wrote, “Remember when saying your team was loaded meant talent?” This looked bad for head coach Larry Coker. So he decided to institute a new rule: No guns. But there was one problem, it was a pretty difficult rule to enforce, as producer Dan Arruda discovered.

 

DAN ARRUDA: What can you tell me, if anything, about the gun culture with the team?

 

STEVE CALDWELL: Oh, everybody had ’em.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Dan, who did you talk to to find out about how that ban was received, and, like, why the Hurricanes players were carrying guns in the first place?

 

DAN ARRUDA: Believe it or not, the person who gave us the most honest assessment of that team’s no-gun culture was Steve Caldwell, who was one of the team chaplains. Caldwell grew up in Chicago and came to Miami on a baseball scholarship in the ’80s. Still very much carried himself as an athlete when I met him. He was a younger guy, and he also carried guns.

 

STEVE CALDWELL: We carried ’em for protection, because you just never know when you’re needed.

 

DAN ARRUDA: What percentage of those guys do you think on an everyday occasion were walking around strapped?

 

STEVE CALDWELL: Oh man. What did we have, 88 players on the team? About a third.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: So did the players back that up? I mean, of the ones you talked to, did any of them explain why they carried?

 

DAN ARRUDA: I think Tavares Gooden, who was a former linebacker and grew up in Fort Lauderdale, which is about 30 minutes north of Miami, he summed it up the best.

 

TAVARES GOODEN: We’re like Batman. The reason why we have weapons is because the bad guys have weapons, you know what I’m saying? We had ’em because everybody else had ’em, and we lived in a scary time, we lived in a scary place.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: So what did you find out about Bryan and guns?

 

DAN ARRUDA: So I’d heard from several sources that Bryan owned guns. It was part of the culture. It seemed like everyone had them. I was told that he liked going to the shooting range every once in a while. It was just a way for him to let off some steam.

 

DAN ARRUDA: Eventually I talked to Manny Navarro, who was covering the team, and was doing this story on Bryan so they could shoot this version of Cribs. And on their way to Bryan’s apartment, Bryan mentioned to Manny that he needed to hide his guns.

 

BRYAN PATA: (UNINTEL) I gotta hide my guns, man. (LAUGH)

 

MANNY NAVARRO: You have guns?

 

BRYAN PATA: Yeah. I like– I like guns too, man.

 

MANNY NAVARRO: You collect them? Well, you got licenses for ’em, right?

 

BRYAN PATA: Yeah, I got licenses. I got a gun license–

 

MANNY NAVARRO: Yeah, man, they’re straight then. All right.

 

DAN ARRUDA: Bryan was giving Manny a tour of the house, and during the tour Manny mentioned seeing an AK-47 in one of Bryan’s closets. But it wasn’t until we got the actual police report that details what police found the night of the murder that Bryan had a shotgun and an AK-47 in a closet, and he had a handgun on his night table. These are not just your weekend go to the range kind of gun collection. These are serious, heavy duty guns.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Okay, but there were– some things that you got from other interviews that may have given you an indication that there were other reasons he might’ve been armed like that.

 

DAN ARRUDA: According to Bryan’s siblings he had been confiding in them about not sleeping well, something chasing him in his nightmares, fighting things in his sleep. He told Edrick once that his girlfriend, Jada, found him sleeping in the closet. And that’s where he kept his guns.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: What was Manny’s reaction to seeing Bryan’s guns?

 

DAN ARRUDA: I think he was shocked to have found an AK-47 in Bryan’s closet. That’s not a gun that you come across very often. It also showed Manny that Head Coach Larry Coker was no longer being listened to by his own team.

 

MANNY NAVARRO: There was supposed to be a no-gun tolerancey on this team. And I remember seeing the– the AK-47 rifle that Bryan had in the closet and saying to myself, “This is it.” Like, “This shows you here that they do not care what Larry says.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s guns proved that Larry Coker could make all the rules he wanted, but Bryan and the other players would not give up their guns. And under Florida law, they didn’t have to. It was one of many losing battles that Coach Coker would face that year.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Another was the team’s performances on the field. He had run up a great record in his first three years as head coach, 35 wins, a National Championship, only three losses. Miami went nine and three in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, and that’s okay for most college football programs, but not Miami. There was chatter that Coker might not last much longer if he couldn’t turn things around. Then, as the 2006 season got going, the Hurricanes lost two out of their first three games.

 

RANDY PHILLIPS: Everything was fucked up, man.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Randy Phillips, who played defensive back, remembered how the team’s vibe changed early in the season.

 

RANDY PHILLIPS: When you’re losing and shit ain’t going good, everybody gonna be stepping on each other’s toes. Like, everybody ass tight, walking around. So everybody on edge.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Out of the backfield, James Bryant into the end zone for a touchdown.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: On October 14th, 2006, the University of Miami was playing a home game against another suffering Miami team, the win-less Florida International Panthers. Then in the third quarter.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Jon Peattie’s extra point is up and good, and– another melee on the field.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: A huge fight broke out. Players wrestled each other to the ground, punching, kicking, and stomping, while the crowd cheered wildly.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: This one is getting out of hand. Flags all over the place. And– this is ugly. Very ugly.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: For Hurricanes fans, this brawl with FIU was a show of force. Former University of Miami player Lamar Thomas was calling the game for a regional broadcaster.

 

LAMAR THOMAS: Now that’s what I’m talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into o– OB (PH) playing that stuff. You’re across– you’re across the ocean over there. You’re across the city. You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You get your butt beat.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Documentarian and Hurricanes super fan Billy Corben was also watching that night.

 

BILLY CORBEN: I thought it was great. Certainly Lamar Thomas thought it was great. I think from inside Miami, people were excited to see (LAUGH) that swagger back, because I think that people were– bummed that the team didn’t seem to be playing with the fire that it used to have. Everywhere else it was a real symbol of how far this team had fallen.

 

MALE REPORTER: The problem for me is this notion of the word swagger, which you hear at the U more than other places–

 

MALE REPORTER: All the time, yeah.

 

MALE REPORTER: And what swagger connotes to some people is something akin to violence.

 

BILLY CORBEN: Oh, UM is back to its, quote, thug days, end quote.

 

MALE REPORTER: It’s a thug thinking, it’s a street mentality, it’s a gang mentality. That was like a gang fight.

 

BILLY CORBEN: It really did say all the things about the program that we didn’t want to be said at the time.

 

MALE REPORTER: They’ve been spending 25 years at Miami trying to clean things up, and they’ve had some success, but right now they have hit rock bottom at Miami. Helmets swinging, Lamar Thomas up in the booth cheering on his guys, you know, and players kicking their– their feet at people. That was absolutely hideous.

 

MALE REPORTER: You know what? It might not be fair, but for all of those who are saying that Larry Coker doesn’t have control at Miami, this is fuel for their fire, even if it’s not fair.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Combined, the two teams had 31 players suspended for taking part in the brawl. Bryan wasn’t one of them, but he was part of the fight. In a video from the game, you can see Bryan kicking another player’s head. After Bryan was killed, some players wondered whether his death might have been payback for that fight.

 

RANDY PHILLIPS: People kill you about anything. Yeah, people get pissed enough from a fight that they’ll come back and kill you.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Four years removed from being one of the best teams in college football, there was a sense that the U was in free fall. But according to former Miami Herald reporter Manny Navarro, the team’s defense was still a bright spot.

 

MANNY NAVARRO: The only success that they had was defensively. And Bryan was still a part of a very, very good defense.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: (UNINTEL) when you look at this Miami defense, did you know they are number seven in defense in the NCAA? They get to the ball in a hurry.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: This was a really strong season for Bryan. He was a senior, months away from finishing school, and on track for the draft. Which is why it was so surprising when his brother, Edrick, said Bryan wasn’t happy at the U.

 

EDRICK PATA: “I got two more games left, man. It’s my– I hate this school. I wanna get out of this school.” It’s– those were his those words he said, “I wanna get out of that school. I don’t like that school.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Before the season started, Bryan had gotten some news that turned his senior year upside down. Throughout his first three years with the Hurricanes, Bryan was a defensive end. It’s the glamour position of the defensive line, the guys who rush the quarterback pile up the sacks. He’d been doing it since high school and was good at it. This was also the position he hoped to play in the NFL. But going into his senior season, the team’s coaching staff told Bryan they were changing his position to defensive tackle.

 

CLINT HURTT: So I called Bryan over, ’cause– we were so close, and he came over to see me that morning.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Clint Hurtt is a defensive line coach in the NFL. At the time, he was in his first year as Miami’s defensive line coach. Hurtt was young. He’d graduated from UM just a few years earlier. He remembers calling Bryan into his office to tell him the news.

 

CLINT HURTT: And I said, “This is something I know you need to do.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: To the untrained eye, this might not seem like a big change. All Bryan was doing was moving a foot or two closer to the inside of the defensive line. But this was devastating news to Bryan. He’d need to retrain, learn a whole new position, just as he was getting ready to go to the NFL. Sitting in his office that morning, Coach Hurtt tried to explain how this move was going to help the team.

 

CLINT HURTT: The best thing for our team and for the defensive line unit was to have our best four guys on the field, was for him to play defensive tackle.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s close friend, Dwayne Hendricks, said Bryan worried that changing positions would tank his NFL dreams.

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: So he looked at is as– a way that Miami was trying to stop his money from coming in and– and taking care of his family and what he wanted to do, his goals. And that’s– for him it was a whole lotta cussing. He was ticked off. I would say that.

 

CLINT HURTT: He was highly upset. He was pissed. He was crying in my office. He was like, “Coach, this ain’t right, (UNINTEL) I have to move.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan stormed out of Coach Hurtt’s office. A bit alter, Hurtt texted him to come back to they could have lunch together.

 

CLINT HURTT: So– he comes back in the office with a Publix sandwich. And he starts eating it in front of me. It has stuff all over my desk and he’s not saying anything. I said, “Really?” I said, “This is how this meeting’s gonna go?” (LAUGHTER) So he’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna”– he said, “I’m gonna get us a shot for you.”

 

CLINT HURTT: And I said– I said, “Don’t do it for me.” I said, “Let’s do it for yourself and let’s do it for your team.” And I said– said, “I need you to have total buy in.” And I said, “There’s gonna be days when you’re gonna have rough days, you know, where you’re gonna be pissed and not like it. I need you to s– stay fighting and get refocused. I’m gonna help you with that.” And he said, “All right.” He said, “Coach, I’m gonna do it.” I said, “All right.” So we dapped it up. We hugged it out. I told him I was proud of him.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Draft analyst Todd McShay remembers Bryan’s NFL prospects rising after the position change.

 

TODD MCSHAY: I remember thinking in my mind, at the time, and writing it, that he had gone from a fifth, sixth, seventh round, somewhere in the late range, to potentially a third round pick. And– and– and what today would be called a day two pick, which is a massive difference.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Hit from behind and catching his own fumble, Bryan Pata knocks down Brian Brown (PH).

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Manny Navarro, the Miami Herald writer, had watched Bryan play since he was a star at Central High. He’d followed Bryan’s career on the Hurricanes and he had a sense of what might be coming next after his senior year.

 

DAN ARRUDA: Your best guess, what would’ve happened to Bryan if he had finished that season out?

 

MANNY NAVARRO: He would’ve been a second or third round pick. I thought he had the NFL body and the personality to play the position for a long time. And I think he’d be on TV once he retired.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: It’s not hard to imagine Bryan being on TV after his playing days ended. He was funny, charming, and he had that infectious smile.

 

MANNY NAVARRO: You’d hear about Bryan Pata being involved in his community. You’d hear about Bryan Pata being more than a football player.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: But all of that promise was about to be cut short.

 

FEMALE REPORTER: Good morning, happy election day to you, 77° at 6:45. And some breaks of sunshine.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: On the morning of November 7th, Bryan Pata got up early to go to workouts with the team. After workouts, he caught up with his teammate and friend Eric Moncur.

 

ERIC MONCUR: Bryan called me, “Eday (PH),” I turned around and he said, “What you about to do?” I was like, “Man, I’m about to register for my classes.” He was like, “Oh, me too. Let’s go.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Eric hopped in Bryan’s SUV and they headed over to the registrar’s office.

 

ERIC MONCUR: You know, we made the lady laugh in there, we was– we was in there talking to her for a couple minutes.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Then they got something to eat and killed time for a few hours before class.

 

ERIC MONCUR: I walked in class (LAUGH) and I walked right back out. And he did the same thing at his class. So we started– we was like, “All right man, let’s just go to the locker room, you know, just hang out and wait for practice.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: It was Coach Hurtt’s 28th birthday that day. True to form, Bryan planned to prank him after their practice was over.

 

ERIC MONCUR: He was like, “Hey, you know it’s Coach Hurtt’s birthday.” I was like, “Oh yeah, okay, okay.” He was like, “Yeah, let’s get him. Let’s get him.”

 

CLINT HURTT: We had a really great practice that day.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Here’s Coach Hurtt.

 

CLINT HURTT: And I remember I caught Bryan looking at me when the team was called up to break the huddle, and that, you know, obviously practice was gonna be over with. And I caught his eye. And I was like, “Oh, he’s up to something.” So as soon as it broke I took off and run.

 

CLINT HURTT: So I take off, haulin’ ass to get outta there. I almost make it back to the building and Bryan catches me by the back of my shirt, you know, for– he wraps me up. And then the other guys, other guys on the D-line kinda get on me and they start messing with me, giving me, like, (UNINTEL) or whatever and saying, “Happy birthday Coach,” whatever.

 

CLINT HURTT: And then Bryan comes over with this huge Gatorade bucket full of ice– ice cold water, (LAUGH) clear ice water. And he dump– he dumps it on my head. And I mean, it felt like my heart stopped, that damn thing was so cold. And– after he dumped it on me he bear hugged me. And– he said, “Coach, man, I appreciate you and I love you.” And I said, “I love you too, bro.” I said, “I’m proud of you and everything you’re doing.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Practice ended that day at 5:15. In the locker room, Bryan took some time to hit up one of his freshman teammates, Josh Holmes.

 

JOSH HOLMES: So I went into the shower and he was in there. And it was a normal shower, just t– you know, just shooting the shit a little bit, whatever, just talking. But then after when we came out, you know, he– he really started talking to me just about being– a good person, being, like, a good man, and making good choices in life. And, you know, not to be caught up in all the silly stuff that college is gonna bring. It was like if my older brother was, like, talking to me about something and trying to teach me a lesson or just rub some knowledge on me.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: After showering, the team got together for their weekly meal. They ordered from Eat at Bezzie’s, a local pizza and barbecue place. Teammate Jon Beason remembers that dinner.

 

JON BEASON: It was all of us sitting around– the locker room whatnot, just grubbing, talking about whatever– laughing and, you know, last thing I– I remember when I saw him, we were all laughing about how we could– mess with Coach Hurtt. So the biggest smile on his face, happy. Like, there was nothing that you would say that Bryan was disturbed or– different. He was– he was, you know, the usual Bryan Pata.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan left the Hecht Athletic Center after that meal, around 6:20 p.m. He got back into his black Infiniti SUV and started heading home. As he was leaving the facility, he saw a few freshman teammates waiting at a bus stop. Josh Holmes was one of them.

 

JOSH HOLMES: And he pulls up and, you know, he laughs. He was like, “So let me guess, you guys want a ride.” (LAUGH) And I was like, “Yeah man, if you’re offering we’ll take it.” He said, “Oh yeah, hop in. I got y’all.” And, you know, we just hopped in the car.

 

JOSH HOLMES: It was just what college athletes talk about. You know, we talk about music bumping in there, we’re talking about practice, talking about, you know, the day in the life– on campus. And– you know, I– I remember him dropping us off and, you know, we’re all, you know, giving each other daps getting out of the car. And you know, I just remember him saying, “All right y’all boys, take it easy. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: The freshman dorm was in the opposite direction from Bryan’s apartment. So after dropping them off he turned around. His drive took him back past the university’s athletic fields and through the ritzy residential streets of Coral Gables. Then he got on U.S. 1, a six-lane artery that would’ve been jammed with traffic at that hour. He called his brother, Fednal (PH), on the way home.

 

FEDNAL PATA: And I said, “Okay, I’m gonna see you Saturday.” He– he was home, he said, “I made it, I’m– I’m gonna talk to you later.” Our– our usually sound off was, like, “Yeah.” And click off.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Some time after Bryan hung up with Fednal he pulled into the dark, unlit parking lot of the Colony. But he never made it up the stairs to his apartment. In the years after Bryan’s murder, Detectives with the Miami-Dade Police Department assembled a report on their investigation with summaries of the hundreds of interviews they conducted.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: It would take us several years of trying to get this report, but when we finally did we read about what happened that night from two points of view. One perspective came from Bryan’s girlfriend, Jada Brody. Jada lived with Bryan and his teammate, Dwayne Hendricks.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: According to what she told detectives, Jada was in the apartment cleaning out her dog’s kennel. She told police that she heard Bryan talking to someone outside and went to see what was going on. She saw Bryan lying on the ground. At first she thought he was playing a prank. Then she saw blood around his head. Jada said she ran back upstairs to call 911.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: Miami-Dade County (UNINTEL PHRASE)–

 

(Jada Brody: Unintel)

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: The second perspective came from Bryan’s close friend and roommate, Dwayne Hendricks. He had left the Hecht Center at the same time Bryan did, but Dwayne stopped for gas on the way so he pulled into the parking lot just a few minutes after Bryan.

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: And I arrived and– I seen him on the floor. And the first thought, because I said earlier, he plays so much, I thought he was just joking. I was like, “All right, man.” I remember saying, “All right, it ain’t funny, why you laying on the ground for?”

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: And I was like– like, “Get up,” or something like that. And as I walked over saying, “Get up,” I noticed that there was– a puddle of blood behind his head and I was just– like, at that point you– after that, that’s when I really– it’s– I– I don’t remember calling anyone. And obviously I think even my wife now, girlfriend at the time, told me that it was recorded and it was broadcasted at the college station I had when I was calling that– an ambulance or something like that.

 

DAN ARRUDA: The 911 call.

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: Yeah, the 911 call.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Dwayne saw Jada come down the stairs talking on the phone with a dispatcher, but the call dropped, so Dwayne dialed 911 from his cell. You can hear Jada’s voice in the background of his call.

 

(Overtalk)

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: Hello.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: Yes.

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: Hello.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: Hello?

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: Hello, we need help.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: At what address?

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: 9315 Southwest 77th Avenue.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: What happened there?

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: Somebody got shot, the guy’s on the ground. I don’t know where he’s bleeding from, but he’s on the ground, Miss.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: Okay, I need for you to stay with me on the line. Did you see what happened?

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: No, I did not see what happened. Nobody seen what happened, Miss.

 

FEMALE OPERATOR: You don’t know where he– he’s shot?

 

(Overtalk)

 

DWAYNE HENDRICKS: After hanging up with 911 I called his mom and I’m on the phone. I think I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened, it was nothing I could do.” I think the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do in my life was to call his mom and tell her that her son– (CRIES) her son died. That was the hardest thing I had to do in my life.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Dwayne continued calling everyone he could think of who knew Bryan, family, teammates, and coaches, including Coach Hurtt, who was on his way home to celebrate his birthday.

 

CLINT HURTT: My phone rang while I was in the car, and it was Dwayne Hendricks. And Dwayne was just hysterical, just bawling, crying. And he said, “Coach, they killed him.” And I said, “Who?” I said, “What are you talking about, Dwayne?” And he said, “Coach, they killed him, they shot Pata. Somebody shot Pata.”

 

CLINT HURTT: And I’m like– I, like– I just, like, I froze. Like, I was– I remember I was on the 826 Expressway and, like, my heart just stopped. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” Like, I couldn’t believe it. It was, like, surreal. So I flipped around. I made a u-turn, ’cause I knew where Bryan lived, to go back to his place.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s teammates started arriving soon after the police. Eric Moncur had been on his way to a study group in the library when he got a call from a friend whose dad was a cop. As soon as he heard the news, Eric and another friend raced over to Bryan’s apartment.

 

ERIC MONCUR: We hop outta the car and we’re walking towards where we see the police lights and stuff like that. And then they got the yellow tape. And then as we were walking up, I saw the tarp covering his body. I just lost it. Lost it.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Bryan’s mom, Jeanette, called her daughter, Ronette, who was busy giving her twins a bath.

 

RONETTE PATA: The phone just kept ringing, ringing, ringing. So I put the water (UNINTEL) the girls, and I went and got the phone and I said, “Hello?” And it was my ma. And she’s crying hysterically saying, “Did you not hear? Bryan is dead.” I just paused and dropped the phone and started screaming. And my daughters started screaming, ’cause they didn’t know what was going on. They were only two years old. And if I could tell you, I just went numb. Like, I felt like the world had just, like, everything stopped.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: By the time Bryan’s sister Nelly arrived, the police had taped off the scene to keep the crowd out.

 

NELLY PATA: Oh man, when we got there it was, oh, I just– I don’t know how those people got there before us, but it was a lotta people. Like, a lotta people out there, a big commotion. And I was confused. And I wanted to see my brother, and kind of look, and– I just saw, like– the yellow– (UNINTEL) they didn’t want him to go back there.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Ronette arrived with their mom, Jeanette.

 

RONETTE PATA: I remember her jumping out of the car, running to the crime scene. She’s screaming. And I just stood there and just– tears. Just– just remember it so clearly. I’m like, “My brother’s really gone. My brother’s gone.”

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: The news crews were already there. One of them caught Jeanette on camera.

 

JEANETTE PATA: Give me my baby. Give me my baby. Give me my baby.

 

CLINT HURTT: I got outta my car and I was walking up the street and I could hear the screams of his– of his mother and his sister, Nelly. And they just– it was just– I can’t ever get the v– I can’t get the sounds and the– the feeling outta my heart, the sounds– of that evening. They still stay with me. Ever since that day, you know? That day is never– it has never been the same, you know, since that happened.

 

JEANETTE PATA: Oh (CRYING) my son, my son, very good son, never have a problem with nobody, you know? (UNINTEL) gone. He’s gone. (UNINTEL PHRASE)

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: When Prosecutor Herbert Walker arrived on the scene, the police were already operating under the glare of TV cameras. He didn’t want any slip ups that might jeopardize the case. So even before the police searched Bryan’s house and car, Walker wanted to get a search warrant.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: Just to err on the side of caution, I had suggested to the lead detective that before we start, you know, searching the house and searching the car and uncovering all this stuff that might– wind up being useful in a criminal prosecution.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Walker and the police wanted to search Bryan’s things carefully, in case there was any evidence that might lead them to the killer. But the most important evidence on the scene that night was Bryan’s body. Walker remembers looking at the body with the medical examiner, Dr. Emma Lew. They could see that Bryan had been shot in the side of the head.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: So it appeared, based upon the nature of the wound, that this was a close fire– close-range fire shot that killed him, rather than one far away, which then again kinda gives you, you know, a clue. Did the guy sneak up on him? And that’s kind of the way it looked like.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: If the killer planned to ambush Bryan, that meant he or she probably knew about his practice schedule, and when to expect him.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: That was the final conclusion that we had drawn, that the guy knew enough about his schedule to know that U of M football practices in the fall would get out at this time, and it appeared that he may have been waiting for him.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Of course, what wasn’t clear was why this happened. Walker and the detectives scoured the crime scene for any evidence of motive.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: If it was a robbery then they would’ve taken the watch. He had a bunch of money, they would’ve taken that. And none of those things were disturbed.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: According to the medical examiner’s report, police found nine $100 bills in Bryan’s wallet.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: It seemed more along the lines of some kinda, you know, like, a gangland-style assassination, if you will. And so that was another angle that we kind of wanted to look at, is there a gang involvement here? Is somebody in a gang trying to make a name for themselves by targeting a celebrity?

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: That was just one of the theories police began considering that night as they continued to look for clues, like a bullet casing.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: And so you would expect to find, per shot, a case. But we didn’t find any cases. And I remember us looking, I remember looking myself, you know, standing there with the detectives with flashlights, looking around near the car and near the sidewalk. It could be that one, the casing is so small and innocuous that it just didn’t get found.

 

DAN ARRUDA: Or the shooter policed up the casing.

 

HERBERT ERVING WALKER III: There you go, that’s the next thing. If this is an assassination where you have a premeditated plan to kill and you’re gonna sneak up behind the person very carefully, it would be very easy once you fire one round to hear where the case hits, because it’s ejected out. It was presumed that’s probably a 9mm, and the guy probably grabbed the case, which means this might be some type of a hit and there’s more to this than meets the eye.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: Who could’ve wanted a rising football star with a promising future dead? Detectives began asking questions that night, asking Bryan’s family and teammates if he had any enemies, if he’d been in any fights, if he was worried for his safety. Turns out the answer to all of those questions was yes. As we investigated Bryan’s murder 11 years later, one thing started to become clear. Any one of those enemies could’ve wanted Bryan dead, and any one of them might have been on the other end of a heated phone call he’d had the day he died.

 

MALE VOICE: An hour before he died he was on the phone (UNINTEL) somebody. And what he was saying was, “Well, come and get it then. Come and get it then. You know where you can find me.” So he was upset.

 

PAULA LAVIGNE: That’s next time on Murder at the U.