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You know, a question that a man always has to ask himself

when he goes through something like I went through:

"Are you in a better spot than you were before?"

"Was it worth it?"

And the answer to me is "yes" and the sooner a man gets

to leading a life of transparency,

the better off he is and you do that by making things simple.

But, what we do because of sin, things get complicated.

I mean, every day, the devil would beat me up.

Every single day, the devil would beat me up

and remind me of what a bad person I was.

And what that does, that keeps harboring, you know,

the crime and keeps burying you.

And what you then-- you can't be of any use to anybody.

Of course, I shouldn't be forgiven.

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[Matt Sayman] For all of it to fall apart and then in such a

short span, for it to almost like it didn't happen.

Like right now, you go down there,

there's not one trace of that.

[Julie Hays] Scandal of the summer of 2003 has been

wiped from the pages of history.

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Our investigation into this tragedy will continue

to move forward and I appreciate

the assistance of all the agencies that helped to bring

this investigation to this point.

Thank you all very much for your time.

[Hays] It's one of those things people around here

do not--

do not talk about.

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[John Segrest] Waco and Baylor are very closely associated

because Baylor is one of the largest employers in the county

and that's always been the case.

[Danny Robbins] Baylor grads are many of the lawyers,

judges, business people.

[Bob Fuller] Baylor University, you know,

really plays a big part in what goes on in Waco.

The 2002-2003 season of my junior year,

I ended up being a flop.

At that time, it was like, Baylor basketball was sort of

just there, nobody paid much attention to it at all.

You really didn't think much else about it,

at least I didn't.

I would wonder, "Why are you guys going to these games?

Why are you sitting in those chairs?"

I mean, it was losing season after losing season,

across the board on so many sports.

When Dave Bliss was hired, it had actually been 11 seasons

since Baylor basketball had seen any play in post conference.

Basketball coaches have a shelf life

and coaches are not normal human beings.

They're Type A performance-driven people

that work insatiably to try to elevate the status

of their school.

[Sayman] Coach Bliss was known for turning programs around.

He had basically done it his entire career.

[Bliss] I was lucky enough to coach at four

tremendous schools,

five years in Oklahoma was wonderful...

[Announcer] Coach Dave Bliss.

[Bliss] had eight years at SMU

and then 11 at New Mexico.

He is a marketing genius.

He makes a lot of money.

He knows how to generate revenue.

He knows how to raise money from donors

and he is very, very intelligent.

[Bliss] Twenty-five years that I was in coaching,

I really envisioned ending my coaching career

at a Christian school.

I was a Baptist by faith.

It seemed like a perfect place to go.

Dave Bliss' base salary went from about

$300,000 a year to $600,000.

And when they hired him, they made a big deal about it.

It was very much a coronation when they brought him in.

[Sayman] It's not every day you get to play for a coach

in college that has, at that time, around 400 wins.

It wasn't hard to understand that you were playing for a

future Hall of Fame coach.

[Robbins] The fact that Baylor is Baylor and it's the world's

largest Baptist institution and it's had conservative rules

over the years, does not apply to the athletic program.

The athletic program's a big-time athletic program,

where winning is paramount.

[Sayman] The more wins, the more money the university gets.

The more wins, the more money the coach gets.

The more wins, we get to stay.

It was Baylor first and it was us second.

We were ultra-competitive, but our record didn't show it

and our wins didn't show it.

[Bliss] Things didn't come as easily as they did

in other places because the competition was greater.

What the SEC is for football, the Big 12 is for basketball.

The competition, it's definitely NBA level

without question, night in and night out.

[crowd cheering]

[Bliss] Pat Dennehy was a terrific player in University of

New Mexico and he was 6'9", a very agile player.

I saw a wonderful young man and was excited about

him coming to Baylor.

He looked like he had all the attributes that might allow him

to be an NBA player.

Patrick was probably 13, about 13 years old

before he picked up his first basketball.

He just learned like crazy and he became a

great player overnight.

It came easy to him like everything else.

[Okopnyi] First time I ever met Patrick,

was a freshman in high school in San Jose.

I looked up to him, figuratively and literally.

He was the friendliest guy I ever met.

He was a funny guy and he knew that.

He was a brother to me.

He felt a need to protect the people he cared about... a lot.

[Wynn] Everywhere he went, I went.

Patrick and I used to go all over town, to his high school

so he could practice, go out to eat, go to movies.

He was always kind-hearted and he would bend over

backwards for people.

He loved hanging out with his friends, he loved to joke.

He loved to do stuff to make you laugh too.

He's kind of a clown, in a way, off the court.

[Okopnyi] He knew who he was, he was going to be

a basketball star.

I remember Patrick telling me that with his help,

Baylor would be the Big 12 champion.

At the time, I think it was hard to get recruits to Baylor.

[Marlowe] Dave Bliss must have known something about recruiting

because I mean, he got Patrick really excited

about going to Baylor.

He had Patrick really excited about being one of their

scholarship athletes.

They have a chance to get a free education,

get it now.

He had to go somewhere, where they could offer him

a full athletic scholarship.

Dave Bliss, he made it clear to Patrick that if he came

out to Baylor, everything would be great, everything was

going to be wonderful.

You're going to be my star.

He had, all of a sudden, a place to live and he didn't

have to worry about making rent.

He didn't have to worry about,

"Oh my gosh, am I going to get evicted or not."

The bills were paid.

He didn't have to worry about his electricity being shut off.

And he didn't have to worry about driving around in a car

and wondering if it's going to break down in the

middle of the road.

He said Dave Bliss had helped him get a vehicle and I said,

"What did he get?"

And he told me a Chevy Tahoe.

And he loved it.

He really did love it.

[Brian] He talked about how he was going to be a professional

basketball player, pay for Wynn's college education,

buy his mom a house.

Well, for the first time on campus,

Baylor basketball meant something.

We all thought that the 2003-2004 season was the year,

the year it was going to happen.

We just had a huge group of players come in.

We had R.T. Guinn, Ellis Kidd, Patrick Dennehy has a red shirt

and then Carlton Dotson,

all of those players make us a better team.

Carlton Dotson had not signed a scholarship yet.

I went up and looked at him and Carlton was very, very skilled,

offensively, somebody I thought would be good

for part-time minutes.

[Dolcin] Yeah, Hurlock, it's a rough little town, man.

Small town, dirt roads, you know.

So, it's just not a good place to live

and if you do live there, you want out of Hurlock.

You know, nobody wants to stay.

The little area of Hurlock, not much happening up there.

The four years that I had Carlton, we won 85 games

and we won more basketball games than had ever been won

at North Dorchester.

Carlton was the leader of the team.

He was basically our LeBron James.

He knew his talent was going to take him places.

Everybody knew they was going to see Carlton on TV one day.

Everybody knew Carlton was going to make it.

In 1999, North Dorchester went to the State Championship game

and brought home the first State Championship

that North Dorchester ever had.

It was a big deal for our community.

I'll never forget coming through town that night,

we were escorted in with the Hurlock police

and Sheriff department, sirens going,

people out on their front porches,

waving to us and stuff.

It really did something for the kids.

It really did.

Carlton had a good personality.

He was friendly to be around.

He wasn't arrogant at all about his abilities.

There are some kids that don't let you in, you know,

but he did and I got bonded with him.

He spent the night at my house,

you know, eat at my house, mess around with my kids.

I would be proud if he married my daughter.

[Marlowe] Carlton was the closest to Patrick at Baylor.

You know, he started to become friends with Carlton

pretty quickly.

They kind of clowned around.

They seemed like good buddies.

Patrick lived in student housing.

Four people could live to an apartment.

Dottie was his roommate at the time.

He mentioned Dottie being a cool guy.

Carlton always talked to me, when he was around,

about this guy named Patrick.

They was friends

and he talked so well about him.

[Marlowe] They were goofballs and they seemed to have

a good relationship.

I was with Northeastern Oklahoma.

Coach came to me and after the game, he was like,

"Man, great game.

We need you at Baylor University.

We want you."

Okay, cool.

That's it, that's all I needed to hear.

[Abar] Harvey was typical junior college transfer.

I would say that Harvey Thomas had maybe more potential

than Patrick, but I still would give the edge to Patrick.

[Thomas] They flew me down to Waco.

They assigned Dennehy to be my chaperone.

Pat picked me up from the airport.

First thing he asked me was like, "Hey, man, you smoke?"

I say, "Yes, of course," and right then and there I said,

"Hey, we going to be just fine.

We're going to-- you know, we're going to get along well."

He told me my apartment would be ready in three to four days,

but you can just stay with Pat until your apartment is ready.

I'm cool.

I'm cool with that.

I'm sleeping on the couch and Dotson had a room,

I think in the back, wherever, but once I got there,

I ended up calling my cousin, Larry Johnson.

I called him and told him, "Hey man, I just got to school.

Get on a Greyhound and come on down."

[Abar] Larry was kind of always around.

He's basically Harvey's sidekick.

He's basically his friend, he's hanging out,

he's getting to see the life that Harvey is about to live.

He's just a friend that, you know, a hanger-on.

The initial job that I was offered at Baylor University

was the Director of Basketball Operations.

Coaching at Baylor was moving up to the big leagues for me.

I went to school there and coaching the Big 12

was something I did not want to miss.

I accepted that position, officially,

June first of 2003.

And then, it go... you know, things went crazy.

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Patrick was always very calm, cool and collected,

but he called me frantic.

I had never heard him like this.

I had never heard him this scared of anything.

Something's up.

I'm like, "What?"

And he's like, "I don't know what to do."

He's like, "I can't say over the phone."

Which struck me as odd,

but... okay.

And he told me he was being threatened.

And he said, "Well Dottie's being threatened too

and I've got his back."

Which made me think that it was directed at Dotson.

And I said, "From what?"

He said, "I can't say."

And he's like, "I need help."

He started to tell me that he was not certain

about this player that Dave Bliss had recruited

and brought in.

This Harvey Thomas.

Well, I told him that he definitely needed

to reach out for help.

I said "Look, you need to talk to your coaches."

I mean, that's the whole thing that these coaches say.

"Oh, we're here for you, we're here to take care of you."

And I mean, they really do keep very close tabs on these guys.

He did come to the coaches to talk about it.

He did tell me that he was scared and that there were

weird things going on and I shouldn't...

things that if I knew, I would be afraid as well.

[Marlowe] He didn't feel safe and he and Carlton felt

that the best move for them was to go buy guns.

To my knowledge, Patrick had never used guns,

never even held one that I knew of.

[Marlowe] You know, it went from a, "We feel like we need

to buy guns," to, "Well, we have guns and we're going out

and practicing shooting."

[Turk] Me and Patrick were roommates for at least a year.

I do not believe there were ever any guns in the apartment

before Harvey.

There previously hadn't been a lot of guns around.

I have no experience with guns, I didn't grow up hunting,

never been around guns, so it was kind of a big deal to me

to suddenly see all these guns around.

I remember, you know, coming home from work and my door

was deadbolted and, you know, when I knocked on the door,

they opened it and they were holding a rifle.

There was just always this vague, kind of description.

Like, "Hey, don't let Harvey in,

don't answer the door.

Don't let people in unless we're here, period, no matter what."

There was an evening where I was at home alone

and someone knocked on my door.

I came to the door to answer the door.

I looked through the peephole.

There was someone at my door.

He was an African American, probably 6'5" or taller

and he had what looked like a handgun, you know,

holding it in a position that I could see it.

It wasn't concealed, it was clearly a threatening move.

I assumed it was Harvey.

[Okopnyi] And then a few days later, Patrick said he was

coming to my house with Carlton.

I said, "Stay with me, we'll hang out for my birthday

and then we'll go back.

I'll go with you, we'll go to the police."

And then he said, "Hold on a second," and he said,

"Hey, hey Carlton, are we going to head down?"

And I heard Carlton in the background.

I didn't really hear audibly what he said.

He said, "Yeah, yeah, we're on our way.

We're heading out there soon."

So, my primary function was to make sure

that the players got where they needed to be,

when they needed to be there.

And I would physically go to each one of their classes

and make sure that they were sitting in that chair.

So, I get to have a little different relationship

with the players and it enabled me to get a little closer

to some of them.

Friday the 13th, we realized that Patrick was not in class,

but that he might have cut class and took an early weekend.

Father's Day I didn't get a call from Patrick

and if he didn't call, there was always a card

for special occasions.

So, I just figured, "Okay, well, maybe he'll call me Monday,"

and Monday came and went and there was no phone call.

Monday, we grew concerned and Tuesday,

we were on alert.

I was nervous and I couldn't get a hold of him

and I called Carlton.

"Jess, I don't know where Patrick is.

We were scared and we were sleeping with the doors

propped closed and I just took off to Maryland,

so I'm home and I don't know where Patrick is.

He was going to stay."

And I had actually called Carlton and Carlton said,

"Well, Mr. Brabazon, I'm back in Maryland

and I had to get out of there.

Things were crazy at Baylor.

If I could talk to you in person,

I'd tell you what was going on."

My next call was to Bliss.

"Have you seen Patrick?

I haven't talked to him, no one knows where he's at."

Bliss just acted like, you know, he's around.

He said, "Well, he's probably with his friends."

[Bliss] I was obviously on the hunt for finding out where

Patrick was, but since it was summer and he was good friends

with Carlton, I thought the two of them might have

gone someplace and just not let anybody know.

I remember going by Patrick's house,

looking for his vehicle over the weekend.

I remember knocking on his door the weekend he went missing.

And nobody seemed to know where he was.

By then, I was really concerned.

I drove to Baylor with a friend.

I think I ran into the property manager

and I had her open up the apartment.

Kind of smelled a little bit.

There were the two baby pitbulls, so I fed them.

Then I went into his room.

On the bed was an open suitcase that was half packed,

like he was packing for a few days.

And by my assumption, he was packing to come down and see me.

So, I left him a note.

I said, "Hey, we came down.

I took the dogs."

It struck me as really odd that he was half packed

and he was nowhere to be found.

[Brian] I had called the Waco police and so that's when

they decided to open up a missing person's report.

[Fuller] I was working at the Waco Police Department.

I was assigned to the Special Crimes Unit.

My job was to investigate major crimes against persons.

On June 23rd in 2003, I did have the opportunity

to meet with Coach Bliss.

The coaches wanted to sit in, in my interviews with the

players and I didn't want the coaches to influence

what the players would tell me.

I found out that Patrick Dennehy and Harvey Thomas

and another young man from Baylor were all roommates.

Carlton Dotson was also staying there during that time.

And some money came up missing and they were

highly upset about it.

They felt that Harvey Thomas may have been the one

who took the money.

Carlton and Patrick came into the office and said that Harvey

and Larry had threatened them with a gun.

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And then, Carlton or Patrick had made a gun signal,

like he had put the gun to his head.

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[Fuller] They went to Coach Belcher about that

and they asked advice on what they should do,

whether they should report the theft or the money

to the police.

And of course, you know, with any program,

you want to keep things in-house.

So, they said, "No, don't go to the police.

We don't need the attention.

We'll just handle it in-house."

Coach Ash told me about Harvey Thomas and the fact

that he was making threats and had taken steps to talk

to Harvey Thomas about this.

I asked Coach Bliss, you know, was there any threats being made

and he wasn't aware of them.

We tried to keep the information as quiet as possible

because we didn't want others going out and trying to

question people and influence what they had to say.

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[Hays] We, you know, through the grapevine had heard that

there was a Baylor basketball player that was missing.

I think everyone's a little skeptical and they're thinking,

"Maybe it's nothing," because there certainly was no panic.

I mean, I think we were probably just debating

do we even cover it.

It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth

and no one knew where he was.

We went on national TV to let everybody know we were looking

for Patrick Dennehy and we told them our situation

and what was going on.

I haven't been told anything concrete by the

Waco Police Department.

I felt that Patrick felt paranoid

when I had talked to him.

Threats about what, Daniel?

Paranoid about what?

He was paranoid because of one player,

new recruit by the name of Harvey Thomas,

and other individuals making threats.

[reporter] Baylor's basketball coach says he doesn't

know of any problems between Dennehy and his teammates.

Harvey Thomas is a solid member of our basketball team.

The coaches came to me and asked me,

"Did you threaten them or did you have any problems like?"

"No, coach.

I don't have no problems with anyone."

[Director Kondelis, off camera]

Bliss asked me and Belcher,

Rodney Belcher asked me the same thing.

[Kondelis]

Yeah, that's bogus.

I don't know what that is.

[reporter] Were you aware of any threats on either player?

You know, this is again, back to that area that we

had intense conversations and all during the period when

supposedly the alleged threats would have been made.

We nowhere heard a threat

or any sign of physical violence

or anything along the line, nothing was ever communicated.

Let me explain something to you.

Nothing, there is nothing that happens without the

Head Coach's knowledge, ever .

It doesn't happen.

So, those accusations about threatening, stealing,

pulling the gun out, is 100% bullshit.

Players and coaches have talked to the investigators

and we've been eager to help in any way we can.

There was a lot of concern

because of all the rumors that were circulating.

[Fuller] The fact that Patrick was a basketball player

at Baylor University did bring a lot of pressure

and there's going to be people in higher places

wanting answers and wanting them now.

There were satellite trucks everywhere.

People trying to get stories everywhere,

phone calls to the police department.

Trying to get to me to find out information

and trying to get some story about what happened

and be the first to do it.

A lot of people that we talked to, they said

Carlton and Patrick would go out shooting.

With that, we started doing some searches.

[reporter] Police helicopters have been searching

remote areas around Waco.

[reporter] Right now, the police are kind of

at a standstill.

They're waiting for more tips to help them out.

It was a big story for us.

Three of us were immediately dispatched.

We were all over it, regardless of what else was going on.

It's just one of those stories that is going to be

compelling no matter what.

[reporter] We've had a long real strange week out here

and not a lot of questions have been answered.

In fact, a lot more questions are out there now

than there were on Monday.

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[reporter] Dennehy's SUV, without any license plates

was found 1,000 miles away at this shopping mall in Virginia--

no sign of the basketball player.

[reporter] Police in Waco, Texas fear the worst

and think that some of Dennehy's teammates

might know something about it.

[Fuller] After they found the vehicle, they assigned

Clay Perry to go with me to Virginia Beach.

Well, apparently, they deemed it necessary to bring

the County in, in case he was found out in the county,

then it would be in my jurisdiction

or our jurisdiction at the Sheriff's office.

[Fuller] So, we flew into Virginia Beach and what we found

when we processed his car is, the car was clean.

There were absolutely no fingerprints on that vehicle

whatsoever.

We knew where Mr. Dotson lived and it was

close to that location.

And we thought, "Well, since we're going to be that close,

why waste the trip?"

We can try to set up interviews with Carlton Dotson.

[Perry] But, once we had finished what we were tasked

to do in Virginia Beach, we went to Seaford, Delaware

Police Department and were met there and greeted by

an investigation division, who at that point,

took us to Carlton Dotson.

Where we identified ourselves to him, he agreed to

go with us to Seaford, Delaware and be interviewed.

[Fuller] Any interview is 90% listening and 10% talking.

I let Carlton talk, but the more he talked,

the more relaxed he seemed.

He didn't really want to talk about Patrick as much

as he did about drug use at Baylor University.

[Dotson]

[Dotson]

[Fuller] I did not believe that that was the main point

because every time I started talking to Carlton

about Patrick,

he'd kind of get tense.

[Dotson]

[Dotson coughs]

At points during the interview, Detective Fuller

would leave the room,

which is a common thing for us to do.

I was outside of the interview room monitoring it on a TV

and Dotson would mumble things.

[inaudible mumbling]

[Fuller] OK, um...

At one point during the interview,

I was asking Carlton about Patrick's, his personality.

[Dotson]

He said, "was" instead of "is."

[Dotson]

He slipped up, but he caught himself and said "is,"

you know, right away.

Why would you say was , if you didn't already know what

the situation was with Patrick and his current condition?

[Fuller interviewing Dotson]

[Dotson]

[Fuller]

[Dotson]

[Perry] We then took him back to the house that

we'd gotten him from.

[Fuller] When we arrived at his grandmother's house,

the only thing that kept popping in my mind is this old movie

that I'd seen years ago.

And it had a song in it and just those words kept

coming back in my mind.

Put my hand down, just shake Carlton's hand.

"You know, no matter what the State of Texas does,

no matter what Waco PD does, you just need to remember

God's going to get you for that."

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His eyes got big around as saucers.

Carlton's body language, his facial expression,

all of that changed like, "Who brought Him into this?"

He never looked back at me.

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[reporter] Carlton Dotson, the Baylor basketball player

and Dennehy roommate is back in his Maryland hometown

having hired a lawyer, but still regarded

only as a person of interest to Waco police.

[Abar] When they made that announcement,

it was like a gut punch for the entire program.

Patrick had never mentioned anything negative

about Carlton to me directly.

He never insinuated that anything was wrong

in their friendship.

It just did not make sense to me.

They seemed two peas in a pod.

I mean, like they were best friends, so I would have

never thought that, you know, Carlton would have gotten in

and done something.

I would have thought the world did something

and they weren't able to stop it.

The story was so bizarre, especially coming

from members of the Baylor basketball team.

Anybody that's played sports knows that when your teammates

become your family and this is an even stronger bond

because they're living under one roof.

Nothing was adding up.

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[Abar] Coach Bliss had come over to my office and told me

that the police officer wanted to speak to me and that I needed

to head over to his office.

I meet Bob Fuller, the detective, and he tells me

that he's the guy investigating Patrick's disappearance.

And I immediately ask Coach and the detective,

"Do I need a lawyer?"

And Coach replies to me, "Not if you didn't do anything wrong."

Essentially, what I was asked by Bob Fuller on that day was,

"Was I distributing drugs via the team?"

That was a very frightening question to me.

Am I distributing drugs through our team?

I'd been there for 12 days.

All of that is very shocking to me and it comes out of

left field and a few days later, there is another question.

And that question is,

"Did I threaten Patrick or did I threaten Carlton?"

And, "Would I take a lie detector test,

attesting to those things?"

[Fuller] I was very pleased with the outcome.

The polygraph test would just eliminate him of any wrongdoing

whatsoever.

And I have no doubt in my mind, those accusations against

the selling of drugs to the basketball player

is totally a farce.

[Robbins] I wrote a story about a small junior college

in Texas almost a year earlier and I'd interviewed many

ex-coaches and Abar was one of them and he said he was

about to go back to work in Waco at McLennan Community College

and months later, when Patrick went missing and Dotson

was considered a person of interest and I was put

on the story with some of my colleagues,

I thought about Abar.

I thought maybe he knew these guys, maybe he knew something

because I didn't know who these players were,

maybe he knew something.

So, I called him up and the first words out of his mouth

were, "Do you know where I work now?"

And I said, "No, I don't."

He says, "I'm at Baylor."

And one of the first things I did when I got to Waco

was meet with Abar in the parking lot at

McLennan Community College and right away,

I could see he was scared, distracted,

things were going on with him and that was in mid-June.

And this was his dream job.

He went to Baylor.

Suddenly, he's now on the coaching staff at Baylor,

the school he loved and look what's going on.

And early on, you could tell he felt there was some

manipulation of the facts that wasn't on the up and up

and he was concerned about it.

[Dan Rather] Baylor University in Waco, Texas is coping with

having to defend the reputation of its basketball program

and rightly or wrongly, in some ways, the university itself.

I'm looking for Patrick.

I'm looking for every possible avenue.

I just felt that we needed more authorities involved

in Patrick's investigation and that's the point where I took

the initiative to self-report my own NCAA violations

and also report Patrick's because as I understood,

the NCAA worked with the FBI when necessary.

I told the NCAA that

I had received money...

on several occasions.

And that Patrick had received money and he had received a car.

The first time that I hear that coaches are paying

Patrick Dennehy is through media reports and on the news.

The rule violations reportedly include payments to players.

[reporter] And that Dennehy bought this SUV with cash,

that Baylor paid its players under the table.

I remember being asked

if I was paying Patrick's tuition.

And I said, "No, he's on scholarship."

You have the question of how did Patrick pay,

you know, the $30-40,000 tuition to go to...

and fees to go to Baylor when he couldn't have been.

There were so many questions flying around

and I never dreamed that Patrick wasn't on scholarship.

He's a 6'9" future NBA player.

Of course, he's on scholarship, but he wasn't.

He wasn't on a scholarship.

So, all of a sudden, the university as a whole

has a real big problem on their hands.

[Charles Gibson] We're going to turn next to Dr. Robert Sloan.

He's the President of Baylor.

There have been questions about whether money was being paid

under the table to Patrick Dennehy,

who was not on scholarship and had bought an SUV

and had living expenses to take care of, etc.

Has the school looked into that?

You know, there is nothing in Coach Bliss'

distinguished record to support those kinds of allegations,

but on the other hand, we take allegations of this sort

very seriously.

I remember when Bliss was hired

and I remember thinking to myself,

"Okay, Dave's back in Texas where he was before at SMU

and I wonder when all that SMU stuff is going to

come up and bite him in the ass."

[reporter] The sanctions levied against SMU

go beyond the one-year death penalty.

The NCAA has tacked on another two years

to its current probationary period.

SMU will be on probation until September 1st of 1990.

[Robbins] Football had an elaborate program in which

the coaches took money raised by nine boosters,

tens of thousands of dollars given to recruits

when they signed with essentially a stipend,

a contract that paid them X amount a month.

They were caught in 1985, lost every scholarship one year,

couldn't go to bowl games

and Governor Clemmons and others swore they wouldn't do it again.

d low dramatic music d

Well, they did.

They kept paying the players that were on the quote, payroll,

and that's how they got the death penalty.

SMU wanted to find out, really,

how much damage had been done,

so they hired Southwest Security and Investigations to go in

and investigate this and I was the guy that did it.

[Robbins] They went to the best player Dave ever recruited,

John Koncak, and the private investigator, Denny Kelly,

went to John Koncak and John Koncak told him.

[Kelly] He told me that after his freshman year at SMU,

that everybody on the basketball team was getting paid.

And he said they would brag about it and he said,

"I wasn't getting paid."

And he said, "I went to Dave Bliss.

And I said, 'Dave, I want to get paid like everybody else.'"

And he says, "Within two days, I had a Ford Mustang,

brand new," and he said,

"I moved into a really, really nice apartment."

One day I just stopped by Dave Bliss' office and I went in

and I said, "Dave," I said, "I'm getting all these stories.

You sure you don't want to..." you know.

And he just, he got really upset with me.

He said, "I told you everything I have to tell you

and that's the way it is and if anybody's telling you different,

they're lying."

And all this kind of...

He didn't throw me out, but he, he did everything

but throw me out of his office.

You know, the period about SMU, that's hard for

me to know too much because I never did anything.

[Robbins] The NCAA did some of their own investigating.

They had plenty of information.

They just felt, what else are we going to do to SMU after

they got the death penalty,

so they kind of put it on the back burner.

And Bliss went off to New Mexico with a quote,

clean record, that nobody knew the real story.

I have no question and no doubt in my mind,

from what I heard, what I saw, what people told me,

that Dave Bliss was fully aware

of the players getting paid in various ways:

cash, cars, apartments, that kind of thing.

d low dramatic music d

I received a phone call from the

Dorchester County Sheriff's Office, who indicated to me

that Carlton Dotson wanted to make a statement

and wanted an FBI agent present.

And frankly, at the time, I think my first question

to Captain Hurley was, "Who's Carlton Dotson and why does

he want to talk to the FBI?"

My understanding is that at that point, an attorney, his attorney

had sent notifications out to different media outlets

that Carlton Dotson was going to make a statement.

I was thinking, do we have some sort of publicity stunt taking

place here or what exactly are the circumstances?

[Carlton laughs on recording]

[Carlton laughs on recording]

[reporter] Dotson left the Sheriff's Office in this

burgundy vehicle without talking to reporters.

He was picked up by his former high school coach.

I was very concerned about his mental health at that time.

I tried not to ask a lot of questions, I just wanted

to talk to him and just make him know that I was there for him.

He was talking about seeing angels.

Um, he was crying some.

He didn't eat and he didn't sleep

and we were very concerned.

Talked about Jesus, talking about the devil.

He would see... he would see witches.

He'd say he was Jesus Christ and you know that's impossible.

He said he had to protect us because if he would talk,

something would happen to us.

He wanted to protect his family.

You know, he had said that he saw me in heaven

and don't worry, you know, about myself, that I was going to-

I was going there.

I was going to make it there because he saw me there.

He was always cleaning,

just sweep, sweep, sweep.

He would sweep the floor over and over and over.

He said, "Heaven is not dirty.

I've got to keep this floor clean."

For the past week or two,

Carlton's family's been very concerned

about his state of mind, his mental condition.

It's my understanding that he was going from room to room in

the house reading Bible verses.

In my recollection of any conversation that I had

with Carlton, without waiving any privilege,

it's never been about criminality.

It's been more about his mental state.

It was obvious that he had issues.

I told Carlton that if there was something that

was going on, that he needed to get off of his chest,

that he needed to take care of that.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

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I get a call from my supervisor, who advised that

he needed me to respond to the hospital up in

Chestertown, Maryland because Carlton Dotson was there

and he wanted to talk to the FBI.

We made arrangements to speak with him at a hotel.

It was probably 30 minutes, 45 minutes,

until we started getting into a lot of the good details

that we needed.

[Sponaugle] It was just like, he was sitting there

telling us a story.

[Spotts] Mr. Dennehy asked Carlton if he wanted to go

shooting, so they drove and left in Mr. Dennehy's black Tahoe

and drove to the place where they were going to shoot.

Carlton had a 9 millimeter that Mr. Dennehy gave him,

Mr. Dennehy had a .32 caliber.

[Sponaugle] And upon reaching this clearing,

Dotson claims that Patrick Dennehy faced him,

pointed the .32 caliber handgun at him, pulled the trigger,

but it didn't go off.

There was a misfire.

[Spotts] He tried to reload, two rounds fell out

of the chamber...

[Sponaugle] At which point Dotson claims,

he made the statement, "Father, please forgive me,"

Pulled the trigger and shot Mr. Dennehy once in the head.

He left in Mr. Dennehy's black Tahoe and drove back to the

apartment, changed clothes...

[Sponaugle] threw those in a dumpster...

[Spotts] drove to Dallas.

And on his way to Dallas, he threw the gun,

the 9 millimeter that he used to shoot Mr. Dennehy,

he threw it in the lake and continued to drive.

[Sponaugle] He drove to Hurlock, Maryland.

[Spotts] His uncle helped him hide the car...

[Sponaugle] after they had taken the tags off of it

and thrown them in a wooded area

somewhere between Hurlock and Federalsburg.

They get the vehicle down there, they wipe it clean.

[Spotts] They drove Mr. Dennehy's truck to

Virginia Beach and left it there and returned home.

[Sponaugle] All he would talk about was, I was scared

and I didn't know what to do.

So, he's finally telling us this on July 21st, so several days,

weeks had gone by.

When it was over, he definitely seemed to relax

and it's not uncommon in this job, when someone confesses

to you about something they have done,

that they have a big sigh of relief.

They just need to get it off their chest.

They need to tell someone.

He did lay down in the bed after he confessed.

[Spotts] He didn't want it to happen, but as far as, you know,

after going through the details and reliving those details,

he showed no emotion.

[Sponaugle] One of the most important parts of that

interview was to find Mr. Dennehy's body

or find out where it was, you know, to bring some closure

to the family.

We provided maps of Texas to Carlton, who would look at it.

[Spotts] He turned it two or three different ways

and he said, "Well, this is kind of hard to tell."

There's no landmarks or things like that, but he did eventually

focus on an area where he felt the body would be.

[Sponaugle] A warrant was obtained for Carlton Dotson

and he was arrested.

[reporter] Dennehy's roommate and former teammate,

Carlton Dotson, was charged with murder last night.

He faces a bail hearing later this morning.

[Thomas] I ended up going up there and take a polygraph test

with the FBI and sure enough, after, I leave out...

I'm walking out of there from doing the polygraph test

with them, which I passed with flying colors too,

the Sheriff, he comes to me and says,

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Thomas.

Did you hear the good news?"

I'm like, "What news," I'm like,

"What kind of news is good right now?"

Carlton Dotson just turned himself in, in Maryland.

He confessed to the murder.

After the arrest is done, then my office was involved.

We had no proof, other than Carlton's word,

that there was a murder.

He claimed to have shot and killed Patrick Dennehy,

but he did it in self-defense.

Under Texas law, you cannot convict someone on the

uncorroborated confession alone.

People make confessions all the time, especially those who are

suffering from mental illness,

they make false confessions

or they make confessions which in their mind are true

that never occurred because they're psychotic.

During the search for Mr. Dennehy, we had a

tremendous amount of officers that were involved.

[Fuller] All these entities in or around Waco,

they jumped out there to help us search.

[Segrest] Time was running.

When I indict a case, I'm telling the judge

and I'm telling everybody else that it's my opinion

under the law and under the facts that I have,

this man is guilty of murder,

which is a serious allegation.

I didn't have enough proof to take it to court

and I was not about to do so.

[Fuller] So, I had a talk with the DA and he reiterated,

you know, that we don't have a body, you know,

what are we going to do?

You know, how do you want me to proceed with this?

Produce the body.

d low dramatic music d

[Fuller] I went to the area, out on FM 3400.

I knew that they had searched.

And I just went out there snooping around.

And I noticed that there was a little track where you could

drive into the ditch and follow this little dirt road around.

[door closes]

Then I got out of the car, you know, at one point

and just started walking, looking around.

And then, that's when I started getting the whiff of decomp.

There was a box of ammo there in the weeds.

The grass had already grown up and if you really weren't

just looking, you know, you might have missed it.

So, we decided, this is in the county.

We're not going to mess with any crime scene, disturb anything.

Let's notify the county and we'll need to get together

and search this area, you know, very heavily the next day.

And I contacted Clay Perry and told him where we were.

[Perry] I found the location he was talking about

and picked up a foul odor, followed the scent carefully,

20, 30 yards maybe, off the road.

It was Mr. Dennehy.

d low dramatic music d

I just felt like I needed to say a prayer, so I did.

I did.

I just prayed for healing and comfort for the family

and him to go to heaven.

[crying]

I had to tell Valorie and Wynn, that they had

found a body.

I thought Patrick would still be alive, that we still

could have a chance that that he would have been found somewhere.

[crying]

All of us, we just broke down.

[Perry] Due to the sun baking the skin, the color of the skin

was like a chameleon, it just blended in

with the terrain out there.

So, it had been very hard to see.

[Fuller] He definitely was in latter stages of decomposition

and there wasn't a whole lot of him, actually left.

[Brian] They were able to match his dental records

and that was how Patrick ended.

[crying]

His life ended.

[crying]

[Stanton] Everyone associated with the Baylor basketball

program and our university is grieving.

We all share in the family's agony over these past

several weeks and the horror.

His friend has been charged with murder.

I can tell you that Coach Bliss feels a deep sense of sorrow

and despair that something so unreasonable may have happened.

Here at Baylor University, a committee is now looking

into allegations the school may have given Patrick Dennehy money

that was in violation of NCAA rules.

Today, the questions aren't about Pat

and they aren't about Dotson,

they're about me, my coaches and our basketball program.

Ah, there's been allegations that we haven't followed

the rules.

We follow the rules, however difficult they may be

for 30 years.

But, I believe that the Board of Inquiry will again,

find that a lot of the things that have been mentioned

and reported are in fact, not quite as they have

been portrayed.

This is an internal Baylor committee

and the people on the committee work for Baylor,

Underwood being a primary one.

Our committee's responsibility is limited to issues

concerning compliance with NCAA regulations.

I believe that the appointment of this investigative committee

is as a result of reports in the media, yes.

This investigation occurs independent of the

athletic department, for obvious reasons.

[reporter]

Yes, our committee answers and reports

to the president of the university.

Coach Bliss tells me that he meets with the

Baylor Internal Investigation Committee on a daily basis.

[Sayman] I was at the Ferrell Center and Coach Bliss

was walking down towards me and I said, "Coach, I'm sorry that

you're going through all the things that you are."

And he said, "Ah, thanks, Matt" and he took me into his office.

And I remember going in there thinking he's going to explain

everything to me and we're going to walk out of here

and we're going to be good.

And he started to tell me about this story of why,

of how Patrick was paying for school and how he had gone

into their apartment and found drugs and rolled up money.

And how all these things, none of it was his fault.

At some point, Coach had just come back from

meeting with the lawyers and he seemed very flustered.

It was just the four coaches in the coach's locker room

and I remember Coach saying, "If somebody would just

say that they paid Dennehy's tuition I'd buy him

a Cadillac, shit, I'd buy them four Cadillacs."

And he kind of starts telling the story about maybe Pat being

a dealer and I remember telling him, we can't operate like that

and that's when, he was like,

"Well, do you want to get fired?"

And I said, "No, I do not."

Abar was balking at him.

Abar was fearful and honestly wasn't compliant.

[Abar] I remember coming back to my office and I found a

copy of his contract on my desk with the portion highlighted

that he had the authority to hire and fire the assistants.

And at that point, I understood

what a reality this was becoming.

He's backed into the ultimate corner.

We're talking about a murder;

we're talking about a young man who's dead.

We're talking about family, grieving, very publicly upset

and now this bizarre cover-up that he's being asked

to participate in.

He didn't want to do it and he knows that if he says anything

about it, it will be his word against Bliss' and a powerful,

well-respected head coach.

[Abar] This could seriously alter the murder investigation

to a crime.

This was going to result in everybody being put on a

witness stand under oath and being asked these questions.

And once that happens, once this begins, those lies,

because the trial is so far off, will be truth by the time

that we get to trial.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't kind of motivated

in a fashion, by that, to do what I did.

I went and I picked up a $25 recorder and I actually

wired myself up.

I put the mini-cassette in my beltline and then I took the mic

and I ran it up through my shirt to the side of my pants,

close to my arm.

So, you really couldn't tell if I pulled my shirt out a little

bit from my belt, you really couldn't tell that the

mic was there.

And then I would check myself in the mirror to see if the mic

was concealed, or it doesn't look that weird and when

I felt like it was good and in place, I left the house.

d low dramatic music d

The first day I recorded with Coach Bliss,

Coach Bliss is at the board.

He writes, "reasonable doubt."

[Bliss] [on recording] Reasonable doubt is...

[Abar] And he underlines it.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

Nobody can say that we paid his tuition

because he's dead.

Okay, so you guys paid his tuition.

I remember sitting there, getting upset, ah,

but wanting to make sure I maintained my composure.

I remember getting nervous because I realized

the damning things that he was saying are now recorded.

Coach Bliss wanted R.T. Guinn, Ellis Kidd and Harvey Thomas

to tell stories about Patrick.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

I mean, he's dead serious.

And you're sitting there and it's hard not to laugh

sometimes about it.

And when I tell you I have mixed emotions, it's like,

because some of it is like so absurd, it's hilarious.

It's like, okay.

And then, at other times you start thinking about

how chilling it all is...

and sad and...

you know, Patrick's body had just been found.

I asked him, you know, well do you think that Harvey is going

to go along with this plan?

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

Harvey Thomas was one of the key elements of the story

from the very beginning because who was this guy?

Was he threatening them?

No, this guy's fine.

He's a good guy.

There are no threats.

This is a red herring you're chasing.

So, when you finally hear the tapes, Bliss is saying,

Harvey will lie.

He'll... you know, he'll lie when it doesn't even matter

because we lied for him.

We stood up for Harvey.

We did it for Harvey, so Harvey will do anything for us,

including lie for us.

Because we did it for him, we lied for him.

That's what he's saying.

And at that point, you don't know who killed who.

d low dramatic music d

We're sitting in the locker room with Ellis Kidd.

Coach is beginning to tell Ellis the story about the drugs.

He's telling him, "I've already got this information.

I'm just looking for confirmation from you that

this information is accurate."

Now, that is a lie.

There are no witnesses saying there's wads of cash.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

We listened to the tape before, the other tape where

you say we're going to invent wads of cash,

but he is now attributing his lie to other witnesses.

That's calculation.

I think when the lights are off and the doors are closed,

God knows what some of these coaches are saying.

This was the ultimate, lights are off, doors closed

and we are plotting to not just cover up NCAA rules violations,

but besmirch the name of a young man whose body

has just been found in a field outside of Waco.

[recording playback]

There was never one person that said they actually

saw Patrick selling drugs.

There were people who said...

they were saying he smoked marijuana,

but selling drugs, no.

As far as things went with inside the apartment

with drugs and whatnot, I never saw any evidence to suggest

that Patrick was selling drugs.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

I don't take sides.

I gather the facts and present them to the DA's office,

who presents these facts to the court.

I was never on his side.

When Coach Bliss says that the police are on our side

and the athletic director's on our side

and the head of the Investigative Committee

is on our side,

the kids were definitely going to believe Coach Bliss.

When I approached Ellis Kidd, I made it clear to him that

he did not need to do this.

He did not need to participate in this plan.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

d low dramatic music d

[Abar] I remember Coach Bliss demanding a meeting with

R.T. and Ellis together to practice their story

in the locker room.

Both of them know what the story is.

They both know it's a lie.

They both know what Coach is asking them to do

and at this point, they are trying to please him.

And Coach says something like, "Was there cocaine there?"

[recording playback]

And Coach kind of picks up on this and runs with it

because he pulls out a tape recorder.

Now, I'm tape recording this conversation.

He pulls out a tape recorder and gives it to them.

And I think he handed it to me, where he gave it to me and said,

"Have them practice their stories" or something like that.

And I am just sitting there like, shocked.

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[recording playback]

[Robbins] What else was that, other than telling the sheriff,

they're telling law enforcement a bullshit story that would

throw them off the track and to me I mean, that-that fell

into the category of trying to subvert the

investigation of a crime.

[Abar] R.T. Guinn repeated the story to Mr. Underwood

that Coach Bliss had told him

and made him practice down in the locker room.

I know that for certain because he confirmed that to me.

I don't have full confirmation that he repeated it to the

sheriff, which was Coach Bliss' intentions all along,

but I'm pretty certain that he did.

d low dramatic music d

I was called into the investigative chambers

over at the law school.

Professor Underwood asked if he could look at my bank statements

because he had reason to believe that I may have

paid for the tuition.

And I knew I was caught at that time.

And so, I asked the other members of the committee to

leave the room because Professor Underwood was a

good friend of mine and I wanted to talk to him

and apologize to him in private.

Uh... I have resigned

Baylor University, effective immediately.

Um...

Today, I was made aware of some situations within our program

after meeting with the Inquiry Committee,

that rules were broken and I intend to cooperate fully

as the inquiry continues.

Uh, I'll do what I can to make things right.

Thank you.

[Bliss] What you go through when you have in front of you,

not only having paid for the scholarship,

which is an NCAA crime.

But then you have a violation of the code of life,

where you are willing to lie to the people that you

love the most and lie to the people that have trusted you

and lie to the parents of people that you have said

you'll look after their son.

I had allowed the world of competitive athletics to just

take me to a place that was so dark and devious that I just,

I just tried to wake up from the nightmare,

but it just wasn't to be.

I can't speak for everybody, but I don't think any of us

are the people that we sometimes think we are.

When Bliss resigned,

that's when I heard about the tapes.

We had a three-way phone conversation with

Abar's attorney at the time, LaNelle McNamara

and he had given them to Ms. McNamara and she, I think

had turned them into cassettes and had given them

to someone else within the Baylor community

for some sort of safekeeping

and that they were going to go to the NCAA.

When the NCAA gets them, you will get them.

So, I went down to Waco the Thursday night before

and went to her house and she gave me the cassette tape.

Several.

Two, I think, with these taped conversations on them.

And the meeting with the NCAA was going to be the next day

and here you go, listen to them, but I need them back

in the morning for the meeting.

I started to listen and I started to take a few notes

and then I started to transcribe them.

I got lost in it and I just kept going and going.

And the next thing I knew, I looked up and it was dawn

and I thought maybe this is what it was like, for the first time,

to hear Nixon talking to Haldeman because it was just

so unvarnished and so raw.

I'll never forget, I talked to Abar that morning

for maybe 15 minutes.

Why did you do this?

And did Harvey- did Bliss really say what I think he said

about Harvey Thomas?

And the last thing he said to me as he walked out the door,

he said, "Well here goes my career," something like that.

And I said, "Man, I sure hope not.

I hope they get this."

[reporter] The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports

obtaining secretly recorded conversations of

Coach Dave Bliss engineering a cover-up.

Baylor University officials are expressing outrage

over revelations that their former basketball coach,

told players to lie in the Patrick Dennehy investigation.

The toughest morning that I went through,

I believe was the day after the tapes came out.

Because the tapes is when, you know,

it's over for him, you know, there's no more hiding.

I can't tell you what a stunning revelation

that is and how--

I mean, how it just feels like a knife

stabbing straight through your heart.

If I ever meet him in public,

I don't care how old he is,

I don't care how weak I am,

I'm going to knock his teeth in.

They thought he paid for his scholarship

by selling drugs because, you know, this is off camera,

but he was selling drugs.

He sold to all the white guys on campus.

[Kondelis]

Oh, yeah.

I mean you don't think, yeah, he was the worst.

[Kondelis]

I know, but I'm telling you, but I mean, that's why...

but, you'll never be able to use this.

[Kondelis]

Because they were so busy hanging me.

[Kondelis]

They knew all that stuff.

That's why they never, the police never went after me

with a felony or a misdemeanor or anything.

He was rampant and all the players knew it.

What they would do...

[Kondelis]

I know, but that's because of the moment.

These guys would come to his door...

[knocks]

They'd knock on his door and everybody's in

playing video games.

And Patrick would take them in the back room, sell the stuff,

come walking out, get back into video games.

And so, that's why the next day when it says Coach Bliss

went after and talked to the players because I wanted the

players to go and tell the police what they've

been telling me.

But, it's never going to reach the light of day.

[Kondelis]

[Bliss] Well, this-- the reason I came up with it

is because now Underwood, Underwood-- he was chasing it.

And so, when I heard he was chasing it, I just dovetailed

my excuse right in with his.

In fact, there is an article...

[Kondelis]

[Bliss] I jumped on that bandwagon.

And I don't mind saying that.

[Kondelis]

[Bliss] Uh, but, the reason I jumped on it and I wanted

the players to come in and that's when I told them

about the talking points.

Because I said, you guys just tell these investigators

what you know because again, this isn't right

and I'm bad for doing it, but if they'll just say what

they've been telling me all the time,

I might escape and at that time,

I'm not thinking clearly at all.

I'm just trying to, you know, grovel for high ground,

you know, from drowning.

[Kondelis] Well, let me ask you this, then...

[Bliss] You know, and I- I apologize for--

I just can't go there.

I ended up settling with the Dennehy family and I--

because they made a civil suit against me and it's not for

a lot of money or anything like that.

But, I just, it was easier to make it go away.

[Kondelis]

[Bliss] Um, but because, I mean, I didn't do anything.

I said bad things about their kid, but...

But, you know, unfortunately, the parents also knew

that he was a drug- druggie.

So, I mean...

[Kondelis]

[Bliss] What I did is, I got in the mud with the pigs,

you know, and I- and I paid a price and the pigs liked it.

[laughs]

d low dramatic music d

[Irvin] My representation of Carlton ended when he was

brought back to Texas.

[Segrest] He waived extradition and agreed to come back,

so that was no problem.

He was appointed lawyers.

He had no money to hire his own lawyers.

Generally, it's unusual to have two defense lawyers appointed

in just a murder case, two in a capital case is required,

but Judge Allen appointed Russ Hunt and Abel Reyna,

his defense lawyers.

They were going to make a very, very formidable adversary

in the courtroom.

It was going to be something you would want to see

on television.

So, they asked, and the judge granted, a motion to have

him examined for competency to stand trial.

He was evaluated and then he was committed to the state hospital

until he regained competence.

In almost any jurisdiction, you try to have three people

to evaluate the competency of that individual.

You want three because 2-to-1,

there's not going to be any ties,

but when you have three doctors, like in Carlton's case.

Three highly educated, well-trained individuals

that make a determination that there is evidence of psychosis,

of severe impairment, that this person is not competent.

It just doesn't get any better than that.

You number one, start focusing on a defense of insanity.

At some point in time, we find out that a doctor makes a

determination that Carlton is competent to stand trial.

[Segrest] They said that Carlton has a psychosis, NOS,

not otherwise specified, that he did have a mental disease.

Yeah, you deemed my client competent to go forward

and proceed to trial, but by the way,

I want you to take all those psychotropic medications.

I want you to stay on the meds.

I want you to stay on the meds that are affecting your brain.

We became convinced that Carlton was certainly

guilty of the murder and some of his self-defense claims

weren't corroborated by the physical evidence

that came along later.

So, what actually happened out here was

Patrick was shooting away

and Carlton was behind him and Carlton shot him in the back

and the bullet came out the front.

The second one was here to here,

so he shot him while he was on the ground.

[muffled gun shot]

I have no doubt in that and the evidence pretty much shows that.

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[Segrest] I was convinced that we had enough

evidence to convict.

After Carlton regained competence and Reyna

and Mr. Hunt tried to convince me that it would be in the

best interest of everyone... and this may be where I

have a memory of people playing the Baylor card.

And it may have come from them, both Abel went to Baylor

and Russ, I think went to Baylor law school, that they wanted

to plead it and they were willing to plead for 30 years.

"This is making Baylor look bad.

This is making Baylor look bad.

Can't we just plead it, get it over with."

In Texas law, 60 years is equivalent to a life sentence.

He's wanting to plead guilty and if he's not insane

at the time and if he was not acting in self-defense,

then I think he needs closer to the 60 years

and they wanted to split the difference half...

you know, give him half a sentence, so to speak

and I thought that was not just under those circumstances.

Whatever Baylor's mess, they made it, was not going to be my

problem and that-that-that offer was ultimately rejected.

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Somewhere in the push to go to trial, I was approached

by one or both the defense lawyers and they

threw a question at me:

"What if he pleads guilty, open to the court

and lets the judge assess his punishment?"

There was no deal with the prosecutor's office

for a sentence for Carlton Dotson.

That was never there.

It kind of came as a surprise to me, their willingness,

I-I basically questioned their veracity at that point,

whether they were talking true to me

or if they were just pulling my leg and they assured me

that they were willing to do it.

The judge that initially was going to hear the case,

had gone on vacation.

And a juvenile court judge was going to fill in for his cases.

I think he's a Baylor-Baylor- Baylor grad too.

That's when Carlton decided to--

or his lawyers decided for him to plead guilty.

The change of plea took only maybe ten minutes,

at most.

Carlton Dotson was never even placed under oath.

The first thing that is addressed is the

competency of the individual.

Everyone was asked about his competency except him.

He is the most important person, that we need to make sure

is competent on that day, at that hour, at that minute,

at that second.

Why, in this case, did the judge not ask him if he was competent?

Why did he not inquire of his mental health history?

Why did he not ask him if he was on any psychotropic

medications at the day that he was giving his change of plea?

Why not ask him whether or not he felt okay that day?

Is it affecting his ability to understand and comprehend

what's going on?

The State is required to read a factual allegation

against Carlton Dotson.

They must do that.

The judge asked that that initially be done in this case,

at the change of plea proceeding.

The lawyers for Carlton Dotson said, no, we waive that reading.

So, he plead guilty and judge accepted his plea.

[Irvin] A pre-sentence investigation report

was ordered by the judge.

He said, "I want it back in a week.

You're going to be sentenced next week."

This was out of the ordinary.

Is it-is it adequate?

The judge thought it was.

[Kondelis]

I was...

Yeah, I would say I was surprised.

I've seen the Probation Department take six weeks

to do a pre sentence report on it-- on shoplifting.

I was really shocked at the way things evolved.

I hadn't seen it done this way before.

This case had so much going on and the sentencing

is probably five pages long,

which probably took all of four minutes...

to have the whole proceeding.

[Segrest] Judge Strother came back and assessed

a 35-year prison sentence for murder.

I was a little befuddled.

I was a little flummoxed, by the sentence.

I thought really it should be higher.

[Kondelis]

Yeah. Well, yeah.

Again, you can make of it what you want.

[Abel Reyna] We really felt that Judge Strother would be fair.

We really felt that he would consider everything.

I have nothing but praise for Judge Strother.

He did what he felt like was fair.

[Irvin] I find no comfort in the outcome and apparently,

Carlton found no comfort in the outcome because within

a matter of days of saying he wouldn't appeal, he appealed.

He seeks an appeal.

He seeks an appeal.

Maybe that's the day that he's thinking clearly.

And he persisted in an appeal for years,

only to be rejected at every turn.

Ineffective assistance of counsel, is a legal term

which a person who is being represented

is complaining about the level of representation

that they received.

Carlton has given up his right to appeal, so he doesn't have

the benefit of legal counsel.

It's hard for him to complain as a layperson, so he's boxed in.

He can't even get a lawyer appointed by the State of Texas,

to represent him in making such a claim

because he gave up that right.

I think anyone on the outside looking in, has to say,

"Oh my gosh, he gave up everything.

He gave up everything."

He's not only being put away, he is essentially being shut up.

[Perry] I would have loved to have seen him get life,

but our court system is our court system and the mere fact

that he is convicted as a convicted murderer

and he is going to serve time in prison beats the heck out of a

long trial and a not guilty because one juror isn't sure.

[Segrest] We didn't hear what people's version

of the truth was.

It doesn't necessarily obscure the truth.

The truth is still there somewhere.

[Irvin] People forget courts are designed for public viewing

so we will know that our system of justice is fair.

That's what they're designed for.

The public got none of that.

What the public got in this case was a result that

seemed to be... let me be careful how I say it...

that some would be happy with.

Alumni, boosters, anyone associated with those programs.

And people who did not want to see their beloved university

or their beloved program hurt.

[Segrest] The risks of going to trial and have all this

brought out and Lord knows what the Baylor part

would have played into.

Would we have gone off on a tangent on that?

Would that have become a sideshow in the trial?

Would we have lost focus on guilt, innocence,

on proper punishment?

Would it have been Baylor on trial?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that we could have kept it from that.

I have to believe that everyone does what they're supposed to do

in good faith and I have to believe

that that's what occurred in this case.

No one knows why this happened.

You know, I wish I did.

I wish I knew a motive.

We never really knew what surrounded the

greater picture, why Carlton would shoot Patrick.

[Dotson's grandmother]

...because he keeps saying "we".

When they first told me that they thought

Carlton killed Patrick, I was completely shocked.

I thought they were truly best friends.

I always assumed it was Harvey, just because of all the beef

and all the paranoia and all the anxiety.

I mean, it was horrible.

I mean, Patrick was miserable.

He feared for his life.

[Okopnyi] Carlton may have pulled the trigger,

but there may have been other forces at work.

I still believe that Harvey knows more

about what went on than he's letting on.

If Patrick and Carlton hadn't felt threatened

in the first place, the guns wouldn't have been there.

Had the guns not been involved, we wouldn't be missing

a Baylor basketball player right now.

He would still be around, he'd probably be in the

NBA right now, in fact.

I never had any altercations.

Like I said, the time I spent with those guys was short.

I mean, I was only there maybe a week, a week and a half

before the whole thing happened.

So, I don't... I don't know why.

[Kondelis]

No, never.

[Kondelis]

No, far from it, far from it.

[Kondelis]

I'm not sure.

That's a question I want to know too.

I want to know the answer to that too.

[Fuller] At one particular point in the investigation,

I got a call from an employee at the Greyhound Bus station

and he asked if I would come by and speak with him,

that he had found something and he didn't know if it would

be part of my investigation.

I found that he had a manila folder.

It had photographs in it of Baylor basketball players.

Through my investigation, it was revealed that Harvey Thomas'

cousin, Larry Johnson had ridden the Greyhound bus

back to his home in Virginia.

[Abar] Prior to Patrick being found, the coaching staff

gave me the money to purchase a ticket and then I dropped

Larry off at the bus station.

I become concerned about why Larry was asked to leave town

so quickly and why I was tasked

with putting him on a bus.

I prayed that it wasn't because he had done something.

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[Kondelis]

Yeah, I-I never, uh, never heard of anything.

Unt-, uh, uh, b-b...

There was some talk after the fact of two of our players

being threatened, but again, this was in the late spring,

I think early summer and I never heard anything of the sort.

Now, again, a lot of things surfaced after the fact, uh,

but this was never brought to our attention before that.

[Kondelis]

That was after the fact.

[Kondelis]

Yeah, after everything.

[Kondelis]

[Kondelis]

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And again, it's all after the fact.

Uh, I don't know how you...

[Kondelis]

Um, you know, uh...

[Kondelis]

Yeah, but I'm not sure what, uh, what it has to do with anything.

[Kondelis]

Um, okay.

Well, I-I mean, I'll clarify it, but a-a-again,

it didn't have anything to do with-with my situation.

Um, uh, along about the, uh, early part of June,

I had heard from some of the players and they had

talked about, uh, being threatened

by one of our new incoming players.

And so, I did what any coach would do.

I tried to talk to them and ask, you know, the-the, uh,

the truthfulness of it and, uh-uh, again, I thought it was,

a lot of times, it's just basketball players

playing basketball and there wasn't anything that seemed

to bear any need to go any further with it.

And then, you know, Larry took off, so...

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[phone ringing]

[Larry Johnson] [on phone] Yeah?

[Kondelis] [on phone] Hi, is this Larry?

[Johnson] Yeah.

[Kondelis] Hey, Larry, this is Pat Kondelis.

I got your number from your...

[dial tone]

[Robbins] You know, to call it a college sports scandal is...

is to minimize it.

An innocent person lost their life.

[Announcer] Coach Bliss has over 500 victories as

a head coach from the NCAA schools, but more importantly,

carries a title now as a Christian coach,

Coach Dave Bliss.

[Bliss] Thirteen years ago, I committed several NCAA

violations, including paying the scholarships

of two of our players.

And unfortunately, a month later, one of the individuals

who was involved in my payment was murdered and my life

spun out of control.

I didn't miss the fame.

I didn't miss being on TV.

What I missed was being called Coach.

[chokes up]

Dave Bliss may be talking in this room this morning,

but if God is speaking to you in this room, don't wait.

Accept His son, read His word, claim His promises

and trust the cross.

I'm grateful to have the opportunity to share

with you all this morning.

Thank you.

[reporter] Many thought Bliss would never return to the

college game after scandalous behavior cost him everything

at Baylor.

[reporter] Southwest Christian University, near Oklahoma City,

has hired Bliss to coach its basketball team.

I'm a deeply, deeply religious man.

I think God already gave Coach Bliss a second chance.

I'm not higher than God.

So, I think it would be arrogant for anybody to say that,

but it sounds interesting when people say, oh,

he's getting a second chance or he's getting a third chance.

No, I went after the most qualified.

Dave has a changed heart

and has definitely changed his life.

And of course, we want to have a successful basketball program.

The bigger the mistake, the bigger the lesson learned

and when I have a man who has learned a big lesson,

I want him on my campus.

I think people, you know, know that rules violations

are rampant.

Just about every coach is breaking them in some

form or fashion.

This was just beyond the pale.

What's happened to Abar in the immediate aftermath

and since then is a horrible indictment on that industry.

If one of my assistants would tape every one

of our conversations with me not knowing it,

there's no way he would be on my staff.

What I would think should have happened is Abar Rouse got up,

really stood up to Dave and said,

"There's no way we can do this."

Here's the one guy who did the right thing in the situation at

Baylor and he can't get a job, with 327 Division 1 programs,

does that strike you as patently unfair?

He didn't do the right thing.

The right thing would have been to stand up in the meeting

and tell the head coach, "I'm not going for this.

This is not going to happen."

Well, except then Dave Bliss could have denied it,

and he had it taped.

[Robbins] This truly is a den of thieves.

The fact that Dave Bliss is coaching and Abar Rouse isn't,

is just flat out wrong, in my view.

[Abar] I'm a teacher in a federal prison now.

And I love it.

I love what I do.

I'm proud of what I do.

If I was coaching, could I say the same thing?

Coach Bliss has said that he is sorry and he deserves

a second chance and has asked for redemption.

I can't buy into it.

I can't believe and it's not because I don't believe in

redemption or second chances.

It's because I work with criminals on a constant basis.

I know what fake redemption looks like

and what real redemption looks like.

The guy's a marketing genius.

He's got a book coming out.

He just got a job and he's got two or three friends

that he's known for his whole life who are in his camp.

He is who he's going to be and that's what it is.

What really sucks is that for the world to see what kind of

person that guy is, that somebody had to die.

We got his stuff from his apartment.

He had a cell phone there.

A cell phone that had this recording of his voice.

I played that over and over and over.

I want his voice every day, I want to hear his voice.

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[Irvin] Everyone's pointing their finger at Carlton.

Carlton Dotson wasn't your cancer.

He is a byproduct of your cancer.

If Baylor University doesn't at some point in time

respond to requests for interviews and answer questions

forthright concerning what was going on with that program,

the cancer's always going to be there and it will resurface.

If you don't get it all, it will come back.

[soft instrumental music]

ddd

ddd

ddd

ddd

ddd

ddd

ddd

ddd

d This doggone world we're living in d

d It's giving me a fit d

d It seems like everywhere I turn d

d I see a hypocrite d

d Well, if ya wanna go to heaven d

d Well, you can't live like that d

d So let me tell you, brother d

d God's gonna getcha for that d

d God's gonna getcha for that d

d God's gonna getcha for that d

d There's no place to run and hide d

d For He knows where you're at d

d God's gonna getcha for that d

d God's gonna getcha for that d

d Every wrong thing that you do d

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