Player's disappearance casts pall over school, shadow over team

WACO, Texas -- A pair of impossibly large off-white basketball shoes sits in the corner of the living room, waiting for an owner. A crystal chess set sits on the dining room table, waiting for a player.

And a note sits on the kitchen counter, waiting for an answer.

"Patrick, took the dogs on advice of Jessica," it reads. "Where ... are you? Call me NOW."

But it has been three weeks, and the shoes remain empty, the game unplayed, the note unanswered.

In the week since police announced that Baylor University center Patrick Dennehy was missing, his close friend has been named a "person of interest" and other teammates have been questioned. A farm where he liked to hang out has been searched twice by cadaver-sniffing dogs and heat-seeking helicopters.

Friends have been telling of a man who was feeling threatened, who had been robbed and was becoming increasingly paranoid, answering the door to his apartment with a drawn semiautomatic pistol.

His mother and stepfather, Valorie and Brian Brabazon, who live in Carson City filed a missing person report with the Waco police June 19.

Normally, the worst thing junior Jessica Turner had to worry about was a frat boy soaping a message on her back windshield. But Dennehy's disappearance has cast a pall over this normally tranquil Baptist college along the banks of the Brazos River in central Texas.

"We refer to Baylor typically as the Baylor bubble," says the education major, Dennehy's downstairs neighbor. "There's not a whole lot that gets in or gets out."

The bubble has burst.

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When the 6-foot-10 Dennehy transferred to Baylor from the University of New Mexico last year, he was leaving behind a bad situation and looking forward to starting this coming season. But a few weeks ago, friends say, things started to go sour for the 21-year-old communications major.

Tammy and Darren Cox had grown accustomed to Dennehy's visits to their farm outside Waco since he'd come there last spring with close friend Carlton Dotson to buy a pit bull puppy. So when he called on June 7 to ask if they knew a place where he and Dotson could fire their new guns, the Coxes told them they could target shoot there.

Dennehy told the Coxes he and Dotson bought the guns -- a .22-caliber rifle and two semiautomatic pistols -- because someone had been threatening them, someone they'd brought out to the farm before.

Chris Turk shared a four-bedroom campus apartment with Dennehy, just a stone's throw from the domed stadium where the California native hoped to play soon. Turk says Dotson, a former Baylor player, was staying with them.

Another player, Harvey Thomas, a transfer forward from Fredericksburg, Va., had stayed there, too, and even had a key. But a few weeks ago, Dennehy changed the locks and told Turk not to let Thomas or anyone else in.

Dennehy, whose SUV had been broken into recently, began locking the dead bolt from the inside, and Turk had to knock on his own door to get in after work.

"They (Dennehy and Dotson) would answer it, looking pretty paranoid and holding the guns," Turk says. "They were protecting each other from whatever they were scared of."

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Dennehy and Dotson went out to the Cox farm June 10 to fire their new guns.

Turk left Waco on a trip June 11.

That evening, Dennehy's girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa, talked with him briefly on the telephone. He promised to call back later that night. He never did.

On June 12, Tammy Cox saw the two pull up in Dennehy's black Chevy Tahoe outside a Taco Bell in Waco. She says they seemed fine.

Two days later, Dennehy spoke with Daniel Okopnyi, an old friend from California. Okopnyi invited him to Arlington to catch a rap concert.

Dennehy had told Okopnyi that a fellow player had been making threats against Dotson, but he wanted to talk to Okopnyi face to face before going to the police.

"He had told me and reassured me many times that the threats weren't made to him," Okopnyi says. "He was mainly there to get Dotty's back."

Dennehy told Okopnyi he was on his way. He never showed up.

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When De La Rosa hadn't heard from Dennehy by June 14, she began leaving him messages.

"You better call me soon," she recalls saying in one message. "I don't know whether I should be worried or angry."

On June 15, the Brabazons thought it odd that their normally faithful son had not called to wish his stepfather a happy Father's Day.

When Turk returned from his trip on June 16, he found Dennehy's prized pit bull puppies, Nike and Cali, shut up in the bathroom. They were out of food and water, and the floor was littered with feces.

Three days later, on June 19, Dotson called the Coxes to ask if they'd seen Dennehy. That same day, the Brabazons filed a missing person report.

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On June 25, police in Virginia Beach, Va., found Dennehy's sport utility vehicle abandoned in a mall parking lot. The license plates were missing.

An affidavit released Monday alleged that Dotson told a cousin he shot Dennehy in the head with a 9 mm handgun during an argument in the Waco area. The document says Dotson allegedly disposed of the weapon while driving to his hometown of Hurlock, Md.

The affidavit also says De La Rosa told police that Dennehy had recently been threatened by a man named Harvey.

Harvey Thomas' stepmother, Tempia Thomas, told the Washington Post that police have questioned him and his girlfriend. "He wants the situation resolved and the true culprits found," she said. Baylor coach Dave Bliss told The Free-Lance Star newspaper in Fredericksburg, "I have it on good account that Harvey had nothing to do with any purported threats."

Dotson says his prayers are with Dennehy's family. He has hired an attorney.

Police have not called either man a suspect. They have seized Dennehy's computer and have reportedly questioned other players.

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De La Rosa is now caring for Dennehy's dogs at her home in Albuquerque.

On the Fourth of July, she slipped into one of Dennehy's old Baylor T-shirts. She says the puppies climbed all over her, sniffing at the shirt.

"I think they miss Dad."

De La Rosa misses him, too. But she refuses to let go of the possibility that he will turn up alive.

"I guess what I have to do is stay rooted in God and rooted in prayer," she says. "And that's where all my hope is."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Allen G. Breed is the AP's Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.