The Missing Piece

Previously on murder at the U. I was nowhere around no murder. I don't know anything about no murder. How is it that an arrest wasn't made in the last twelve years? 'Cause we were still missing a piece of the puzzle. And is that piece of the puzzle still missing? Yes.

Our story about Brian's murder was published in November 2020. It was picked up by newspapers and TV stations across the country, and it became one of the most read stories on ESPN's website that year. That was also the first time the public learned that police had suspected Rashawn Jones murdered Brian Patta. Hey Dan, good morning. Just now turning on my phone. About five months after we published our story, producer Dan Aruda received a voicemail from Brian's brother Edric.

It's heating up really good. I think they're about to make an arrest soon. I'm not quite sure when they didn't say anything, but they've been turning on the heat a lot. So they've been, you know, calling us and asking questions and et cetera. So it's been really good. And then, a few months later, the Miami-Dade police made their move.

Back now with an arrest in the 15-year-old cold case, the murder of a University of Miami football player. Brian Patta was fatally shot by Outside his apartment back in November of 2006, and now police have arrested his former teammate, 35-year-old Rashawn Jones, and charged him with Pada's death. It had been nearly fifteen years since that night at the Colony apartments, and Rashawn Jones had just been arrested for Brian Patta's murder.

The police had said they were missing a piece of the puzzle, a piece that could lead to Brian's killer. Apparently, they'd found it. I'm Paula Levine from 30 for 30 Podcast. This is Murder at the U. Episode 6, The Missing Piece. ESPN is now the home of Emmet.

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On the afternoon of August 19, 2021, Rashawn Jones left work at a Dollar Tree warehouse in Ocala, Florida. Officers from Marion County and U.S. Marshals were waiting for him with an arrest warrant from Miami Dade. In the photos from that day, Rashawn is wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, a camel ball cap, and a Miami Hurricanes face mask. Officers drove him from Dollar Tree to the Marion County Sheriff's Office. By 2:40 p.m., Rashawn

Sean was sitting inside a gray interrogation room. A detective from Miami Dade came into the room. Alright Sean, so I told you from the moment we made contact before we go further, yeah you don't have to go through your rights and all stuff your Miranda rights, right? Have you ever been ready to few rights before? Yeah. Okay.

The detective was Juan Segovia from Miami Dade Homicide. Segovia had taken over the investigation after Detective Miguel Dominguez retired. Okay, you have the right to remain silent, you don't have to talk to me if you do not wish to do so. You do not have to answer any of my questions, do you understand that right? Rashon didn't call a lawyer, or remain silent. Instead, he stayed in that room for more than two hours answering Segovia's questions.

Segovia began by asking about Brian. Throughout this investigation, okay, we received a lot of information of your relationship with Brian. What can you tell me about your relationship with Brian? Um, I mean we had an up and down relationship. What what happened that what does that mean up and down? I guess females got involved. So it was uh I don't know, I guess jealousy over females

That's a isn't that counter kinda normal stuff between players? Normal stuff between players. I didn't have no problems with Brian. Then Segovia pressed Rashawn about the alleged love triangle among Brian, Rashawn, and Jada Brody. The first beef you had you said it was a more female. What are you telling me about that? What was that about? Well it was uh it was a female that uh I guess he liked it.

And she was interested in both of us. At that time, she was interested in both of us. There really wasn't no grief there was. Um, that's my girlfriend now. Um, I said, Okay, I don't mess with her no more, that could be your girlfriend, woo woo woo So they got in a relationship and was going together. So d that was really no beef. I mean he made her his girlfriend.

According to Rishon, there was no bad blood between him and Brian over Jada. But then Segovia asked him about that fight with Brian in Eric Boncour's dorm room, the fight where he allegedly told Brian to clip up. Basically to get his gun ready. So I was in Eric Room, forgot what I was in Eric Room for, but Brian wanted to come in, I went open the door.

So I finally let Brian in. He jumped on me, headbutting me. Like I say, I probably argued in the hallway. I left. I went back downstairs. I think I called my grandmother or some something like that. But that was the end of that. It wasn't no ongoing it didn't spill over or carry over from that night. And then from that point on, describe to me your relationship with Brian from that point on

It was really it's a high and by. I mean, we was on the same team, we was great, we had to we had to come in and do our I mean, play on the same team, that's it wasn't no Oh, I I can't come in the locker room or if I come in the locker room I'm scared to come in the locker room or I can't be around Brown scar No, it wasn't never I didn't never get that feeling of intimidation. Okay. And no but okay, so you you you never you in your opinion you never had any people brown? No.

If anybody would think that you had a beef with Brian, why would they think that you had meeple Brian back then? Because of the Jada situation. I don't want to put words in your mouth. Would it be accurate to say that all this beef between you and Brian was all made up by people? Made up by yeah, they took it and ran with it from

the little stuff that was stirred up between me, him and the girl and the little altercation we got into it in the dorm, they took that as in I wanted to hurt Brian. I don't for what? He ain't did nothing to me You're asked for me to hurt him. Right. Did you ever uh threaten to hurt Brian anyway? Did you ever hurt did you ever threaten to shoot Brian? No. Ever. I don't own I didn't own a gun.

But this didn't line up with the evidence the police had collected over the years. According to police, several teammates said Rashawn owned a gun. Uh that you asked me, that you mentioned I don't want to forget. Uh do you have you ever owned a firearm? No. Never. Did you own a firearm back when you were at the University of Miami? No. You never had carried? Never. Did you ever make it sound like you carried a firearm?

I don't know. There was a lot going on back then. I don't know what I mean. I don't remember if I said I don't. I didn't know what to say. I was tearing apart. Detective Segovia would return to this question of whether Rashawn owned a gun several more times, but each time Rashon denied ever owning or threatening anyone with a gun. Then Segovia asked Rashawn about the day of Brian's murder. Remember, it had been fifteen years. Let's let's talk about that dog on the day. Uh start from the morning.

From the morning? Well whatever. As far as you can remember that okay, so uh I come in for me is I come in to practice that day, but I failed my second drug test. Rashon said that on the day of Brian's murder, he'd failed a drug test. Head coach Larry Coker called Rashon into his office and suspended him from the team. So I don't go to practice that day. Okay when I leave out his office I go home. According to Rashon, he spent the rest of the day at home.

His apartment was less than a mile from Bryant's. Were you anywhere near the scene where Brian was killed that night? Even if you're afraid to tell us You're afraid that you might look bad, but you never said it before, but you wanna tell me now, uh listen, I know they do this but I happen to be in the area. Maybe that's why, you know, I could have been seen in the area, maybe that's why record shows in the area. Talk telling about that I wasn't in the area. At all. At all.

Then Sagovia asked Rashawn about another detail from that day. Remember, on the day of the murder, Rashon had changed his cellphone number. Sagovia asked him why. At the time I felt like I was gonna get a lot of backlash from my drug test. From whom? From uh friends, family. I know I live in family down, mother, grandmother down. Phone records show that Rashawn reached out to a few teammates and friends from that new number.

One of them was his teammate Bruce Johnson. Bruce called me on the phone like where you at? I say, I'm home, why was going on? He says, Oh, Brian did. I say, What? He said, Yeah, but somebody killed Brian. I say, Man, shut the f up. Did anybody call you by the meeting that night? A team meeting. I'm the only one that didn't go to the team meeting. Why is that?

Because I was still I'm still discarded from my second marijuana of me failing that drug test. That's it. So so I didn't want to be around the team or be in front of You were just in a in a bad mood. In a bad mood'cause I know I ain't gonna be able to say the game coming up, I ain't gonna be able to play the game Saturday.

Was that like an issue during that time? Some people got a little ticked off, you think that you're dealing with it because I didn't show up to the team meeting. And I know how that could look because of the situation and I'm the I'm the only one not there and I was saying that Seeing him beefing and going through that. Okay, I can see I can understand and see what y'all talking about, but I'm telling you I had nothing to do with him done.

Then Sagovy asked Rashawn about whether he'd made that call to that baseball player named Mike Sanders, asking him for money to get out of town. The team's assistant chaplain told us that he'd overheard this conversation, and phone records show a call from that night that matches up with it. Do you remember calling Mike Sanders and asking him for money that night?

No? So so if Mike Sanders would say would tell us that you called him the night that Brian was killed asking him for money, that would be a lie. And according to Rashawn, he didn't go out of town that night. Instead, Rashon said he went to stay with his girlfriend at the time, Sherry Abramson.

So Segovia laid his cards on the table. Police had evidence from interviews and phone records that contradicted what Rashawn just said.

One of the issues that we have on this gate, Rashawn, okay I'm gonna be straight up with you, is the fact that we have several players reporting that you they either saw you with a gun, that you made threats with guns, uh the threats that you made to Brian uh or d throughout your time at the University of Miami, you know, when you when you put all that stuff together

And y and you you even admit it that the fact that that you have beef O'Brien and you each show up for the meeting, that looks bad on you. I understand I understand all the scenarios that's pointing towards me. So you get that, okay. I appreciate you for being honest about that. This moment is pretty extraordinary. It's unusual to have a suspect in a murder admit that the evidence doesn't look good for him. But that's what Rashawn had just done.

It's hard to know why, whether he was trying to win over Segovia, whether he was exhausted, but whether he just didn't realize he might be digging himself deeper in a hole. And this was when things started to escalate. Segovia seems to take advantage of the admission and go on the attack. If you were a detective, who would be the first person you would talk to? Oh me. Well I'm I don't shop. The only person that um changed her number the day of was Sean Jones.

He changed his number that day? Come on man. And then what if I told you there was an eyewitness that saw you leaving the scene right after? You remember that old man that you crossed with in the sidewalk there? I wasn't like there. He can't eyewitness me. You were identified. I'm telling you I have nothing to do with.

I ain't touch a hair on his head. Nothing. Why would these why would all these people lie about your shit? I just said from the I guess from the I used to be a young and wow. So I guess I just projected they got on on me uh How I was, but that that ain't got nothing to do with picking up no gun, trying to kill nobody, home nobody with. That's that's not in me. I don't do stuff like that.

By now, Rashon was 35 years old. He was married, had five kids. His junior year at the U had been over a decade ago, and he insisted he had nothing to do with Brian's death. After their interview was over, Detective Segovia let Rashawn's wife Ashenda come into the room. Detectives had also questioned Ashenda while Rashon was interrogated. It turns out she'd read our story and apparently used details from our reporting to defend Rashon. Details like Brian's paranoia.

So you're trying to tell me my husband killed a man that uh uh was afraid of him? 'Cause Brian didn't seem like he was afraid of him, from what I read for ESPN. I said but Rashauna got in other altercations Rashonna had other bitches he was fucking. I said he was fucking her and fucking me and fucking Cheryl, fucking everybody. So you tell me he's gonna kill behind this one person?

He's gonna kill because this one person swung on him or beat him up and practice. He gonna kill him. I said his brother used to beat him up. Did he kill his brother? I said, listen, you have to literally show me him standing over the body for me to believe that he killed this man. That's just how much I know he's not lying about killing a man. Y I say, you got it? Show me. You don't got nothing to you. Ashenda had identified the prime weakness of Miami Dade's case against her husband.

The truth is, there were several theories that could have led to Brian's death, and the evidence that incriminated Rashon was mostly circumstantial. Ashenda kissed Rashon goodbye, and then an officer came into the room. Mr. Jones, stand up and face the wall for me. Place your hands back for me. The officer handcuffed Rashon and took him to a cruiser.

On that day, Rashawn was arrested for first degree murder, though this charge would later be lowered to second degree murder. He was driven from Marion County all the way back to Miami Dade, where he'd spend the night in a detention center. he'd be in jail awaiting trial for the next four and a half years. Of course there's no way he or any of us could have known that back then.

The Pada family's involvement with the University of Miami didn't end with Brian's death. His brother Edwin went on to coach football for the Hurricane. In fact, on the day of Rashawn's arrest, Edwin had been at the university when he got a text. Right when I got the news I was literally getting off the stairmaster and I had to get off because I got a text from the Drant's Foodio and uh I started walking around a track just to clear my mind.

We knew it was this guy all alone. Everything pointed to this guy and you just felt like your hands were tied. Yes, the the guy is gonna rot away in the prison cell. That makes us feel better. But then you start thinking about Brian again.

After I left the school, I went straight to Brian's apartment. I was there for about thirty minutes. I I walked I stood there right where he died and I I just thought of Brian, thought of his last moments and everything that he saw and just to kinda pull myself back to that day and w what his last moments were. Based on everything we knew about the case against Rashawn, there was only one piece of evidence that allegedly placed him at the crime scene, and it came from that eyewitness.

The one Segobia mentioned in his interrogation of Rashon. He'd claimed he saw Rashon flee the scene of Brian's murder. We'd finally hear from him at Rashon's bond here. Good afternoon, sir. Please introduce yourself to the judge. Uh my name is Paul O'Connor. At the time of the murder, Paul Connor was a 62-year-old writing instructor at the University of Miami. He lived at the Colony Apartments, the same apartment complex as Brian.

Connor told prosecutors that on the night of Brian's murder, he was walking home from the Metro station. as he approached the colony apartments, he said he heard a loud bang. Now when you say a loud bang, When you heard that bang, what was what did you believe you were hearing? Well my first thought was it may have been a cherry bomb. Just for our own iteration, how loud does a cherry bump sound? Well, it sounds similar to a gunshot.

A few seconds later, Connor said he saw someone leaving the apartment's parking lot on foot. How would you describe the person that you saw, Mr. Connor? I would describe him as a young African American six feet to six foot one. Tall approaching the gate, walking or at a brisk pace toward the gate, walking west. Connor said he made eye contact with this person. And then the person smiled at him and jogged away.

Connor said that for the rest of the night he didn't think twice about the encounter. He went home to his apartment. But at work the next day, he saw the news about a murder the night before at his apartment complex. So at that point, What did you decide to do? I immediately called the Miami Dade Homicide Department and said that I may have seen something of significance the previous night.

The detectives brought him to the station and he sat for several hours with the forensic artist, who drew a composite sketch of the person Connor saw that night. Several months later, detectives showed him a photo line. And Connor picked Rashawn's card out from the lineup. One of the detectives asked me how sure I was that that was the defendant, and I answered 90%. Why did you say ninety percent, Mr. Carl?

My belief is that there's really no such thing as a hundred percent. So it would be fair to say that by saying ninety percent accurate, that you were convinced that this is the person. Yes. Beyond a reasonable value. Yes. Ten years after the murder, detectives returned to Connor and showed him the same photo lineup again. He pointed out Rashon a second time. Connor's testimony may have been the prosecution's strongest evidence against Rashad.

But it wasn't airtight. First of all, the defense could challenge the reliability of eyewitness testimony, which depends on a person's imperfect memory. Then there were Connor's vision problems. During cross-examination at that hearing, Rashawn's attorney asked Connor about his diabetes, which caused him to have double vision if his blood sugar was low. He admitted he hadn't had anything to eat for six hours before Brian's murder.

Connor also couldn't see well without his glasses. Are you wearing your glasses or are you not wearing your glasses? Uh I probably I I don't remember. Okay. I have to wear them when I drive. Okay. When I didn't drive that day. The bond hearing lasted a few days, and at the end of it, the judge set Rashawn's bail at eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But his family couldn't come up with the portion needed for bail, so he remained in the Metro West Detention Center in Miami.

Time passed, and four years after his arrest, Rashon was still in jail, waiting for a trial. But as lawyers on both sides prepared for that trial, the prosecution came to the judge with a surprising update. They'd lost contact with that key eyewitness, Paul Connor. Officers from the Louisville Homicide Department had already been out there and the leasing office said he'd no longer live there. The lead prosecutor on the case said that the state had done all they could to find Con

They tracked him from Miami to Toledo to an address in Louisville, Kentucky. They've run every database available to law enforcement, sent local law enforcement out in both of the cities he lived in, sent the FBI out looking for him in both Ohio and Kentucky. And they still couldn't find him until finally they said they'd figured out what had really happened. Apparently Paul Connor was dead.

But something here just didn't seem right. I find people for a living, and based on the work the police had done to find Connor, I just didn't believe he was dead. The police had no obituary or death certificate or anything official. And when we searched for one, nothing came up. We knew from testimony that Paul Connor wasn't good with technology.

so it made sense that he might ignore an email, a text, or miss a phone call. So I began reaching out to people who might pick up the phone, like his former colleagues. And when I talked to them, they didn't seem to think Connor was dead either. So a few weeks later, producer Dan Aruda and I made a trip to Louisville to see for ourselves. We arrived at the address that both we and Miami Dade had for Connor. Hi, are you uh are you Paul Connor? Yeah. And we met someone who was very much alive.

At age eighty, Connor seemed so much older than the man who had testified three years earlier. And he couldn't remember much of anything about the Brian Patta case. Well who are you all? What is your purpose? We're we're we work for ESPN. Because we've been reporting on this because this young man And the guy who is um in jail right now is also And... And he what? Killed the guy? Well that's what he's...

And and according to testimony that you gave in court, you saw a man walking away from the scene of the crime. Remember any of this? I mean I don't deny it, but I don't I'm I'm uh let's see, I it's been about uh It's been some time ago now that I've retired. Honestly, Connor seemed a lot different than the man we saw testify just three years earlier. He admitted he was getting up there in age and that his memory comes and goes.

And while it was clear that Connor had some significant memory problems, he certainly wasn't dead. A few weeks later, we ran a story.

A wild turn in the murder case against former University of Miami football player Rashawn Jones. This one centered around a blockbuster report Thursday by ESPN. The state had said a key eyewitness was dead. We'd found him very much alive. And now the prosecution had to do something about it.

So the state would like to address an article that was published by ESBN yesterday? After our story published, the prosecution sent Detective Segovia to Louisville to meet Connor. They needed to see if he was fit for trial. In the end, the judge ruled that Connor was alive but not competent enough to testify. And so Rashawn's trial would move forward as planned, but with previously recorded testimony from Paul Connor.

Ultimately, it wouldn't matter that Connor didn't even remember Brian's case, or that the prosecution had believed Connor was dead. This kind of mistake wasn't all that shocking to us. It felt familiar, the kind of slip up the police had been making all along. And now those mistakes were moving beyond police work and into the trial. A trial that was going to determine the fate of Rashawn Jones. We'd been closely watching the prosecution to figure out what case they were building against Rashon.

As far as we knew, there was still nothing that placed Rashawn at the crime scene except the eyewitness. The state's evidence was still largely the same as it had been in 2007. That's what we thought, at least, until we saw something. Three seemingly innocuous words. Amended discovery exhibit. The prosecution had something else. As you know, managing maintenance, repair, and operations is never easy. But for the ones who always rise to the challenge, Granger has your back.

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At our public records trial in 2020, we asked the police a crucial question: What did they need to make an arrest? They said they were waiting for a missing piece of the puzzle. Weed interpreted that as something new that would lock into place and support their theory that Rashon had killed Brian. But we hadn't found anything that could have been that missing piece, even months after Rashawn was arrested.

Still, we waited for updates, combed through copies of documents and depositions, attended hearings. So, when that document popped up among the court files, we were on high alert. It said amended discovery exhibit, which meant there was something new in the evidence. Someone knew, actually. It would turn out there was a whole new character in the Rashawn Jones case.

And here's why he'd matter. He and Rashawn had been in the same jail after Rashawn's arrest for Brian's murder. And he said Rashawn had told him some things. George Jones is a man who the Miami Herald once called a slick talking con man. I thought I was Robin Hood, I would steal money from the rich and give it to myself.

He told us his targets were often celebrities and pro athletes. He stole$15,000 from Nick Cannon and con$200,000 out of a sports agent by selling him season tickets he didn't own. I have sold things that didn't exist, sold houses that weren't mine, condominiums, high rises. I can be somewhat creative at times. The law finally caught up with George in 2019.

He had taken out almost two million dollars in mortgages on luxury homes in Fort Lauderdale, homes that he didn't own. So a judge sentenced him to nine years in prison for fraud. Which brought him to a dormitory on the second floor of the Metro West Detention Center. That's where George says he ran into Rashawn Jones. They would call out uh mail and food call, and uh his last name was Jones. My last name is Jones. George and Rashawn, by the way, are not related.

I started emailing George when he was in jail in Miami. Sometimes we would talk on the phone. He was obsessed with football. He wanted to talk about everything from coach picks to possible Heisman winners. But apparently that's something George and Rashawn would do too. We would argue about football. You don't know nothing, you don't know nothing, whatever. He's a very uh gregarious guy.

George had a reputation at the jail. He had gone to law school for a year, and so guys would ask him for legal advice, guys like Rashawn. He'd ask me questions about bond hearing and stuff like that. You know, he was started telling me stuff about his case and I was like, you know, bro, I don't want to hear this. I got my own problems, you know what I mean? But according to George, Rashawn kept talking. He said Rashon was frustrated with the way the media had portrayed him and Brian.

He said Brian wasn't perfect. They trying to make him seem like I'm a saint and I'm a monster, but he was like he was an asshole. You know, I was like, what? He was like, man, dude was like everybody hated him. Dude was a bully. This wasn't the only time we'd heard Brian described as a bully. When we talked to Brian's teammates, several of them had told us something similar. Then George said Rashawn told him about Jada and how he and Brian had fought over her.

The young lady that Brian Padder was in love with or engaged with, that was his girl before. But he was like, I fucked her first, you know what I mean? He like, you know, I don't know why he mad at me, she chose me. And he was like, Man, I everybody was just hating on me because I had all the girls and this, that he was like, I didn't want her no more anyway. He was like, Man, all this was over a girl, right? But according to George, Rashawn's feelings about Brian were bigger than Jada.

Rashawn had dreams of becoming a football star. Dreams that people in his hometown expected him to achieve. He's from an impoverished area. They thought he was gonna be that guy. You know, that's why he went to the youth. He c he could go pro. And he comes to find out, A, he wasn't that good or he didn't fit in that system and he was not in their plans. You know, he wasn't going to the NFL.

He had no plan B. The NFL was playing A, B, C, and D. That was it. Everybody back home was counting on him and the world wasn't panning out the way he thought it should be. But Brian had been on track to achieve those dreams. He represented everything Rashon wasn't. And apparently he didn't let Rashawn forget it. And he just said dude just kept basically plucking a nerve with him.

On the night of November 7, 2006, George said Rashawn was distraught after he was suspended from the team. So he went to confront Brian. He didn't blame Pada for getting kicked off the team, but that was just like his arch nemesis. As George tells it, Rashawn and Brian got into a heated argument outside Brian's apartment, and Brian provoked him. in an argument and it was basically call him a bum. You're a bum. You know what I mean? And that was really with Sean, that's his

scratch, you know, especially that night, his world could come crashing down. According to him, it was over. He was done with the you. Coker hated him, teammates hated him, you know. Now he's off the team. And uh but Patty was like, you're a bump. I got your bitch. But more importantly, I'm going to the league. I'm gonna be rich and uh you're going back to O'Cala. And then, George said, Rashawn didn't exactly remember what happened next. I went to talk to dude. We got an argument.

And man, the next thing I know, he's on the ground. I don't even remember. He's like, man, you shot him. He's like, I didn't mean to. He's like, I don't remember.

We'd spent nearly a decade trying to hear Rashon's side of the story. If what George said was true, this right here was Rashawn confessing to Brian's murder. But one detail about this story didn't sit right with George at the time. According to George, Rashawn didn't park his car outside Brian's apartment. He parked down the street and walked to the colony.

But it just didn't make sense to me the whole thing. I'm just sitting there listening like why did you just drive to us if you're gonna get an argument, you just knock on the guy's door, I ring the doorbell, but you park down the street, it it kind of sounded premeditated to me. Whether the shooting was premeditated or not, George says Rashawn thought quickly about covering his tracks. He knew he needed someone to vouch for his whereabouts that night.

He said when he left from there, he was dating some girl in South Beach. And um he said he went to her house after that to want her to be his alibi. Rashawn's girlfriend Sherry Abramson was living in South Beach at the time. And um that he disposed of a grun on the way to her house. As Dan and I talked with George, one thing didn't make sense to us. Rashawn had denied his involvement for so long. So why confess now?

George, why do you think he confided in you? And do you know if he let slip or confided in anybody else while he was there? Uh I think from being incarcerated or whatever, sometimes you want somebody to talk to. I mean it's a lonely existence. According to George, Rashon blamed us for his arrest, and it seemed like he blamed me in particular. I don't know some crazy bitch it is PN. I don't know who he's talking about, but some some crazy bitch it is, P.N. they got him arrested.

This shit was dead, you know what I mean? But uh ESPN resurfaced the thing and basically got him arrested. He was like, There's no new evidence. I wasn't surprised to hear this. I could see how Rashawn might feel this way. Our interest in Brian's murder had forced detectives, at the very least, to look closer at the case. And our story had told the public that Rashawn was their prime suspect.

But we'd spent years trying to figure out why they'd finally arrested Rashawn. And in all the case files since the arrest, we hadn't seen any new evidence. From George's telling, Rashawn and his lawyer had been looking too, and all they'd found was that eyewitness, Paul Connor. All they got is some old dude that says it's me, you know what I mean? But he's like, I didn't see no old dude. At this point, it's easy to think that George would become the star witness for the prosecution.

So many of the details of Rashan's alleged confession line up with what we already knew. Jada, the rivalry between the two men, Rashan's crushed dreams, even the details from the day of the murder. This all seemed damning for Rashawn, maybe more damning than an eyewitness with memory problems. And yet, the truth of any of it was about to get far more complicated than we could have seen coming.

Because George of course is also a strategic opportunist. He knows when he's sitting on gold. And a jailhouse confession from a murder suspect awaiting trial, that was gold. I'm 52 at that point. Got another eight years to do. You can judge me all you want. But I'm trying to get out of jail. Being a whatever you wanna c name you wanna call me, a capitalist, opportunist, whatever. But when I saw the opportunity, I was like, I'll give it a shot.

If a prosecutor found George's information on Rashawn valuable, That could shave time off of George's prison sentence. Here was the problem. The lead prosecutor working Brian Patta's murder was a man named Michael Von Zong. He had a reputation. In Miami. People called him Mad Dog. And he was about to find himself at the epicenter of a major scandal. A scandal that would undermine everything about George's story.

Many people could tell the story of Michael von Zamp's downfall, but it's most interesting coming from his nemesis. At the risk of sounding a little crazy, from the day I met Michael von Zompen he treated me the way he treated me, I had a vendetta. Michelle Borchu is a criminal defense attorney who has had it in for Van Zamp for years.

The two first cross paths on a case where she represented a woman who had violated probation by going on a cruise for her birthday. And Michael von Zamp's offer for that violation of her probation was life in prison. What do you mean life in prison for going on a cruise? And I made it my personal mission to figure out who is this guy and how could somebody be that evil.

Now, it's normal for prosecutors and defense attorneys to not like each other very much. Their whole job is to work against each other. But on case after case, Borchu was facing off against Van Zampt in court, and she started to suspect that he was manipulating witness testimony from jailhouse informants. Specifically I had a case where there's a jailhouse witness that said my client confessed to them. He

didn't call the witness at the trial because I found out they were never even together for him to confess to him. And I was gonna expose that in front of the jury. So he didn't even tell us, but in the middle of trial he just didn't call him as a witness. Bortu thought that von Zamp might be offering these witnesses something in exchange for testimony, like reduced sentences. That's not uncommon, but that kind of thing is supposed to be disclosed to the defense.

The jury has the right, and the defendant has the right, to have that testimony and that evidence presented so the jury can decide. Is he really testifying out the kindness of his heart or is he doing it because he's getting X amount of years shaved off his sentence and his family's getting X amount of money? And when the state hides that evidence, the jury's not getting the full picture.

Borchu had this suspicion, but she couldn't prove it. And by 2024, von Zampt was retiring from the state attorney's office. Her time was running out.

But Borju had one more client that Von Zamp was prosecuting in his last case for the state, and at the end of that trial, she overheard Von Zamp saying he was headed to another courtroom for yet another hearing. And I thought another hearing, I thought you're retired. So I grabbed my bag and I followed him.

This guy's retiring and it was like sand slipping through my fingers. I'm like, he is just gonna ride off into the sunset and have this 30 plus year career and everyone's just gonna worship him. And I was, for lack of better terms, I was pissed off. So I was like, well, what's he going to do now? Like maybe I have one more chance. So Borju slipped into a seat at that other hearing. It turned out to be a pretty high profile case.

involving a notorious Miami gang leader who was being re-sentenced. And I sat through that hearing, it was a couple days a week for like three weeks, and On the last day of that hearing, his attorney said, Judge, I would like to play a jail call that I discovered. Hello. What's up, Mike? How you doing? And this jail call was between an inmate convicted of murder calling Michael von Zamp directly at his office.

The man calling was working with Van Zampft. He was going to testify for the prosecution. The plan is for you to testify and look for and before we testify, we're gonna go over a lot of stuff with you. On the phone call, von Zoff says that one of his other witnesses wasn't sure she wanted to testify against.

If I call her and she refuses, then I will find a way to make her unavailable and then I can read her whole testimony. You know, if she's not gonna get it together, if I can't get her to testify straight, I'll just make her unavailable. If a witness is unavailable, their previous testimony can be entered into the record.

Do you wanna do that? A lay person that doesn't know what legal unavailability is, who is also a convicted murderer, who was also alleged to be putting hits out for a gang, took that as like, is that what you want? Like you want her to be unavailable? If this was a mob movie, to make someone unavailable would mean to kill them. You wanna do that? No, I don't want to do it. I'd rather find a good job. But can I count on it? No. I ain't gonna lie, cold cold shit, folks.

And he didn't really fix this guy's impression of what he was saying. He didn't say, oh, no, no, no. I mean like legally unavailable. And it was like hearing that is just chilling. The witness eventually told the court that she'd had a falling out with von Zamp, and he told her that if she died, he could read her testimony into the record.

The judge in the case later wrote that she didn't think von Zamp actually wanted the man on the call with him to kill the witness. However, she wrote, Reasonable minds may reach a different conclusion based on the totality of circumstances in this case. Still, what the judge did find was shocking. It turns out von Zamp and other prosecutors have manipulated testimony from jailhouse informants by giving them alcohol, cigarettes, and fast food.

They'd even arranged for conjugal visits in return for favorable testimony. The judge disqualified Van Zampt and another prosecutor from the case, and Van Zampt resigned from the prosecutor's office. That might look like punishment, except Van Zamp was already retired.

But there was something else in that phone call that caught Borchu's ear. At the end of that call, he's telling this witness that he is going to put him and Bill in the courtyard together so they can iron out a witness's testimony. She recognized the name of this witness, Bill Brown. He'd been von Zomp's star witness in the case she'd just lost. But Borju suspected there was no way Brown could be connected to this case with the Miami gang leader. So why was his name coming up?

And I sat in that courtroom and as that jail call played, Michael von Zamp turned and scanned the courtroom and found me. And we made eye contact. And I mild to him, you motherfucker. Borchu knew she had caught Van Zampt in one of his schemes, so after that day in court she started gathering as much information as she could on Bill Brown's

And I just got to digging for anything and everything. Brown had confessed to at least six murders, including the Liberty City Massacre, one of Miami's worst mass shootings. But von Zauft had offered Brown a plea deal. He would serve only 25 years in prison. What Borchu learned was that in exchange for that deal, Brown became von Zamph's eyes and ears inside the county jail.

When you get sentenced, you go to state prison. Bill had been strategically held in the county jail for ten years, past his sentencing, because he's Michael von Zomp's puppet. Ultimately, Brown helped von Zamp on an unknown number of cases. Some where Brown provided testimony and others where he supplied information. Borchu made all of this public in twenty twenty four.

I wouldn't be surprised if Michael von Zamp committed some level of misconduct on every single case he prosecuted. The state attorney's office should be reviewing every conviction that Michael von Zamp got where somebody is still in custody. That year, the state attorney's office announced it was reviewing past cases involving von Zamft. It later issued a report on 26 select cases. It hadn't found any.

Still, as of february twenty twenty six, the Florida Bar Association had an open investigation into Van Zamp. We reached out to him for comment, but he didn't respond.

Throughout this scandal, I kept coming back to Brian. Von Zamp had been the lead prosecutor on Brian's case for 17 years. He'd testified in our case against Miami Dade. He'd been the one who signed off on Rashawn's arrest. And he'd secured the strongest testimony in the case from another jailhouse informant, George Jones, who said Rashawn had confessed to killing Brian.

Michelle Borchou isn't involved in Rashawn's defense, but she's familiar with the evidence, and she said testimony like George Jones can make or break a case. Wait, you got a confession from the defendant? That would be the best evidence they had on that case. From the evidence that I know that the state has on that case, a confession would drive it home because the other stuff sucks.

But instead, state prosecutors dropped George Jones from their witness list for Rashawn's trial. So why now? Why your best evidence? You're just we're we're gonna leave that out. According to Borchou, that decision may well have had something to do with von Zampt. And they decided like, you know what, Michael von Zompt had his hands on this and we don't want to screw up this whole case because somebody that is currently going through what he's going through was the one that took this statement.

We'll never know if Rashawn's alleged confession to George ever happened. George may have been a good Samaritan who genuinely wanted to see Brian's family get the justice they deserved. He could have been an opportunist, who heard something and thought he could benefit from it. Or he might have been running another con, having gotten wind that there was a prosecutor who would be open to manipulated testimony.

We'd later learn that George Jones had also provided testimony as a jailhouse witness in another case for Van Zamft, all under the impression he'd get benefits for cooperating. So maybe he was the little of all three. We'll never know. But here's what we do know. The state's only new evidence against Rashawn had evaporated into thin air, and it was all their own doing.

Because so much of this case was tainted, tainted by a prosecutor under investigation, by the mistakes and oversights of the Miami-Dade police, and by the passage of time. This was a case. It not only was solvable, it was a case they probably could have made almost 20 years ago. But there is no more evidence now than they had 20 years ago.

Documentarian Billy Corbin was making his film The You when Brian died. So he's been following the case from the beginning, and he's skeptical of how it's progressed. What the defense appears to have is reasonable doubt. It's so fishy that if you're a juror sitting on that jury and you're hearing How can you put somebody away for probably the rest of their life for murder?

You cannot wield your prosecutorial discretion for what is politically expedient, or to save face with the press, or because ESPN did an arguably better investigation than the state attorney's office or Miami Dade homicide did. You cannot then say, well, we're gonna revive this investigation with no new information and no new evidence. And charge somebody.

What started as a story about Brian and his family's loss has turned into something much bigger, about a justice system that had fumbled every opportunity to make things right. This is a tragedy for our community. And it is a tragedy for Miami Hurricanes fans. It is a tragedy for the Patta family. It may very well be a tragedy for Rashawn Jones' family.

Two teammates came to the University of Miami to live out a childhood dream, to win on the biggest stage and maybe become famous. Now their names will forever be connected. Because twenty years after the death of Brian Patta, Rashawn Jones would stand trial for his murder. For Brian's mom, this would be her best chance for closure.

Sean Jones, the outcome would determine his future, whether he goes to prison or clears his name. And for everyone else, friends, teammates, and fans, this would be a chance to finally get some answers. But given the missteps, could we count on this trial to tell us what we really want to know? Who killed Brian Patta?

In our final episode, the state of Florida versus Rashawn Jones. We'll be back after the verdict. Murder at the U is based on reporting by me, Paula Levine, and Dan Aruda, with support from Scott Frankel, Elizabeth Merrill, and ESBN's investigative unit. Our senior producer is Matt Frassica. Our senior editorial producer is Preethi Varathon.

Our associate producers are Megan Coyle and Gus Navarro with Isabella Seaman. Our story editor is Adiza Egan, additional editing by Ben Weber and Mike Drago. Our archival producer is Matthew Fisher. Our line producer is Kath Sankey. Production managers are Jason Schwartz and Sheena Williams Zamuda. Production support from Carolyn Hepburn and Phil Gidry. Fact checking by David Sabino.

Original music and sound design by Ryan Ross Smith. Production assistants are Diamante McKelvey, Anthony Sallas, Avia Owensby, and Declan McMahon. Research support from John Master Baradino. Rights and clearances by Jennifer Thorpe and Cal Griffith. Legal by Tamara Laurie and Peter Scheer. Mike Drago is Senior Deputy Editor of Investigative Journalism.

Chris Buckle is Vice President of ESPN Investigative, Enterprise, and Digital Journalism. Jose Morales is the executive producer of original content. David Roberts is executive editor of ESPN Sports News and Entertainment. For 30 for 30 Podcasts, Preethi Varathan is head of audio. Ben Weber is Senior Director for 30 for 30. Marsha Cook, Brian Lockhart, Heather Anderson, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30 for 30. This podcast was developed by Tara Nadalny.

And Cynthia Parabello. To listen to more sports series like this one, search 30 for 30 Podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts or find us at 3043podcast.com. Thanks for listening.