Colleges
Missing Baylor player's roommate is arrested
Carlton Dotson confesses to killing basketball teammate Patrick Dennehy, according to media reports.
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 22, 2003
Former Baylor basketball player Carlton Dotson summoned the FBI to a Maryland hospital Monday and confessed to killing former teammate Patrick Dennehy, the Dallas Morning News and the Tribune-Herald of Waco, Texas, reported.
Waco police Sgt. Ryan Holt said a warrant was issued for Dotson's arrest. Dotson was taken into custody several hours after he called FBI agents to the Kent and Queen Anne's Hospital in Chestertown.
Holt told the Morning News that Dotson confessed to killing Dennehy and described a location where Dennehy's body might be found. He told the newspaper that police were searching that location Monday night.
As he left the court commissioner's office, Dotson told an Associated Press reporter: "I didn't confess to anything. Call the FBI." Shortly after his arrest, Dotson had referred all questions to his lawyer, Grady Irvin Jr. of St. Petersburg.
On Sunday, Dotson had gone to the hospital, which is three hours from his hometown of Hurlock, Md., and asked for a mental evaluation, police said.
Holt said investigators still are trying to determine when and how the killing occurred.
He said that Dotson's call to the FBI came after 6:45 p.m. That's when he called a Baylor professor in Waco, who said Dotson told him he needed prayers and was turning himself in to the FBI. Chestertown police escorted Dotson, who was wearing handcuffs, into the police department.
Baylor speech communication professor John Cunningham said Dotson called him and announced: "I wanted to let you know that I've turned myself in to the FBI."
After Cunningham asked what he could do, Dotson asked that media outlets be alerted and said, "Have everyone pray for me so I can have safe passage wherever I go from here."
Cunningham, who taught both players, said Dotson sounded upset and confused, in stark contrast to their last phone conversation July 4. He said they spoke three or four minutes Monday before Dotson hung up.
It is only the latest twist in an investigation that has grown increasingly bizarre in the month since police labeled Dotson a "person of interest" in the disappearance of Dennehy, a friend and former roommate.
Holt said Dotson spoke without his lawyer present and could not elaborate on why Dotson contacted police, four days after he voluntarily gave a statement in Maryland about the case.
Earlier Monday, Waco police said they had learned from Maryland authorities that Dotson had gone to the hospital Sunday night and asked for a mental evaluation.
A hospital spokeswoman said the facility had no record of his having been there.
Dennehy was last seen June 12 in Waco. He was last known to have spoken with family or friends by phone June 14. Friends said he had complained about being threatened and having valuables stolen from his car and Waco apartment.
Dotson has been under intensifying scrutiny since police began investigating Dennehy's disappearance. He left the team in April and went to Hurlock around the time of Dennehy's disappearance. His lawyer has said he knows of no wrongdoing by Dotson.
Holt said Waco investigators learned from a police agency in Maryland that Dotson appeared at the Kent and Queen Anne's Hospital in Chestertown "seeking evaluation."
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Tulane president Scott Cowen, who is holding a teleconference with 44 university presidents from non-BCS schools today, said the invitation was a positive step but was disappointed the committee wouldn't consider a playoff.
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