Body found in area searched for player

Dennehy Developments July 31: Attorney questions paper's interview 31: De La Rosa doubts Dotson's claim 30: Dotson suggests self-defense 30: Autopsy: Dennehy died of gunshot 29: Funeral set for mid-August 28: Baylor grieving over Dennehy's death From SI: Scorecard: Arresting developments

Above: Dennehy/AP

WACO, Texas (AP) -- A body found at a rural rock quarry about five miles southeast of Baylor University was too badly decomposed to immediately determine whether it was that of missing basketball player Patrick Dennehy, authorities said Saturday.

The body was found by an investigator Friday night in an area not previously searched, but in the general vicinity of where authorities were looking for Dennehy, McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch said. The scene was secured and guarded overnight, he said.

"This morning, at first light, we began a thorough collection of all evidence and examination of the area where the badly decomposed body was found," Lynch said.

He said he notified Dennehy's family Saturday morning that an unidentified body was found and that it was taken to Dallas Southwest Forensic Lab for an autopsy and positive identification, which could take days.

Dennehy, a 6-foot-10, 230-pound center, was last seen on campus June 12. His family reported him missing June 19 and his Chevy Tahoe was found in a Virginia Beach, Va., parking lot June 25 without its license plates.

Carlton Dotson, who played basketball for Baylor last season and had been living with Dennehy for a few months, was charged with Dennehy's murder last week in his home state of Maryland. He remains jailed without bond awaiting extradition to Texas.

Dotson, 21, gave police three locations in Waco where Dennehy's body might be found, Dennehy's family said. The body was found in one of those -- an area of gravel pits about five miles southeast of Baylor and Waco.

An investigator with the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office said the agency received a body from McLennan County that was "greatly decomposed and missing a lot of parts." The investigator, who declined to give his name, said it could take days to identify the remains.

Baylor athletic director Tom Stanton said the university felt a sense of heartbreak and tragedy after learning a body was discovered.

"We all share the family's agony over these past several of weeks and the horror his friend has been charged with murder," Stanton said at a news conference at the gold-domed Ferrell Center where Dennehy had hoped to play the upcoming season.

"I can tell you that coach Bliss feels a deep sense of sorrow and despair that something so unreasonable may have happened," Stanton said. "Everyone in the basketball program and the university is grieving."

Dennehy's stepfather and mother, Brian and Valorie Brabazon, and his girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa, left Waco Friday after spending four days cleaning out Dennehy's apartment and meeting with police and Baylor officials. The couple spent the night at a hotel in Albuquerque, N.M., where De La Rosa lives.

Brian Brabazon and De La Rosa each confirmed that they spoke Saturday with the sheriff. Brabazon said authorities did not give him a description of the body or where it was found, but De La Rosa said the sheriff told her the body was found in water.

"We still have hope that Patrick is still alive, but we want closure," Brabazon said, adding that he and his wife had not yet decided when they would return to their home in Carson City, Nev.

Earlier in the day, a McLennan County Sheriff's Office car blocked a rural dirt road leading to a pasture and gravel pits. Investigators were seen combing the knee-high grass near a reservoir and marking spots with yellow tags. Two sheriff's patrol cars escorted two white vans away from the scene at midday.

Barrett Lee Brandon, who lives in the rural area where the body was found, said he found what he thought was a size 12 men's yellow tennis shoe along the side of the road the last week of June. He had seen the shoe several times while driving to his father's house but stopped to pick it up one day when he realized it could belong to Dennehy. Baylor's colors are green and gold.

"I kept getting a really strong feeling about it," Brandon said Saturday.

He picked it up by the black shoestrings so he wouldn't disturb what appeared to be blood spots on the top of the shoe, he said. He took it to the Sheriff's Office, where a deputy concurred that the spatters could be blood, Brandon said.

He remembered hearing "rapid-fire gunshots" two or three weeks earlier from the direction of the gravel pits. A week or so after Brandon found the shoe, he drove into the gravel pits area and found what he thought was a leg bone, but when he called authorities they said it was an animal's and left it there.

Dotson and Dennehy, 21, arrived last summer in Waco, about 100 miles south of Fort Worth, on basketball scholarships. Baylor is the world's largest Baptist university with 14,000 students.

Dotson was a transfer from Paris Junior College in East Texas and eligible to play. Dennehy, because of NCAA eligibility rules, had to sit out a year after transferring from New Mexico, where he was kicked off the team for losing his temper.

Dotson, a 6-foot-7 junior, had been staying at Dennehy's apartment since he and his wife of eight months separated in April.

He was arrested Monday after calling 911, saying he needed help because he was hearing voices. Waco police said Dotson told FBI agents in Maryland that he shot Dennehy after the player tried to shoot him. But after his arrest, Dotson told The Associated Press that "he didn't confess to anything."