With Bias to the End : Brian Tribble, Indicted After Player’s Death, Was a Friend With a Number of Admirers

Brian Lee Tribble, home again after a one-night stint in the county jail, sat on the front porch with his family one day last week, playing with a streaky-black pit bull, a breed of dog often raised to fight and to maim other dogs.

“Their reputation is worse than what they deserve,” said Tribble, the owner of three such dogs--Assassin, Lady Devour and Tan Man--who nuzzled him affectionately the day after he posted $75,000 bond on charges of drug possession and distribution in connection with the death of his friend, Len Bias, the former University of Maryland basketball star.

“But people only know what they hear,” he said, smiling and politely refusing to answer other questions.

If there was a touch of irony to Tribble’s words, he wouldn’t admit it. If there was a hint of fear about his plight, he wouldn’t show it. And if you think Tribble, who has pleaded not guilty, is going to explain how he became caught up in the investigation of Bias’ death, forget it.

Trying to understand the world of Brian Tribble, the 24-year-old who prosecutors say supplied the cocaine that killed the All-American forward, is a little like peeking into a kaleidoscope, an exercise in gleaning images from an odd collection of police reports, family tales, childhood memories and a din of whispers heard over the last few weeks.

There is a sharp image of a handsome, intelligent boy growing into the man who would be the first in his family to enter college. There are moments of transition, a motorcycle accident in 1982 and a move into his own apartment in 1985, where the edges blur.

There is the dizzying whirl of the last two months that has made his high school portrait--the same photo that his mother keeps in a special place at home--something akin to a police mug shot that is flashed across TV screens and seen in national magazines.

“I’m so disgusted,” his mother, Loretta, said in an interview at her Northeast Washington home last week. “I totally believe Brian. I wouldn’t be able to make it through if I didn’t.”

Bias, 22, died June 19, two days after he had been selected second in the National Basketball Assn. college draft as the top pick of the Boston Celtics. His death was quickly linked to cocaine, and investigators recovered 12 grams of the substance from his car.

Tribble, a one-time Maryland student whose voice was recorded when he called for emergency medical help for Bias that morning, was indicted July 25 by a grand jury that charged him with possession of PCP, a hallucinogen; possession and distribution of cocaine, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

Charges of cocaine possession and obstruction of justice also were lodged against Terry Long and David Gregg, Bias’ teammates who law enforcement officials have said were with Tribble and Bias in Bias’ dorm room when Bias collapsed.

But prosecutors say it was Tribble who brought drugs into the room, and he has emerged as the pivotal character in the investigation and in the larger story of how a basketball star and an alleged drug supplier became friends.

Tribble’s name has surfaced in connection with a series of surprising twists in what remains a mysterious death. Last week, in a Bladensburg, Md., apartment, investigators found a safe that was stolen during an armed robbery the morning Bias died.

Investigators believe that the safe was Tribble’s and have received statements that it had contained $60,000 in cash and $100,000 worth of cocaine, according to sources. Police have identified one of the two women who lived in the burglarized apartment as Julie Walker, Tribble’s girlfriend.

Tribble was born on June 9, 1962, the youngest of four children brought up in the modest home of Loretta Tribble, a homemaker, and her husband, Thomas, a jazz drummer turned furniture and upholstery cleaner.

Their small frame house is still the family homestead for Sunday dinners, summer cookouts and birthday parties for Priscilla, 30, Gloria, 27, Tom Jr., 26, and Brian, 24.

Brian Tribble grew to be the kind of boy who, with his brother, Junior, helped his mother by washing the kitchen floor and cleaning the refrigerator. His sister, Gloria, when asked about him last week, pulled out a family photo album. “He was a doll with little dimples,” she said. “When you looked at him, anything he’d say or do would be fine.”

Neighbors described Tribble as a witty yet serious child who would shovel snow or cut grass without pay and as the brightest spot in what one neighbor called a wonderful family.

“He was the sweetheart of the neighborhood,” recalled Annie B. Valentine, a neighbor who moved there nearly 25 years ago. “He was always offering to do things. And he still chats with me.”

Former principals and teachers at Woodridge Elementary, Taft Junior High and McKinley Tech riffled through grade books and papers last week to figure out whether the Brian Tribble they knew in class was the same man they saw on the TV screen, shackled and manacled, walking toward the Prince George’s County, Md., Detention Center.

When the connection was made, there was surprise.

“He was the epitome of the kind of son you would want,” said May Wright Covington, who taught a typing class at McKinley and described Tribble as someone who kept a low profile but always went to class prepared. “I would give him my 100% support--unless he’s a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Tim McCoy, now a sixth-grade teacher at Fort Lincoln Elementary, said Tribble was about 12 years old when he met him, and there were days when young Tribble sought out McCoy. They sat on the school steps and talked about things that bothered Tribble. Tribble’s oldest sister, Priscilla, is mentally retarded and prone to seizures. Brian would confide in McCoy about her troubles.

“He was a very perceptive child,” McCoy said. “He was sensitive. He would talk about her and he seemed to understand that everybody doesn’t come into this world with all things working. . . . That was unusual in a child of his age.

“I just felt like he could do something really nice in life. I thought he would be an asset in our community,” McCoy said.

Early in life, Tribble became interested in basketball, a sport that became a lifelong passion for him. A row of shining trophies, mementoes of years with the Boys’ Club and Police Athletic League tournaments, fill a shelf in the family living room. His enthusiasm, if not his skill, led him to play junior-varsity ball in high school and later show up for pickup games held for potential walk-ons at the University of Maryland.

He entered McKinley Tech as an above-average student. At the end of his senior year, he was voted the most attractive boy in the class of 1980 and escorted Renee Johnson, voted the most attractive and popular girl in the class, to the Miss McKinley Pageant. His senior wish for the class of 1980, included in the yearbook, was: “The ability to make it.”

Tribble entered the University of Maryland that fall and moved onto campus in the first months of school, then moved back home within weeks. Relatives remember his complaining that there were too many parties for him to study the way he wanted.

He tended to hang out with basketball players, and he laughed and joked with some of the best, including Maryland starter Adrian Branch and Bias, and he clearly was popular with women.

Family members said he studied hard. He received a plaque that lauded him as the most improved reading student of 1980. At least one teacher, who said Tribble received an A or B in his class, said such efforts were typical of Tribble.

“Brian was very articulate and very sharp,” said Walter Hill, a former instructor who taught a course in Afro-American studies that Tribble and Bias attended. “He was intelligent and . . . very outspoken. He was a little egotistical that way. You could tell he had the answers and he wanted you to know it. He basked in that. . . . He raised questions--that’s what alerted me he was a good student.”

Tribble’s father, known as TNT Tribble when he traveled the jazz circuit, was someone with whom Brian appeared to enjoy an easy relationship. He helped his father during the summer with his cleaning service and, when a professor in a music appreciation class began discussing jazz drummers, Brian Tribble said his father might be able to provide a little entertainment.

The next day, Tribble and his father walked into class and TNT gave an impromptu performance that left the professor stunned, Loretta Tribble recounted. “He said, ‘How do you know that man?’ ” she said, laughing. “I don’t have to tell you what kind of grade Brian got in that class.”

To earn money for school, Tribble worked odd jobs. According to court papers that Tribble filed in connection with a personal injury suit, he worked in his early college years as a warehouse laborer, a mail handler and a clerk at Howard University Hospital, and he filled his spare time with basketball.

In the summer of 1982, basketball turned into a spectator sport for Tribble. He was struck by a car as he left Howard University one morning on a motorcycle. He suffered a knee injury. After six months of physical therapy, the knee was still stiff and painful, according to court papers.

Attorney Robert Capel, who represented Tribble in a successful suit for damages from that accident, remembered the young man as an outgoing basketball enthusiast who dreamed of playing in the National Basketball Assn. Tribble, who was not even playing college ball then, even went so far as to allude to that dream in the suit he filed against the motorist who had hit him.

In a court document, Tribble asked for $1 million in compensation for “loss of future income; career in professional basketball.” A jury awarded him $10,000 for hospital costs and damages.

“He was a hard-working guy,” Capel said. “I don’t think he was more interested in material things than anyone else. He didn’t seem the type who would take the risk of getting involved with drugs or dealing them.”

Tribble returned to school that fall and continued to hang out at the student union and maintain contact with his athletic friends. He was, in the words of one professor, “your normal college kid. He wore T-shirts and jeans. There was no preference for flash.”

But there were others, local coaches and players, who began worrying about Tribble’s interest in the players and were no longer so sure of his motives.

One local college coach said that conversations with other players gave him the feeling that Tribble had “turned his basketball energy into something else.” Another player, who asked not to be identified, recalled taking Bias aside one day to warn him about his friendship with Tribble.

Brian Waller, a friend of Bias’ since grade-school days, said he met Tribble only once at Bias’ dorm room. Waller said he had heard rumors that Tribble could be involved with drugs, although he had no first-hand knowledge about it. Waller said he did not talk to Bias about it. “I didn’t think I needed to mention it,” Waller said. “It had gotten to the point where I trusted his judgment.”

Tribble stopped taking classes in the summer of 1985. He told his mother he needed a “break from school, school, school” and wanted to develop a furniture-cleaning service. By September, he had moved from his family home into an apartment in a high-rise complex north of the university campus.

He shared the two-bedroom place with a friend, Mark Fobbs, and they furnished it with a couch and chair, a remote-control television and a stereo. In May, Tribble bought a 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450SL for $27,600. Relatives said he paid for the car in part with the proceeds from the court settlement.

He continued to see Bias frequently at his dorm, players said.

Bias, in turn, seemed to genuinely enjoy Tribble’s company, friends said. He laughingly referred to Tribble as “a trip, a pretty funny guy,” and stopped by Tribble’s family home where Brian still went for dinner three times a week.

The two were often seen at Chapter III, a club in Southwest Washington. Employees there said that Bias, in the last three months of his life, routinely went in two or three nights a week to drink beer and chat with women. Frequently, he was with Tribble, they said.

“I think they had a companion kind of relationship,” one friend said. “They clicked. You know that kind of friendship where you can talk and talk and talk? They had that.”

When Tribble’s dog Lady Devour gave birth six months ago, friends recalled, Bias accepted a jet-black pup as a gift. Bias dubbed the newborn Ebony and amused his friends by placing a red leather collar, complete with spikes, on the tiny dog.

The last few hours of Len Bias’ life were spent with Brian Tribble. It was meant to be a time of celebration for the man who had entered the big leagues and for the friends who could only hope to dream about that kind of life.

And then, near dawn, the horrible happened.

At 6:32 a.m., a man who identified himself as Brian Tribble began a confused, halting dialogue with a dispatcher from the Prince George’s County emergency squad.

“It’s Len Bias. . . . He needs some assistance. . . . He’s not breathing right.

“This is Len Bias--you’ve got to bring him back to life.

And then the voice pleads. “There’s no way he can die.”