Efforts Intensify In Jordan Homicide Case : Investigation: FBI partly focusing on James Jordan’s business interests in South Carolina.

The investigation into the slaying of James Jordan, father of Chicago Bull star Michael Jordan, was described as “intense” Saturday, but there was no indication that local sheriff’s deputies or the FBI were near a break in the case.

“Agents are out in the field now,” said Jerry England, a spokesman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Dept. in Fayetteville, N.C. “This investigation is intense, just intense.”

The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C., is reporting in today’s editions that investigators do not believe it was a planned murder. “If I had to lean, it was a spur-of-the-moment opportunity thing,” said Capt. Art Binder of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Dept.

Charlie Sheppard, an FBI spokesman in South Carolina, said part of the investigation was focusing on James Jordan’s business interests in South Carolina.

“We’re basically trying to see if we can retrace his steps,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard declined to discuss details of the probe, but the Raleigh News and Observer reported Saturday that police said Jordan owed various debts related to his company, JVL Enterprises Inc., in Rock Hill, S.C.

The Charlotte Observer reported that the company, which manufactures T-shirts, has been the subject of several lawsuits involving unpaid bills. According to the Observer, FBI agents were at the company’s office Friday morning.

In Charlotte, a spokesman for FBI agent in charge Thomas Lusby said that no statement would be issued Saturday, but that the investigation was continuing.

Federal authorities declined to say whether the investigation includes possible links between Michael Jordan’s highly publicized gambling activities and his father’s death.

James Jordan, 57, was identified Friday as the man whose badly decomposed body was discovered Aug. 3 snagged on branches in a creek near McColl, S.C., about 120 miles southeast of Charlotte.

Dental records taken from the corpse before cremation confirmed that the body was that of Jordan, who was last seen July 22 in Wilmington, N.C. Jordan had been shot once in the chest with a .38-caliber bullet.

The elder Jordan’s car, a red Lexus, was found stripped Aug. 5 in a wooded area near Fayetteville, 150 miles east of Charlotte.

Michael Jordan broke his silence on the case Saturday, issuing a statement through The Michael Jordan Foundation in Chicago.

“We will respect the request of law enforcement officials that we not comment regarding the circumstances surrounding his death while their investigations are continuing,” the statement said. “We ask that our friends respect our needs for privacy while we mourn the loss of the head of our family.”

Three individuals who may have crossed paths with James Jordan’s killer were arrested Saturday.

The three, all from Fayetteville, were identified by authorities as Terrelis Marnicus Teasley, 22; Kenneth Connor Farrior, 20, and Jovan Jamahal Carter, 18. They were charged with various offenses connected to the gutting of Jordan’s $46,000 car.

Farrior’s brother, Gary Rodel Farrior, 16, was arrested late Friday on similar charges. Joyce Farrior, the boys’ mother, said about a dozen youths were involved in vandalizing the car over several days.

In the absence of any major developments, much attention Saturday focused on the modern, two-story wood-frame house that Michael Jordan built for his parents near Mint Hill, a rural area about 20 miles east of Charlotte. Jordan entered the house late Friday after arriving by private jet, and he was believed to still be there with his mother and other family members.

Throughout Friday night and into Saturday afternoon, that’s where reporters, television satellite trucks and the just-plain curious gathered, along a stretch of two-lane blacktop that runs past the house.

As local television news reporters did their introductions to the story in front of the closed iron gates, still photographers kept their long lenses trained through the trees on the only clear view, an open garage door.

At one point, a small dog with a fluffy tail wandered outside and set off a flurry of motor-driven clicking.

But there was no sign of Michael Jordan.

Just before noon, a man driving a Matthew’s Flowers van pulled up to the gate, rang the bell and was admitted.

The delivery man said he gave a floral wreath to a young woman in the garage.

Meanwhile, in Marlboro County, S.C., where Jordan’s body was found, the excitement of being involved in the media circus attending a celebrity murder had begun to fade.

In Bennettsville, S.C., county coroner Tim E. Brown said that, in nine years in office, he has pulled 10 to 12 bodies from the creeks, streams and rivers of northern South Carolina.

But, he said, he usually knew who the victims were, and if they were murdered, he was also likely to know who murdered them.

But the body found in the Pea Bridge Creek near McColl turned out to be Michael Jordan’s father, and so Brown spent much of his time Friday and Saturday on the steps of the county courthouse talking about it.

“This is definitely the most notoriety the coroner’s office ever had,” Brown said. “I guess this is my splash in the pan.”

Brown also had to defend his decision not to preserve the body. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the cremation a cover-up.

“One reporter suggested I should have done things totally different and sent the body to some FBI lab for DNA testing,” he said in a tone that suggested his own incredulity. “Like we could store it for 10 years, indefinitely.”

The body was shipped to nearby Newberry, S.C., where an autopsy was performed Aug. 4. The cause of death was found to be a single gunshot wound to the chest.

It would not be for another eight days, when Brown was watching the CBS Evening News and heard Connie Chung mention that Jordan’s father was missing, that he would have the insight that ultimately led to his identifying the first “John Doe” murder victim he’d had in nine years.

“Hindsight is a somewhat treacherous perch to reflect from,” Brown said. “I’d make the same decision tomorrow about what to do with the body. I’m a practical person.”

As for the Jordan family, Brown said: “We have a lot of respect for anyone who loses someone. People here are not trying to capitalize on this. All Chicago Bulls fans aren’t in Chicago, you know.”

Times staff writer Danny Robbins contributed to this story from Los Angeles.