Dele’s Brother Sought by FBI

What Patricia Phillips loves most about her Santa Monica apartment is the tranquillity--the ocean breeze sailing through her open windows, the quiet that allows for her morning meditations interrupted only by the comforting rings of a wind chime.

But her peacefulness was on hold Wednesday.

Telephone calls came streaming in, and with each ring, Phillips either rose wearily to check the caller ID on her home line--or scrambled to answer her cell phone.

“I need to get the cell,” Phillips said. “That’s the number Miles has called both times.”

Miles Dabord, also known as Kevin Eugene Williams, is Phillips’ 35-year-old son and the older brother of former NBA player Bison Dele.

Dele, 33, who was known as Brian Williams when he played at Santa Monica St. Monica High and later with the Clippers and the 1996-97 NBA champion Chicago Bulls, is missing somewhere in the South Pacific.

So is his girlfriend, Serena Karlan, and Bertrand Saldo, the captain of Dele’s 55-foot catamaran, the “Hakuna Matata.”

Law officials presume they are dead, and they would like to speak with Dabord to find out what he knows.

Phillips said both of her sons were sailing together with Karlan for six months until early July. Karlan called her mother on July 7. Neither Dele nor Karlan have established contact with any of their family members or friends on the mainland since. Friends say they were last seen alive on the French Polynesian island of Moorea, a 51-square-mile haven that features a Club Med location, multi-hued lagoons, white-sand beaches and jagged, picturesque mountains.

Dabord placed a cell phone call to Phillips once Tuesday night, and again Wednesday morning. In both brief conversations, he threatened suicide.

Phillips quoted her son saying, “Ma, I know the police are looking for me. Nobody will believe my story. I just want you to believe me. I just wanted to call you before I take care of myself. Mom, I didn’t do it.”

Said Phillips: “He called me and told me he wanted me to know he didn’t do this thing he was being accused of. He said how important it was for him to know that I believed him, and that I loved him, because he was at the end of his life.”

Although Phillips declined to disclose all details of her talks with Dabord, Scott Ohlgren, Karlan’s stepfather, said he was told Dabord referenced a physical struggle he had with Dele sometime during the trip.

“Miles told her essentially nothing,” Ohlgren said. “How’s that for an alarm?”

Dabord was picked up and questioned by Phoenix police Sept. 5 after attempting to purchase gold from an establishment, Certified Mint, by signing “Brian Williams” on a check for $152,000 from his younger brother’s account. He used Brian Williams’ passport as identification. Police did not arrest Dabord, citing “lack of information.” Kevin Porter, Dele’s personal assistant, told Phillips he accompanied Dabord to Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix and watched him purchase a plane ticket to San Jose.

Along with the conversations she had with Dabord, Phillips received more news Wednesday. The FBI announced an active missing persons investigation to determine what has become of Dele, Karlan and Saldo.

Andrew Black, a spokesman from the bureau’s San Francisco office that will serve as the base of the investigation, said officials are in the process of interviewing those with information about the disappearance.

“We are very much interested in talking to Kevin Eugene Williams [Dabord] about this matter,” Black said.

Said Ohlgren: “I’m so grateful they’re looking for him [Dabord]. I’ve got a feeling the FBI has a pretty long arm, and they’ll be able to solve this.”

Black would not comment on Dabord’s whereabouts, although sources close to the matter said the FBI has information that Dabord drove to San Diego this week and ventured across the border to Tijuana. He is also believed to have told his side of the story to an attorney friend, providing a stipulation that the attorney can divulge the details if Dabord commits suicide.

Dwight Manley, Dele’s agent, said he has tried to arrange for a criminal attorney, John Barnett, to represent Dabord.

“I don’t think we have long to wait,” Phillips said. “Miles will either take his life or he’ll come in.”

The “Hakuna Matata” and its occupants remain missing, Black said. The FBI has contacted the U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Control Center in Honolulu, Black said.

“We conducted a search by phone with other centers, and that search has been suspended,” Chief Petty Officer Joseph Curcio of the Honolulu Rescue Control Center said Wednesday. “If we get a request to search again, we will run it up the chain. Until we get some kind of manageable search area, all we can do is put out the word to other RCCs. A specific area would allow us to do more, starting with messages to ships at sea.”

Francois Chaumette, an assistant harbor master in Papeete, Tahiti, said his control center is prepared to conduct a search, including the use of a plane or military vessel, if requested. Chaumette said, “The strange side of this story is that we have not been able to firmly say until now if they were missing or if they did not want to be disturbed on some remote island.”

Phillips, who discussed the saga at length Wednesday afternoon while sitting at her dining table within reach of a pile of tissues that she occasionally used to dab tears, said she fears the worst for both of her sons.

“I can only assume that if this is worth it to Miles to take his life over, what else is there?” Phillips said.

She is leaning on aunts and uncles for support now. As an aunt left an audible phone message in the background, “I love you so much,” Phillips’ smooth face cringed and tears welled in her eyes.

“I’ve been a little disappointed with some of the e-mails I’ve received from family and friends, in that they had all asked only about Brian,” Phillips said. “I sent them all a reply [Tuesday] night, saying, ‘I need you to pray and hope for Miles too.’ No one knows the truth.”

Until Tuesday night’s phone call from Miles, Phillips said she had been estranged from him since January 1999.

“There was no one incident,” Phillips said of the split. “It had to do with Miles feeling that he couldn’t ever be loved as much as Brian. People always gravitated to Brian, even before he became a celebrity. Miles is studious and quiet. He grew up in his brother’s shadow. Everything that happened to Brian was so much bigger than what happened in Miles’ life. I think that manifested in Miles to the point where he was telling himself, ‘My mother doesn’t love me, and she never will.’ ”

Dele was regarded as one of the most enigmatic players in NBA history. Manley said Dele dated Madonna. Dele ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. He once rode a bicycle from Denver to Phoenix with only a credit card. He was a certified pilot and scuba diver. When he retired in 1999 and forfeited a contract that owed him $30 million, he told Manley he didn’t like the competitive nature of an artistic sport like basketball.

“I have a wide range of interests too,” Phillips said. “I am a researcher who has attempted to figure out this big, interwoven web of life. Brian did that by pushing the adrenaline envelope. Miles was more like me.”

She said the boys occasionally raised their voices at each other while growing up, but never had a violent exchange.

It’s a detail like that, Phillips said, that makes this big, interwoven web so complex.

“Truth allows you to move forward, it sets you free--even the most awful truth,” she said. “Uncertainty keeps you in prison. It paralyzes you. I stand here today paralyzed.”