Baylor Athlete Was Shot Twice in Head, Autopsy Finds

Baylor University basketball player Patrick James Dennehy II was shot twice in the head and did not have alcohol in his system, according to a final autopsy report released Wednesday.

Both gunshot wounds were above the right ear. The first bullet exited Dennehy’s forehead above the left eye; the second exited behind the left ear, according to the autopsy by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas. The report does not say how long Dennehy had been dead.

Dennehy had been missing about six weeks when his body was found July 25 in a field near a rock quarry four miles south of the Baylor campus.

Jessica De La Rosa, Dennehy’s girlfriend of two years, told Associated Press that she was not surprised the toxicology tests were negative.

“I had no doubt in my mind that [drug use] was no part of this,” she said from her home in Albuquerque.

Allegations had surfaced after the 21-year-old Dennehy disappeared in June that there was rampant drug use on the Baylor basketball team.

Carlton Dotson, Dennehy’s former teammate and roommate, has been charged with murder in Dennehy’s death and remains jailed in his home state of Maryland, awaiting transfer to Texas.

Dotson, 21, told the FBI that he shot Dennehy after the player tried to shoot him, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

After Dennehy’s disappearance, some of his family and friends said that a coach had given him money for a car and apartment and that his tuition was paid for, although he was not on a scholarship, which would be a violation of NCAA rules.

Baylor basketball Coach Dave Bliss and Athletic Director Tom Stanton resigned Friday.

University President Robert Sloan said school investigators discovered that Bliss was involved in improper financial aid to two players and that staff members did not properly report players’ failed drug tests. Sloan said Stanton had no direct knowledge of any violations.