Waco Police Stumped in Dennehy Inquiry

Despite a confidential tip purporting to explain a Baylor University basketball player’s disappearance, police said Wednesday that they remain stumped and acknowledged that they are effectively waiting for another phone call to lead them in the right direction.

“Things are not progressing as fast as maybe we’d all like,” said Larry Holze, a Waco city official and spokesman.

The player, 21-year-old Patrick James Dennehy II, was last seen on June 12 in Waco.

On Monday, a police affidavit outlined a tip investigators received from a confidential informant in Delaware. The tipster, called “credible” by investigators, alleged that Dennehy was shot in the head by one of his roommates and teammates, Eric Carlton Dotson, according to the affidavit.

Around the time of Dennehy’s disappearance, he and Dotson, a close friend, went to a patch of private land north of Waco to shoot guns, the informant told police. During an altercation, Dennehy pointed his gun at Dotson “as if to shoot him,” the document said. Dotson “shot his roommate in the head with a 9-millimeter pistol,” the informant told police, the affidavit said.

Dotson has been interviewed by investigators, and has not been charged with a crime. Police still consider Dennehy a missing person.

Many in this central Texas city hoped that the tip would lead to a quick resolution of the case. But on Wednesday, 10 days after the affidavit was filed in court, police said that they do not have a handle on the case. Asked whether investigators are waiting for another tip that could solve the case, Waco police spokesman Steven Anderson said: “Right now, yes.”

“We do not have a body. We do not have an actual crime scene,” Anderson said. “We’re just hoping that someone who knows something about [Dennehy’s] whereabouts will eventually call us.... Somebody out there knows what happened or they know where he’s at.”

Police have received hundreds of other tips, some of them credible, Anderson said. None has enabled police to zero in on the cause of Dennehy’s disappearance.

Anderson said investigators have used dogs and helicopters to search “many areas around Waco,” but those hunts have come up empty. Investigators also have started inspecting files on Dennehy’s computer, searching for evidence indicating that he was threatened recently or other clues. But that has become a “very lengthy and drawn-out process,” Anderson said.

Dotson’s father-in-law, reached by telephone Wednesday afternoon, said that he feels “very confident there will be some closure.” Jim Bayuk’s stepdaughter, Melissa Keithley, married Dotson in August and has been separated from him since early April. Bayuk is the police chief in Sulphur Springs, Texas, about 140 miles northeast of Waco. Bayuk has not spoken with Dotson, he said, and he added that the case has been very hard on his stepdaughter.

“She is going through a very tough time right now,” Bayuk said. “It’s the unknown. She has questions that nobody can answer right now.”

Bayuk said he knows from his police work that investigators can be forced to wait for a lucky break before resolving complicated cases.

“I have total confidence in the Waco Police Department and the FBI,” which is assisting in the case, he said. “This is a massive investigation. It might take one phone call. But until that comes, these officers are doing everything in their power and using every resource possible to try to bring this to a conclusion.”