Chapter 1: What events led to the murder of Brian Pata?
It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life.
I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies wherever you get your podcasts.
The shooting happened right down Southwest 77th Avenue here in the parking lot of Pata's apartment building. And tonight, Miami-Dade police are searching for his killer.
Yeah, Brian Patto was a defensive star in the Miami Hurricanes. He was going to be in the NFL in just a few months. I said, what do you mean they killed him? Like, why? Why would somebody do this?
I was just coming home. I had just gotten home from work. And as I answered the phone, it was my mom. And my mom shared with me, you haven't heard? Sidney is dead. I just paused and started screaming. When Brian Potter's mother got to the scene and she was told that her son had been killed, I mean, it was devastating.
It looked like one of those scenes you'd see in a movie of a mother just wailing, and it was heartbreaking. Give me my baby. Give me my baby.
It was a scream of pain that was just coming from her soul, her gut. And I was like, oh my god, this is real. She hugged me. I was like, Sydney is gone. Sydney is gone. I was like, oh my.
I started to cry so bad. You're watching the rawest of emotions. You're watching someone deal with a tragedy in real time. This is a very private, emotional moment, but it's being broadcast on live TV. And little did we know in that moment how much more devastating it would become.
Life has always been a challenge and obstacles of test of who I am and what I will become.
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Chapter 2: How did the Miami-Dade police respond to Brian Pata's murder?
He always gets everybody to kind of gravitate towards him.
Feel me? Check my biceps out.
We got those cameras like the year before. Come here, dog. See what's up to the camera, dog. As soon as he got it, everybody was walking around with him. Everybody always taking videos. It's a true encapsulation of who this person was at that age, living in Miami, being a star football player.
Take off that shirt. He was always filming. He had to be in front of the cameras.
He had to be recording him dancing. If you look at him, you know, it may be a little intimidating, but... He was a great person.
He had a great heart. Great spirit.
His smile could just light up the room when he came in. He made everybody laugh.
It was just, he had a soft heart and really loved people. You could see this huge guy that looks, you know, this football player. But for me, I looked past that. I knew the soft side of him. That's the brother I remember. Ryan Paddock came from a big family. He had an even larger extended family when you consider the football team, the people in his life and community who looked up to him.
My mom, she's from Haiti.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding Brian Pata's life before his death?
There were nine $100 bills still in it, his cell phone. Like, no one had stolen anything. To me, this might have been more in the line of a hit, a targeted assassination, if you will. All through the night, the police canvassed the colony apartments, knocking on every door. But they turned up no eyewitnesses. There was no security camera footage.
There was no obvious trace of the killer other than the bullet that had pierced Brian's skull. It was the worst feeling I ever had in my whole life. As an older brother, you always want to protect your younger brothers. And I felt like I wasn't there to protect them. It was awful. Awful. Who could have wanted a rising football star with a promising future dead?
Detectives began asking questions that night, asking Brian's family and teammates if he had any enemies, if he'd been in any fights, if he was worried for his safety. Turns out, the answer to all of those questions was yes.
This is Miami. There's a dangerous, sexy, cool reputation in this town. And if you are a college football player at the University of Miami, you are going to get caught up in that fast-living lifestyle very quickly. You know what I'm saying? Just showing y'all my cars and whatnot. The thong, baby. That was Brian. Yeah, he was that flashy. Check you out on my inside. You check me out? Woo-wee.
He was very flashy.
Back in the days, I used to do all the UM players' cars. Keith Brown. This DJ thong. Brian came to the shop. This is what he wanted right here. This is his favorite color right here. Candy apple gold, that syrup look. He loved that. Brian's love of cars came during a time when a lot of kids his age were doing a lot of the same thing.
He had a great joy of buying old classic cars, fixing them up, and then flipping them on the internet.
Just showing y'all my work, what I can do to my cars. Cleaned out good.
He enjoyed that aspect of taking something, making it beautiful, and then trying to get a buck off of it. That was one of the things that Brian wanted to do once he got successful and got paid in the pros is open up a car shop.
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Chapter 4: How did Brian Pata's family react to the news of his murder?
You know what I mean?
Here's what we had learned about Rashawn. Rashawn had conflicts with Brian. He would have known the hurricane's practice schedule and what time Brian would arrive home. According to the police report, there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting. No murder weapon was ever found. And there was no record of any physical evidence linking Rashawn to the crime.
Clearly the name Rashawn Jones came up, but it was on a list of many names that we were looking at. Initially, police looked into a broad string of incidents involving the Miami football team, but they weren't able to make any connection to Brian's shooting.
As the investigation continued and police widened their search, they realized there was a long list of people who may have wanted to harm Brian.
At one point, the police had been alerted by a jailhouse snitch that his cellmate had allegedly confessed to him one night.
As part of vetting, the police had the informant take a polygraph. No arrests as of yet as police in Miami continue their investigation. Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman for Miami, gunned down at the age of 22.
The murder of Brian Pata took on mythological proportions in this town. It was like everybody had a different theory.
We learned that Brian had a busy life. It wasn't just football and his girlfriend. He was involved in a lot of things. The investigation at the start went in so many different directions.
There were so many different angles they were trying to go with. I felt like the police just didn't know which leads to really truly go for. It wasn't a limited field of suspects. You need to follow the evidence.
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Chapter 5: What conflicts existed between Brian Pata and Rashawn Jones?
The only cover page that had the word suspect on it was the cover page for Rashawn Jones. We knew that was important. They forgot to redact it. That was the first indication that they were not being truthful with us. Do you have a specific suspect in mind? No.
I mean, anybody. We didn't have a specific suspect.
The police are not required to be truthful to reporters. However, in denying they ever had a main suspect, they made us even more skeptical of their information. They had considered Rashawn Jones a suspect from the beginning. In November of 2020, our investigative team decided that it was ready to publish something with everything that we had learned.
That photo that was featured so prominently of all the players on the field kneeling by that banner of Brian's face will look very different based on the players who are pictured in it.
Place your hands on your back for me.
Place them to rest.
My mom, she still talks to him and we help her clean the grave site. The heartbreak of not knowing. There's not a day that my mom did not wake up. She's in tears. She'll never be the same.
I remember my son every day. It's sad. While interviewing the family, we learned that every year they held a vigil on the anniversary of Brian's murder at his gravestone.
I try to keep this case active as much as we can. 13 years later, you realize nothing's been really done. Somebody just kill him like this, it's not right. One day, true gonna come out.
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Chapter 6: What evidence did the prosecution present against Rashawn Jones?
You have never seen Mr. Johnson with a firearm? I've never seen him. The prosecution ends its case on the very graphic testimony of the medical examiner. I do. Who uses a model to describe the fatal injury that takes Brian's life.
The pathway of the bullet to Mr. Ipata's body was from his left side, several inches above his left ear. That was hard for the family. It was an incredibly emotional way to end those five days of testimony. We had so many other leads, all of which were more viable than Rashawn. Ultimately, the court ruled that these different viable theories be excluded.
At this time, the defense rests. Even without that, we felt so good about the case because they still didn't have anything, and we trusted that a jury would feel similarly.
I had to ask somebody next to me, did I hear what I thought I heard?
Mr. Jones, your attorneys have indicated after speaking to you that you do not wish to testify. They're not going to call any witnesses on your behalf. Have you had an opportunity to discuss that with them? Yes. Are you deciding not to testify in this case?
Yes, ma'am. We were stunned. I think anybody there who was witnessing this was wondering what had happened.
Both the state and the defendant have now rested their case. The attorneys will now present their final arguments. You'd remember one of the worst days of your life. You test positive. Your future's unsure. You don't have the girl. You're going to get kicked off the team. Things are not going your way. And then it all just boils over.
Does this look anything like Rashawn Jones?
Does this look anything like Rashawn Jones? Nothing. Paul Connor's selection is not reliable. It is not credible. Rashawn Jones was not at the colony apartments. Rashawn Jones did not shoot him. Rashawn Jones had nothing to do with his death. Rashawn Jones failed the drug test. He was at home at the time that Brian Pata was killed.
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