Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Deborah Roberts.
Chapter 2: What led to the murder of Brian Pata?
You're about to hear the first episode of a new true crime series from ESPN's 30 for 30 podcasts called Murder at the U. In 2006, a rising college football star was gunned down in broad daylight just steps away from campus. a cold-blooded execution that baffled investigators for nearly 20 years. Then a surprising name surfaced, a former teammate now accused of carrying out the murder.
As a long-delayed trial finally approaches, Murder at the U takes a look at how scrutiny from a team of ESPN reporters revived a dormant case.
Chapter 3: How did ESPN reporters revive the cold case?
and why the search for justice is only now reaching a courtroom. We'll be releasing the first four episodes of this series right here on the 2020 feed over the next two weeks. But if you're anxious to jump in, you can get new episodes early by following 30 for 30 podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Now, here's episode one of Murder at the U.
It's 2006. Two guys in their 20s are driving down US 1 in Miami in a black Infiniti SUV. The AC's blasting, the music is blasting.
We on our way to my crib.
Driving to that Rick Ross. You know, US-1 going south. So, you know, just riding.
The driver is a football player at the University of Miami, Brian Pata. The guy next to him in the passenger seat is a sports writer from the Miami Herald. His name is Manny Navarro. Manny has his camera trained on Brian.
I was a young reporter who wanted to do something cool. MTV Cribs was sort of big back then.
MTV Cribs was a show where celebrities led camera crews through tours of their houses. Manny wanted to make something similar for the Miami Herald. But in Manny's version, the celebrities would be University of Miami football players, the Hurricanes.
So my idea was just make these guys personable. Tell a story that is unique in Miami. These are Miami guys playing for Miami football program. Brian was really the first guy I threw the idea across. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm down. I'm down, let's do it, let's do it. And you know, I got the camera on him, because I want to make sure I get the audio and the video, you know, the whole thing.
The two guys head to Brian's apartment complex. It's called The Colony. where several other University of Miami players live. It's classic Florida, with corridors on the outside of the building, like a motel.
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Chapter 4: What was Brian Pata's life like before his death?
But that is not what happened. Instead, weeks turned into months, which eventually turned into years, and Brian's murder remained unsolved. But almost 20 years later, someone is finally set to stand trial for the murder of Brian Pata. I'm Paula Levine.
From 30 for 30 podcast, this is Murder at the U. The story of how two University of Miami teammates found themselves on opposite ends of a murder investigation and what happened when a team of ESPN reporters brought that investigation into the light. As a reporter, I try to stay out of the story. But sometimes the work you do to get the story and what you uncover changes it.
That's exactly what happened here. And that story starts in 2017, in the office of Ben Weber. I was a feature producer at ESPN. One of the shows Ben worked on at the time was College Game Day, ESPN's weekly show about college football.
Glad to have you with us. How great is it to have college football back on a full Saturday?
In August 2017, Ben received an email from an odd source.
I got an email that said the Miami Police Department was interested in helping us tell this story in an effort to try to find new leads.
The story was more than 10 years old, and it was about the unsolved murder of a University of Miami football player, Brian Pata. Is it unusual for police departments to pitch stories to ESPN?
I'll say in my 25 years here, that's the first and only time that that has happened.
But Ben looked up the case, and as he was scrolling through the results, he found a video of a press conference about this murder. It had happened only three months earlier.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did the police face in solving Brian's murder?
Take one incident from 1987 when the Hurricanes played against Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. The team walked off their plane wearing top to bottom military fatigues and sunglasses.
The Miami squad made noise the moment it reached Phoenix.
They looked like extras in a Rambo movie. The image is iconic. Media coverage at the time tilted strongly against the Hurricanes. Are these guys really thugs, or did they just put on this kind of image for the Fiesta Bowl? Because Miami recruited locally, their team was largely made up of players from Miami's Black neighborhoods.
Once they were hurricanes, these players became celebrities almost overnight. When sports reporters would moralize about the team, they'd use code words like inner city, but you could tell they meant black.
Well, they have that reputation because they've had a lot of problems with police. They've had fights with fellow students. They've had one player was arrested for allegedly hitting his girlfriend.
Any idea why? I mean, are they just some problem players?
They give the excuse that they live in a big city, but that doesn't condone anything. We had this college team on the rise, and it was a college team made up predominantly of Miami kids. And it was a major point of pride for everybody in this town, particularly when the team played with an us-against-the-world mentality. And Miami had this us-against-the-world mentality.
This us-against-the-world mentality would only grow stronger after an NCAA corruption scandal hit the football program in 1995. University of Miami players reportedly took cash prizes for big plays in violation of NCAA rules. The accusations became part of Miami's lore.
There were out of control football dorms, run ins with the police, trips to strip clubs on official visits, money, sex, drugs, you name it. The NCAA banned the Canes from playing in a bowl game for one season and hit the team with other sanctions.
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Chapter 6: How did the press conference impact the investigation?
Yeah, I got a license.
I got a gun license. Yeah, man, that's straight, then. You know what?
Yeah.
Oh, don't add the gun thing on the paper or whatnot, please. No, it's not going to be in the paper.
The thing is, Brian Pata wasn't the only one on the team with a gun.
Reserve Safety Willie Cooper was shot and slightly wounded outside his off-campus apartment by a gunman hiding in the bushes.
We carried him from protection because you just never know when you need it.
That's next time on Murder at the U. And later this season... An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody.
Well, come and get it then. You know where you can find me?
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