Rashaun Jones.Photo: Marion County Sheriff’s Office
A former college football player has been charged in the murder of one of his University of Miami teammates, 15 years after the fatal shooting.
Bryan Pata, a 22-year-old defensive lineman for the University of Miami football team at the time, was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head in the parking lot of a Miami, Florida, apartment complex on Nov. 7, 2006.
On Thursday, his one-time teammate Rashaun Jones, now 35, was charged with first-degree murder in the case, authorities announced. Jones was arrested in Ocala, Florida, and is awaiting transfer to Miami-Dade County.
The arrest comes afterESPN published a thorough investigationinto the case back in November 2020, with the outlet noting their reporting “pointed out misstepsin the long-stalled police inquiry.” The report named Jones as a potential suspect, noting that he’d been suspended from the team at the time after a failed drug test and that Pata had been dating Jones' ex-girlfriend.
“The Pata family has waited a long time to see the individual they had believed involved in Brian’s death arrested and charged,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in apress release. “While the time needed to build sufficient evidence to ethically charge in a homicide can sometimes feel endless, families should know that the passion and determination of police and prosecutors to resolve unsolved cases does not diminish.”
Bryan Pata.University of Miami
“The commitment of the Miami-Dade Police Department and of my prosecutors and staff to bring the alleged perpetrators to justice never diminishes,” Rundle added.
It was not immediately clear if Jones has an attorney for PEOPLE to reach for comment.
Pata told his brother Edwin two months before his death that Jones had allegedly threatened to shoot him in the head, but no report was made at the time, investigators added.
Rashaun Jones.University of Miami
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Miami-Dade Police Department’s Det. Juan Segovia said in avideo about Pata: “His whole world revolved around football and his family. It’s not like he had a lot of enemies. He wasn’t involved in the criminal element. He was a young man who was looking forward to a future in the NFL. That’s all he wanted, was play football in the National Football League. He wanted to take care of his family one day.”
source: people.com
