The After Show: Murder at the U

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Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships. Baring cash.

And a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Judue Chang. From 2020, an ABC audio. Listen to Bridge of Lies. Coming March 10th.

Wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi everybody, and welcome to 2020 The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and I'm so glad you're with us.

Today we are taking, as we always do, a closer look at one of our 2020 episodes.

The most recent one. And if you saw it, you remember it.

“And if you didn't, we're going to give you all the details right now.”

It's called Murder at the You. And it's the heartbreaking story of a young man who really was the epitome of the American Dream. Brian Patta was the son of a single mom from Haiti. He had eight siblings.

I know what that's like to be from a large family. In fact, it's kind of interesting. This one grabbed my eye because I'm from a family of nine kids. Brian was the kind of kid that many had described as kind and humble a young man, a strong young man with a really soft heart.

He was also a shining star, a football player at the University of Miami. And he appeared to be on his way to a pro career, a top tier prospect for the 2007 NFL draft. And just months before that could happen. His life was tragically cut short on November 7th, 2006.

Brian was found shot to death next to his parked car. And of course, the big question is who would want to take the life of this young promising 22 year old guy? Well, that was the question that lingered for quite a while in the weeks and days and months afterwards.

No arrest in this case. And this went on for more than a decade. The case was essentially growing cold. And then finally, a former teammate of his was arrested and charged in the murder. Finally, in February, the case went to court.

And just last week, a bombshell in the courtroom. We're going to take you through all of these twists and turns.

But first of all, this is a case that may have never even made it to court.

If it had not been for an intrepid investigative team at ESPN. So joining us now is one of those reporters, Paula Levine, who is host of the 30 for 30 podcast murder at the U and here with me in the studio is 2020 producer Mike Schultz, who helped bring this story to 2020. So welcome to you both, Mike.

Good to have you. And Paula, good to have you here. Thank you. Mike, let me just ask you first of all. You brought this story to 2020.

You had heard about it.

“And you saw what I think must have been something that grabbed your attention, which was this”

photo of the football players right after Brian Pattas' death. All of them gathered around an image of his praying before a game. What was it about the story that caught your eye right away? So there's an image at the first home game following Brian Pattas' death, where the players on the team are gathered at midfield after the game, praying over a vigil of Brian.

And in the photo is kneeling as the man who was ultimately arrested and charged with his murder. And I found that one of his teammates. One of his teammates, Roshan Jones, and I found that to be such a striking image. And as I started digging into the case a bit more and learning more about the investigation, and about the ESPN like work that was done after the fact,

I thought it would make a really, really compelling show to kind of dig into all these ins and outs of the case. Interestingly, ESPN had already been digging into this story. Paula, the case landed in your lap in about 2018. Talk about how it landed in your lap and what you thought of it in the very beginning.

Sure, well actually, even the year before in 2017, something happened that has never happened to us before,

which is the Miami-Dade Police Department reached out to ESPN to ask us if maybe we would do something on Brian Pattas and maybe like a college game-based special or something. And at that time, they communicated that maybe some national media attention would bring someone forward with some information. And as it wasn't really a fit for that sort of thing, but as producers looked at it and then other journalists including, you know, I got brought into it.

We were like, this is actually something we wanted to dig into. And one of the things that really turned us onto this was a press conference in 2017, where the Patta family came to sort of make this plea for people to come forward and Brian Pattas' mom, Jeanette, just started, just kind of went off script and was very angry

And we really keyed into that frustration and wanted to take a look at, well, why haven't they made progress on this case? What haven't they been doing?

And that led us on a search for records and interviews and it took us in a direction that we never, never anticipated.

“You would be doing, you would be going down and I think it's interesting that they didn't necessarily ask you to help them solve the case.”

They just wanted you to help shine a light on the case thinking that would help. Well, before we get to all of those little details of what you noticed and how they wound up toward a suspect, might you set down with Brian's siblings, at least a few of them. And they obviously were so shattered by the loss of him, but they talked about growing up in this particular area they were Haitian group in Little Haiti.

And for them, I mean, sports was kind of a salvation they shared with you that that was a big deal in their lives, kind of an opportunity if they were to go to college. Talk a little bit about if you would that community and what that was like where they grew up. Sure, so the family actually moved around quite a bit. The mother Jeanette would move her family on a whim depending on how safe or unsafe she thought the neighborhoods were,

where they were living. So they were rather transient. So sports were a way for the kids to fit in in new neighborhoods that they were living. And also for a way for them to go to college because otherwise,

would have never been able to afford it.

Sports got them off the street.

“They would have otherwise been prone to the unsafe areas in which they were living.”

And the unsafe very character surrounding them if they hadn't been able to do that. We've heard that story so much in pro sports too, where the mom drove the kids to do this just to kind of keep them busy and keep them off the streets. And in this case, she's a single mom.

You know, when we heard them talking about the dreams, the big dreams that he had that they had for him and his family. He had hoped to buy his mom a house. Instead, though, they wound up bearing him in the suit that he had hoped to be drafted in. I mean, it had to be, you know, just a real emotional time for you talking to them.

Harbraking. This is probably the hardest part of the job that we do is talking to people who's loved the ones who've been killed. Paul, you had a chance to know about this family too. But also the idea that for Brian, you know, the University of Miami. I mean, this was a storied football team.

I mean, we all had heard about it over the years. And they were known to be tough. In fact, that culture was pretty tough, right? I mean, somebody said they would kind of call the bad boys of football.

“So what was that culture like that he was stepping into?”

Oh, absolutely. I mean, at the time, you know, in those early 2000s coming off multiple national championships. The Miami hurricanes were at the top of the world. I mean, they, and they had this swagger too. That's what they were known for.

They were just known for their swagger for their sort of trash talking. I mean, and they could prove it. I mean, they, you know, they had during that time. I mean, they sent so many players to the NFL. And Brian was looking at that at those teams and saying, you know, I want to be a part of that.

He had offers other places. But it was, there was the perfect opportunity for him. I mean, he could go to this team that was, you know, on the top of the world. And he could stay home and, and be close to his mom. And, you know, and he really fit into that, that attitude too.

I mean, he was really into going to the night clubs. He was, you know, like to work on cars. I mean, he had all these outside interests and really fit into that culture of those players. And sort of the wild times, all the money floating around them. There were high times there in Miami, and it was, it was the place to be.

I mean, it was quite an experience for a football player for a young man coming in a college. But then you talked about how this family actually in the times in the weeks leading up to his murder. They noticed a little distance. They noticed that he was a little bit different. What was going on for him?

Yeah, absolutely. He made some comments about, you know, being a little, a fright, a little paranoid. He was telling people he was, you know, getting threats. One of those notable things was, I mean, he had guns. And he slept in his closet with, with his, he had an AK-47.

I mean, he thought that was, that was some of the extreme behavior that they were noticing. He covered up, he had a personalized license plate. It said, "Pada." And he put, you know, covered it up with, like, black tape or cover. And just things like that, leading in the weeks leading up to his death.

People really noticed he was, he was doing some things that really indicated that he had some suspicion or some fear that, and even nightmares, you know, he was telling his brother about that someone was after him. The big question is, why? And we're going to take a look into that.

But first we have to take a break.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about the explosive twists and turns in this case. So don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I'm sitting here with ESPN's investigative reporter Paula Levine. Alongside 2020 producer Mike Schultz, peeling back the layers of our latest episode Murder at The You, which centered around the just unbelievable killing of a 22 year old college football star

by the name of Brian Pada. And Paula, I want to go back to that night that Brian was murdered because it was really telling in a way the way he was found. He was getting out of his car. Outside his apartment complex.

This is November 7, 2006. And he was found face down in a pool of blood. And right away, that was sort of telling the way he was discovered. Wasn't it?

“Well, I think when investigators took a look at it,”

they felt like the way that he was found was that it look like he had been ambushed. And there were some of the things they noticed there, too, that there was a, you know, his wallet was still there. He had, you know, nine hundred dollars in his wallet. You know, his vehicle was still there.

Like, so it wasn't a robbery. Yeah. That thought that maybe this was a robbery was like, OK, that's not what happened. And it seemed they, they did do it pretty early on that, that whoever killed him wanted him specifically.

Brian padded dead. Yeah. They, they immediately thought that this was sort of execution style, that this was sort of a planned attack. So the investigation goes on.

No arrest in this case. And then eventually years, and it goes cold. And, you know, ESPN gets involved as you had said earlier, they thought you might shine a light on this case. And there had been a press conference with his mother,

Jeanette, as you alluded to, pleading with the public for some help here. And I guess the big question people would ask is why was it taking so long? I think that, that's still a big question. I mean, they pursued some leads,

but then it just sort of stopped. And that was the big question the family, like, you know, what are you doing on this case? What's happening? You know, and there's, they just went for a year.

I think the last entry in the police report until things, you know, until we got involved. It was like from 2009, 2010. They just, they really stopped entering anything into evidence. I mean, it just disappeared.

And then police finally, as Mike said, arrest, Rochon, Jones, Brian's former teammate. But then they said that he had been a suspect, or they had suspicions about him all along. And if that's the case, then why weren't they making a case all along?

Why wasn't he arrested sooner?

That is a question that we would love to have a million dollar.

A million dollar question, yeah. Yeah, the million dollar question. Because there really wasn't anything that changed from the evidence that they had back in, you know, 2007, 2008 to when they arrested him in 2021.

And the detective said, oh, it was, you know, coming back and taking a closer look at the evidence and putting things together in a better way, I think some interviews. But, you know, they still can see.

There was no smoking gun found in that time.

“The only thing that was different substantially different”

was that ESPN got involved. And drew a lot of attention to this case and put it back into the headlines. And that did force them to take a closer look at it. And then they decide that, you know,

now the evidence looks better and they've got a different

Was there any other, you said no smoking gun,

“but any other compelling evidence that made him a suspect?”

There was some, there was substantial circumstantial evidence. So there was, there were allegations that, Brian Patton, Rashont Jones had a beef with each other over Brian Patton's girlfriend with whom Rashont Jones had previously been involved.

There was a dorm room fight in 2004 where Brian really kind of beat up quite a bit on Rashont. And then on the day of the killing, Rashont finds out that he's, you know, failed a drug test in he's facing a two-game suspension.

And then he is after Brian's killed. There's a mandatory team meeting back at the athletic facilities. And Rashont is the only player known to not come to that meeting. So that's, that's part of it.

But the other big piece of evidence I think with this state might call their strongest piece of evidence is there's a former university, well at a time, university Miami writing instructor who is coming to the apartment complex

right around the time Brian is killed and he sees someone and he doesn't think anything of it until the next day when he hears about what happened

“and he goes to police and he tells him that he had this encounter”

with this individual who is leaving. And, you know, gives them a description they generate a sketch. It isn't until about seven months later when some of the southern circumstantial evidence pointing to Rashont, you know, sort of gets a solidified for the police

that they come to the gentleman as names Paul Conner and they present him with a photo line up and there are 12 photos total and he picks out the photo of Rashont Jones and he says that's the guy I saw leaving the apartment complex

on the night of Brian shooting. Yeah, and that's a big moment, Mike. I see you've been nodding along here. Talk to us a little bit about what you learned about Rashont and Brian's relationship.

By the time this arrest happened, you know, Rashont now is married and has children and he's got a typical family life but prior to this, as Paul said, they had had a little beef in their relationship

there have been some real tensions there. I've been some tension, however, in learning about the dynamic of the team,

“fights between teammates in the locker room”

seem to be commonplace. I didn't seem to be an outlying event and there's a lot of testosterone. There's a lot of fighting over girls and there seem to be par for the course for the most part.

What I also found interesting was the beef that existed between Brian and Rashont was almost two years before the murder. So the fight that they had, if you had bad blood afterwards, you know, simmering for a long time

if you're planning to kill somebody. Yeah, you can make an argument that that was old news.

First is reacting in the moment.

People had described Rashont as a hothead and other arguments with people and was very reactive to that but this didn't feel reactive but felt calculating.

I think later on during trial of prosecution tried to paint the picture of jealousy with Rashont over Brian that Brian was going to, and Rashont was kind of stuck in a rot,

especially given his drugs suspension. But as Rashont's lawyers point out they didn't even play the same position that Rashont was a defensive back where as Brian was a defensive lineman

so they weren't even operating in the same orbit. They weren't in direct competition. Not at all. And frankly, a lot of the teammates weren't interacting regularly with players

of different positions. So they weren't fighting for playing time. You know, there was really no reason to be jealous in that same way.

So then Jones is charged finally

all those years later with this murder and family and friends just don't believe it. They don't think he's a killer. Rashont's family and friends don't believe it. Brian's family and friends

or his family specifically feels like he was the guy all along. They had been getting tips from people inside the police department and from other players saying that it was Rashont.

They from a very early point thought it was ham and this was validating and they've, you know, steadfastly believed it was Rashont all the way. Rashont's wife is Shenda when he's arrested.

She visits him when he's being interrogated and reaffirms her beliefs that he didn't do it that the police have the wrong guy. For the pod as though this was confirmation

for them that police have finally made an arrest

I'll be at 15 years too. I'll be at 15 years. Well, I have to sneak in a quick break. Jones is held in jail for four and a half years before he finally gets a trial

in February of 2026 and that goes on for a couple of weeks. And then as we said, a bombshell that nobody saw coming. We're going to take you inside the courtroom in just a bit, so stay with us.

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Welcome back to 2020 The After Show and we are getting the details from ESPN and we are going to investigate a reporter Paula Levine and 2020 producer Mike Schultz, who's here with me about our most recent episode

which centers on the murder of Brian Patta and all star football player at the University of Miami with the hurricanes who was shot outside his apartment complex back in 2006. Well, it turns out his former teammate,

Rashad Jones,

was later charged with second degree murder

and then just last week a big shocker after two weeks of testimony several days a six-person jury remained deadlaught and the judge declared a mistrial. This was something nobody Paula.

I mean, I would imagine, well, I don't know. I mean, you were in the courtroom. Did you see it coming? I think we got the first indication

when they came back on Monday morning. They had ended deliberations on Thursday. They didn't have court on Friday. They came back Monday and we all went in there.

Okay, today is going to be the day. They've got a full day of deliberations. It's going to happen. And like shortly, like within an hour, it's not even an hour.

There was a note that was coming out of the jury room and it was that they were deadlocked and no one was willing to move. And the judge decided to send them back and ask them, you know,

okay, go through everything again,

just see if you can give it a go, right? It was like, you know, again, maybe an hour or so they came back and they're like, we are hopelessly deadlocked and it's not going to happen.

And so you could tell there was, you could tell there was just sort of shock and befundlement from everyone, even the judge, because this is not what anyone really expected.

“And honestly, nobody left that courtroom”

please that day. I mean, the family, you could tell they walked out. They were incredibly despondent. You know, they're at the elevators and all the media are swarming them.

And, you know, Jeanette Patters just saying over it over 20 years, 20 years. I mean, just could tell just anguish. And, you know, inside the courtroom

still, you know, the defense and Roshan hung out and at one point they're all, you know, holding hands and sort of bowing their heads

and just, you know, talking and trying

to try to figure out what happened next. And I think, yeah, I think the media, there were all sorts of just everybody. Everyone was pretty shy.

This was not something. This was not an alternative that I think a lot of people consider. That they had considered. And when you talk about Jeanette,

Mike, in the piece, there was this really, really almost chilling video of Jeanette running towards the scene after she discovers and she's been told

that her son has been murdered. And it just really is something that just grips you. And when you think about the family and after all of these years,

what does this new development in your view mean for the family? Well, I think that Paul is producing partner Dana Ruda,

“who's been one of our wonderful partners in this.”

Put it succinctly. When you juxtapose Brian's mother running to the scene, the day of the murder and then you see her

and that wheelchair being wheeled out and how much is this taking its toll on her and Paula pointed out as well when we interviewed Paula that she's almost been holding on

for this. She's in firm. She's had a lot of health issues and she's almost willing herself to just stick around

to get some closure for this. The family more than anything needs closure. They don't want closure. They need closure

to be made whole again. Yeah. To know after the fact that that wouldn't happen at least in the short term

and maybe not ever was really heartbreaking. And maybe even if not closure because most people would say there's never closure,

but justice, right? Sure. I'm feeling of justice. Paula, what next? Then what can we expect

in the court for the family and also with Roshan Jones? He's still in jail right now. Correct. Yeah.

He's still in jail. The prosecution indicated that it does intend to retry this case. They have set a new trial date

for the middle of May and, you know, and under four to law they have to do it within 90 days and so they're

anticipating doing this all over again. And Roshan his defense attorney asked for a lower bond so that, you know,

it's something he might be able to afford.

It was at 850,000.

The judge lowered it to 500,000.

So he's going to, you know, stay in custody until, until trial and then we'll see what happens and we'll go through this

all over again. The one big change, I think, is after all this media coverage, I think it might be hard

to find that many jurors who haven't heard anything about this case when they, when they come in for, for jury selection.

And that's going to be what's so interesting to see what they do differently. Did you kind of understand the jury's dilemma?

One of the things that ESPN pointed out all along in our reporting and the podcast was that the investigation

done by the Miami-Dade police department fell short in a lot of areas. And I think that, I'm not, I think,

I'm talking to some of the jurors that came out in trial. I mean, a lot of things that we pointed out and some of the things

that the defense was trying to get in, you know, the jury picked up on and I think for them, you know, even though they were hungry,

the indication was that, you know, most of them were moving toward and acquittal

and part of it and the main part of that was they just felt like the state just didn't have enough evidence

and they didn't present it very well. Yeah. I did you see it that way, too.

“And also the defense didn't put any witnesses up.”

The defense put no witnesses up for the next go-round I've talked to Rochon's lawyer who is glad that they didn't tip their hand

to the prosecution in terms of what their game plan was a prosecution did. They still have that in their back pocket.

But I wanted the point out that the jury was deadlock but that doesn't mean that they were split. In this case,

there was one holdout who wanted to convict and the others from our reporting wanted to equip

basically because they thought

he wasn't guilty or because there wasn't enough evidence. But I think that it's it's pretty hard

to overcome that into the next go-round in terms of presenting the same evidence and trying to sway these minds of people

who feel like there isn't enough evidence. Yeah. The one thing I want to point out is that Rochon is indigent.

He's been in jail for four and a half years. His lawyer, who's 30 years old, this woman named Sarah Alvarez,

is doing his completely pro bono. It's her first murder case. Ever. She's trying. I think it's

an indictment of the criminal justice system,

“that people who are poor people of color”

predominantly don't get a fair shake, or they're in jail for years and years and years just a while. While he was waiting trial,

he's not-- he's not-- he's been convicted of nothing. He's been in jail for longer than many people are in jail for a serious crimes.

Right. So watching it through that lens has been really difficult. Whether he's guilty or not,

I think it's really a challenge that this country faces on a regular basis that is really skewed towards people who have the wealth

to afford to take these things on. So he's in jail for four and a half years, but also to-- he had a possibility of a plea deal,

which he chose not to take. On the day that they were trying to reschedule the trial judge offers him yet again,

the opportunity for plea. Actually even says to him, give us your best offer and the message back is, I have no offer.

I'm not interested. Wow. This is a guy who truly asserts his innocence. Well, more of this will probably be discussed

in the coming months because the trial goes on. So to be continued, both of you, Mike Schultz and Paula Levine,

thank you so much for taking the time and Paula, what great work congrats to you and your team for shining the light

on this story, which otherwise may have just remained a cold case. Thank you. Well, thank you so much

both of you guys for being here. And thank you to our listeners for joining us again for this podcast episode. And of course,

you can always watch for our latest 2020 episodes on Friday nights on ABC. And you can stream episodes like this one any time

on Disney Plus and Hulu. And to listen to murder at the U, find 30 for 30 podcasts

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