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Police repeat search in missing player case
WACO, Texas (CNN) -- Investigators returned to the field where an informer's tip said missing Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy was shot last month but again found no clues, a police spokesman said Thursday. Dennehy, 21, a junior, was last seen on or about June 12. Aided by thermal imaging equipment, police conducted a new search of the field about 5:45 a.m. Thursday, "just in case we missed something when we searched the property last time," Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson said. "Yet we found nothing." According to an affidavit filed by Waco police to obtain a search warrant, an informant told police in Delaware that teammate Carlton Dotson shot Dennehy during an altercation while they were shooting guns in a field north of Waco. Dotson has not been named a suspect or charged in the case. His attorney, Grady Irvin, dismissed "wild rumors" that his client was involved in Dennehy's disappearance. "As long as people continue to speculate that that report from that so-called confidential informant is accurate, all they're going to do is continue to feed into a frenzy which does not serve... this investigation any justice," Irvin told CNN. "It doesn't serve the Dotson family any justice, nor does it serve the Dennehy family any justice. I think it's careless." (Full story) He said that judges will remind jurors at trial to "be highly, highly careful as you analyze the statements of a confidential informant." Detectives searched the property last week with cadaver-sniffing dogs but found no sign of the missing athlete. Investigators said Dennehy's disappearance is still considered a missing person case, but it is being treated as a possible homicide. According to the affidavit, which was used to obtain a search warrant for Dennehy's computer, the "informant had been told that Carlton Dotson told his cousin" about the shooting incident. Dennehy, a 6-foot-10 center, was considered a top recruit to Baylor, having transferred from the University of New Mexico. College basketball rules had forced him to sit out one season, but he was expected to vie for playing time this fall. Dotson came to Baylor a year ago from Paris Junior College, averaging 4.4 points a game last season. Sources said that Dotson's basketball scholarship to Baylor was not renewed and that he had plans to transfer to another school this fall. Dennehy's girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa, told police that Dennehy had received threats, the affidavit said. But in a statement issued Wednesday, Baylor men's head basketball coach Dave Bliss said that members of his coaching staff had met with Dennehy in the days before he disappeared, and "at no time did Patrick say anything about safety concerns or personal threats." "I want to emphasize that the police department has stated that none of our current team members are suspects in this case," the statement added.
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