Witness in 2006 Miami murder case found alive

19.09.2025, 02:23 espn.com

Florida prosecutors have repeatedly told a court that a key witness in their murder case against a former Miami Hurricanes football player accused in the 2006 killing of teammate Bryan Pata was dead.

However, with the long-delayed murder trial of Rashaun Jones only weeks from its scheduled start in Miami, ESPN reporters knocked on an apartment door in Louisville, Kentucky, recently and found the witness, Paul Conner, very much alive.

Conner told ESPN he wasn't aware anyone from Miami had been looking for him and said he rarely leaves his apartment.

Prosecutors told Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda as recently as July that Conner was dead. A spokesperson for the state attorney's office, Ed Griffith, told ESPN on Thursday that police relied on a public database that "seemed to indicate" Conner was deceased and that police asked officers in Louisville to knock on Conner's door. He offered no documents of such a visit nor details of when an officer visited or what happened.

Griffith also pressed a reporter for the address ESPN visited -- the same address that was listed on the database report Griffith cited. The lead detective in the case, Juan Segovia, also texted an ESPN reporter asking for Conner's contact information.

It's unclear how the revelation about Conner will affect the trial, currently set to start Oct. 6. "Is there an impact of that on the case? I would have to say yes, potentially," Griffith said.

Jones' attorney, Sara Alvarez, said ESPN's finding raises further questions about the state's case.

"I'm not shocked, but appalled," she said by telephone Thursday. "This is a bigger issue. This is just blatant lies. Bald-faced lies.

"It's a shame and it's disgusting that you would be willing to send a man to prison for the rest of his life without any evidence and then not be honest about what evidence exists and doesn't exist."

In a conversation with an ESPN reporter and in questioning by police, Jones has said he did not kill Pata. He has pleaded not guilty.

Conner, a retired University of Miami writing instructor, once lived in the apartment complex where Pata, a likely high draft pick in the 2007 NFL draft, was shot once in the head in November 2006.

Conner contacted police soon after the shooting, saying he heard a "pop" and saw someone "jogging" away from the parking lot entrance near where Pata was shot. Conner picked Jones out of a photo lineup.

Some 13 years later, Conner was reinterviewed in 2020 and again picked Jones out of a lineup, according to Jones' arrest warrant. And Conner recounted what he saw at a 2022 bond hearing and in a 2023 deposition with attorneys.

Conner, now 81, told ESPN in his Aug. 25 interview that he now doesn't recall what happened in Miami, and he seemed unfamiliar with his prior statements.

"I'm getting up in years," he said. "My memory comes and goes. How long ago was this court case?"

With Jones' trial date looming, Miami assistant state attorney Cristina Diamond told Miranda in a July 17 hearing that officials believed Conner to be dead after multiple failed attempts to contact him and a third-party commercial database indicating he was deceased. Miranda accepted the efforts to find Conner and ruled to allow his prior testimony from the hearing and deposition to be used at trial. Jones' attorneys had initially objected on grounds of their inability to cross-examine his statements but conceded to accept the state's evidence during that hearing.

ESPN's interview with Conner was actually the second confirmation that he was alive. After a reporter contacted Conner's last known employer, a former colleague asked Louisville police to conduct a welfare check. On July 22, Conner answered and confirmed his identity, according to police bodycam images reviewed by ESPN.

The Miami-Dade Police Department's inability to find Conner is the latest in a long string of official missteps that have dramatically prolonged the case and frustrated Pata's still-grieving family. According to information obtained by ESPN through a lawsuit against Miami-Dade Police and other interviews and records, Jones was among the first suspects considered by police, but they didn't arrest him until 2021, nine months after ESPN first published its findings. Jones, now 40, has remained in custody for the last four years amid court delays and changes in attorneys on both sides.

In March 2022, Miranda agreed to grant Jones $850,000 bail and allow him out pending trial; however, Jones has not been able to pay the amount -- typically 10%, or $85,000 -- needed for release, sources told ESPN.

That bond hearing included in-person testimony from Conner. Police had no eyewitness to the shooting, so Conner was a key element to a case that relies heavily on testimony from friends and teammates that Jones and Pata fought verbally and physically before the killing and that Jones possessed a gun similar to the one likely used to kill Pata (although police never recovered the weapon).

Conner told the court he was walking to the Colony Apartment Complex, where he and Pata lived, just before 7 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2006. He was near the parking lot entrance when he heard a "loud bang." About 15-20 seconds later, he testified, he came "face-to- face" with a man walking at a brisk pace. "He smiled at me. He had a clean set of white teeth," Conner said. "I described him to the forensic artist."

On the photo lineup from which Conner picked out Jones' photo, Conner had put his signature, date and the phrase "90 percent," and a defense attorney asked him what that meant.

"One of the detectives asked me, how sure I was that that was the defendant. And I answered 90 percent," he said.

The attorney later asks, "So, if I understand you correctly, there is a 10 percent error in your calculation of whether or not this person is the person that you saw on that night?" to which Conner responds, "It could have been."

The defense attorney also made note that when Conner, several years later, picked Jones out of a lineup, Jones' picture was in the same location on a page as the first time -- the top middle photo.

In building their case against Jones, prosecutors also have cited Jones' actions that night, including his failure to attend a mandatory team meeting called after the shooting and efforts to borrow money to leave the area. They also cite cellphone records they say contradict where Jones told officers he had been.

According to a state motion filed July 8 to request the use of Conner's prior testimony, Det. Segovia said he had been in touch with the FBI and local police in Ohio, where Conner last worked at the University of Toledo. He said he learned that Conner had moved to Kentucky.

Segovia then reached out to the Louisville Police Department, and according to the motion, "contact was made with the leasing office of that address, and they indicated that Mr. Conner did not live there." Records show prosecutors were planning to subpoena a homicide detective from Louisville. No such officer has testified in the case.

ESPN requested records from the Louisville Police Department and connected with a spokesperson multiple times to inquire about any efforts made to locate Conner and any efforts by the officer who had been subpoenaed to testify. The spokesperson there said there were no records of any officer going to Conner's address until the welfare check requested by the university colleague and ESPN's inquiries. Conner said he has lived at his Louisville address for about a couple of years. A family member said they knew of no reason the leasing office would say Conner didn't live there. A call to the leasing office was not returned.

ESPN made multiple requests to police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney for records of their efforts to find Conner. After initially claiming they had no documents, they eventually provided an email exchange in which Segovia wrote that he left 15 voicemail messages with Conner since May. He added that he also sent emails to an address that officers had used with him previously. They also provided a copy of a June 6 letter addressed to Conner at his Louisville address that asked him to contact their office.

During ESPN's visit, Conner allowed a reporter to review his phone. There were dozens of unanswered calls, and he appeared unfamiliar with how to check his voicemail. Several calls came from Miami-area phone numbers, including at least one that matched a phone number for Segovia. At a prior hearing, prosecutors said they had been aware Conner struggled with "technology" and had been difficult to reach.

Miami-Dade officials and the judge did not have a death certificate, mortuary record, obituary or any other official record of death, but instead relied on a commercial third-party information provider. Such companies often provide factual background information, but their terms of use disclose that information may contain errors, and they do not guarantee accuracy.

Conner's cousin Steve Fahey, who said he was familiar with Conner's prior role in the case, said he sees Conner frequently. He told ESPN in a phone interview that Conner has struggled lately with memory issues. He said Conner never mentioned anyone from Miami trying to reach him, and Fahey said no one from Miami tried to contact him, either.

Miami-Dade officials noted they spoke to a "distant cousin" of Conner's who they said was unaware of Conner's whereabouts, but they did not name the individual.

Alvarez, Jones' attorney, said she should be able to question Conner in front of a jury about what she said were contradictions in details he gave police at various times. Whether or not Conner testifies, Alvarez said she plans to question Segovia about what she calls lies and misrepresentations of evidence.

Among other issues to affect the case recently, police told the court this summer that they had lost Pata's student judicial records from the University of Miami. Pata had been involved in -- although sometimes as just a bystander