Dennehy's family gathers his belongings as police suspend search.(The Dallas Morning News) - Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

Byline: Lee Hancock and Matt Stiles

WACO, Texas _ Patrick Dennehy's family began the grim task of sorting through his belongings Wednesday as police briefly suspended the search for his body in rural McLennan County.

'We're exhausted, tired trying to get all this done. It's more than we expected,' his mother, Valorie Brabazon, said in a phone interview from Dennehy's apartment at the edge of the Baylor University campus. 'And it's very emotional, you know, trying to pack up your son's clothes like this.'

Waco police Sgt. Ryan Holt said detectives investigating the Baylor basketball player's slaying decided against mounting a renewed search Wednesday on a farm-to-market road about five miles southeast of Dennehy's apartment.

They had gone there Tuesday after authorities said former teammate Carlton Dotson, now charged with murder, described the area as the place where he left Dennehy's body after shooting him last month.

But hours of searching in the water-logged pit and surrounding dirt piles with horses, helicopters and foot patrols turned up nothing.

'They [the detectives] did not go out today,' Sgt. Holt said Wednesday. 'They decided it's time to take a breather and see where the case is at.'

Dotson remained jailed Wednesday in Chestertown, Md., where authorities scheduled an extradition hearing for him on Aug. 19.

Dotson's lawyers have said they are fighting his transfer to Texas as a strategic move while they prepare motions challenging his mental competency and seek his transfer to a mental facility.

Wednesday, Dotson's lead attorney, Grady Irvin Jr., asked that Maryland authorities provide him information from a mental health evaluation performed on his client after he was booked into the Kent County jail.

Police say Dotson, 21, who lost his athletic scholarship in April, has admitted killing his best friend and former roommate, but investigators have not announced a motive. Dotson of Hurlock, Md., has denied making a confession in his statement to authorities Monday night, the day after he went to a hospital and said he needed a mental evaluation.

On Wednesday, Kent County, Md., authorities released to The Associated Press a transcript of two 911 calls that Dotson made Sunday, asking to meet with police. 'I'm not wanted by them, but um, but I, uh, I mean, they, they want to keep close tabs on me,' he told the dispatcher, who sent officers to pick him up.

Family arrives

Dennehy's mother, stepfather and 14-year-old half-sister, from Carson City, Nev., flew to Waco on Tuesday night along with his longtime girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa of Albuquerque, N.M.

They headed to Dennehy's third-floor apartment Wednesday morning, trailed by a crew of TV cameras and reporters.

'We want to do something as a family, not as a circus,' stepfather Brian Brabazon said, pleading for privacy.

They then spent the day sorting through belongings and loading boxes.

Brabazon said their first steps into the four-bedroom apartment were tough.

'We were emotional at first, and then we just started going through things and giving the history of the stuff, telling stories to each other about Patrick,' he said.

'It was Patrick's apartment _ a lot of clothes and a big mess,' he said, laughing as he described the jumble of papers, books and other items.

'There were a couple of (rapper) Tupac Shakur posters on the wall, this hologram of him as a catcher when he played baseball hanging up.

'It was normal,' he said.

A minister from Baylor who has stayed in contact with the family since Dennehy's disappearance in mid-June was among those who came by to offer support, Mrs. Brabazon said.

She said the family had no plans to meet with Baylor officials and might not even have time to go on the campus. But they hoped to visit with police detectives after finishing their work at the apartment _ one of dozens in a sprawling, well-manicured complex adjacent to the gold-domed Ferrell Center where Dennehy had hoped to become a basketball star.

Mrs. Brabazon said she wanted to hear personally from investigators about their efforts to find her son.

'They're going to have to find him,' she said. 'We're going to sit on them to make sure. There's got to be some closure here _ somewhere.'

Waco city officials, meanwhile, released documents indicating that a judge had issued an arrest warrant May 29 for Dennehy, after he failed to appear in municipal court.

According to the records provided under the state's open records law, police issued

Dennehy a citation for not wearing a seat belt on the evening of May 3 as he was riding in a black 1998 Jeep Cherokee. Dennehy owed the city a $235 fine for the citation and for not appearing in court within 10 days.

Speaking of prayer

In another development, a couple who had befriended Dennehy and Dotson this spring said Dotson had called them Saturday and talked strangely about religion and prayer.

Tammy Cox, who with her husband, Darron, got to know the players after they visited the couple's farm to look at pit bull puppies, said Dotson talked about religion _ a topic he had never discussed before.

'Carlton said, `I'm going to pray for y'all. He's never said anything like that,' she said, adding that Dotson has called them at least four times since Waco police began looking for Dennehy but did not discuss the investigation Saturday.

'Darron said he just didn't sound right. When you get to know someone pretty well, you can tell by the way people are acting that they are bothered by something,' Cox said.

The two players last went to the farm near Waco on June 10, around the time they began telling friends they felt threatened. They had often visited to look at the pit bulls, fish and play basketball with the Coxes' three children.

Police searched the 50-acre property twice last month, and Hill County authorities said an area around it was briefly searched in connection with the case Tuesday morning.

Cox said the family is now struggling with what police are saying Dotson did.

'There's no reason for him to have shot Patrick, if he did,' she said. 'But I'm trying to think, `Carlton, why in the hell would you do that?''

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Staff writer Robert Dodge in Chestertown, Md., contributed to this report.

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