Former Football Player Charged With Murder Of UM Star Bryan Pata

MIAMI, FL — After 15 years, Miami-Dade police have charged former University of Miami football player Rashaun Jones with the 2006 murder of his teammate and star player Bryan Pata.

Pata was shot and killed Nov. 6, 2006 in the parking lot of his apartment complex after returning home from practice.

In a video shared on the Miami-Dade County Police Department’s Facebook page, Homicide Detective Juan Segovia, who has worked on the investigation of Pata’s murder, said there were many challenges to the case.

“Bryan Pata, his whole world revolved around football and his family, so it’s not like he had a lot of enemies,” Segovia said. “He wasn’t involved in any criminal element. He’s a young man who was looking forward to a future in the NFL. That’s all he wanted to do, play football in the National Football League.”

Jones, 35, who lives in Lake City, has been a suspect in the case from the beginning, but was never arrested, the Miami Herald reported. The former UM defensive back previously dated Pata’s girlfriend at the time and the teammates had once gotten into a fistfight.

Police received a tip that led to Jones arrest, Segovia said. "The community never stopped contacting us. Even if we got a thousand tips and only one was the one that actually put the pieces together, that's what it took, and that's exactly what happened in this case.”

Jones was taken into custody Thursday by U.S. Marshals and charged with first-degree murder. He’ll be extradited to Miami for prosecution.