Unfathomable
People close to Dabord are incredulous. The idea that Dabord is a calculated killer is absurd. Dabord never so much as raised a hand to anyone, they say.
Even Porter, one of Dele's best friends, can't fathom the final moments on the Hakuna Matata.
"I may have seen siblings arguing, but nothing to lose sleep over," Porter says. "They are two big, grown adults and at times it seems like one would try to establish the alpha over the other, and you just let them go. But I've never seen them raise a hand to anyone."
Vickie Thun, 39, met Dabord in 1990. She was his girlfriend for about a year before ending the romantic relationship. They have been friends for more than a decade, even living together after they broke up. Like Dele's friend Porter, like Dabord's best friend Paul White, Thun says Dabord never found himself.
"Miles had so many great qualities," she says. "He just couldn't get it together. He had so many wonderful tools. It was just such a tragedy."
Dabord's struggles stemmed from his childhood. He never got over the abuse, friends and family say.
"It's all true," Phillips says. "It was like the punishment that always went too far. It was just such mental abuse. It was true of both of them. It's true of Brian. He never got it any more together than Miles. Money covered up a lot of things. Money made a whole different persona possible. But if you'd taken away the money, there wouldn't be any difference between Miles and Brian."
Dele's millions liberated him. He explored the world. He spent freely. He was benevolent.
"I've been in Mexico with him, and there's a lot of unfortunate and impoverished people down there," Porter says. "There was a time he just opened his wallet up and started giving people money."
He gave Phillips $5,000 a month, an "allowance." Porter says Dele gave Dabord money, too. He financed Dabord's education. He gave Dabord the Lincoln Navigator. According to the Phoenix police report, Dele told Porter he planned to cut Dabord off. But Porter says that's not true.
"As far as me saying I had conversations with B about cutting Miles off, that is totally false," Porter says. "Cutting him off what? He wasn't on any monthly salary."
By the time Dabord joined Dele on the boat, the two had been estranged for years. Some say Dabord was jealous of his brother's success. People close to Dabord say envy wasn't the issue.
"Miles was certainly no monster," says White, Dabord's childhood friend. "He certainly had no animosity toward his brother based on his brother's fame. If there was any animosity there, it was based on the fact that his brother was an a--hole to him, a jerk."
White says once Dele found success in basketball, he became aloof.
"They began to have a rift because Brian gained more notoriety, particularly in college," White says. "Some people can deal with that better than others. Brian was a person who didn't really deal with it all that well. Instead of being the kind of shy but funny and sweet kid that he was when he was younger, he began to buy into the cult of celebrity. That began to cause the rift between Miles and Brian."
But Dele never lived the typical NBA life. He did not hang out with teammates. Once practice ended, he left the game at the arena. Even after he retired, Dele was reluctant to even admit he had been a basketball player. His interests were elsewhere. Travel. Art. Books. Music. People.
Former Nuggets head coach Mike Evans, who was an assistant coach when Dele played in Denver, remembers a complex man.
"He had a lot more going on in his mind and in his life than just basketball," says Evans, whose wife, Kim, is a cousin in Dele's family. "He had a lot of other interests, poetry and music being two of them. He spent a lot of time writing. He took a lot of things to heart. He was a very sensitive guy."
When he played well, he was happy. But often he couldn't find the energy to perform on the court.
"Some days or nights he'd just say, 'It's not there. I'm searching for it,' " Evans says. "We would just tell him to keep searching, to search harder."
But Evans knew, as many of Dele's teammates knew, that Dele could walk away from basketball at any moment.
"I just thought that Brian was using basketball as a means to an end," Evans says. "He had other things in mind. I think that may have been what his ultimate goal was, to accumulate enough money where he didn't really have to work or want for anything."
Bryant Stith, a longtime Nuggets member who now plays for the Clippers, says Dele was an enigma.
"One time he was questioning the flight attendants, 'What would happen if I would open this door right now?' " Stith says. "We are 30,000 feet up in the air. Everybody is looking at Brian. What would make you ask that question? We all just kept our eye on him for the rest of the trip. He was a very curious person. If he had something on his mind, he would say it."
Stith says Dele belied the typical NBA persona.
"When I think of Brian, I just think about how smart he was," Stith says. "I was most impressed with his intellect."
David Ricciardo, Dele's personal chef and friend, says Dele was an eclectic man who was at times tortured by his thoughts.
"Sometimes I think his mind overwhelmed him in how much he could think about things," Ricciardo says.
Ricciardo says Dele confided in him, explained the dark times and clinical depression that led to a suicide attempt when Dele was a rookie with the Orlando Magic.
"He told me he just wasn't happy, felt overwhelmed, wasn't happy with what was going on in his life," Ricciardo says. "He seemed to be happy in Denver."
Nuggets media relations manager Tommy Sheppard says Dele was unlike any player he has met.
"He cared about people," Sheppard says. "He was so well-read. You've got a lot of Cliffs Notes people in the world. Anybody can pick up USA Today. But he really enjoyed literature, all kinds of music. There's a certain degree of jealousy from anyone who interacts with him - I wish I could do that.
"He walked between the raindrops."
The blurry end
A final analysis is impossible.
The brothers are painted as kind, sensitive, intelligent. But each brother had a dark side. Dabord has been portrayed as the angry, jealous man who killed three people before killing himself. Dele is the nomad, a man who loved life, loved people, lived for experience.
Those close to both say those pictures are incomplete.
"What I know about both of my sons doesn't lead me to any possibility of either of them being coldblooded killers," Phillips says. "Brian's always painted as the innocent, carefree, lovable guy, but he has another side, too. Miles is being painted as this murderous monster, but he has another side, too."
No one is likely to figure out exactly what happened on the boat.
"We have only one dead body to account for four people's lives," Phillips says. "The only person I know for sure is dead is Miles. I laid my hands on my son's cold, lifeless body. . . . I'm left to live out my life with the supposition that Brian, Serena and Bertrand are dead, too."
And Phillips lives with the fact that Dabord estranged himself from her off and on for a decade. Before Dabord called her in September, she hadn't spoken to him in three years. White, Dabord's longtime friend, says Dabord never let go of his childhood.
"I will say this: Both Miles and Brian dealt with personal demons that stemmed from their childhood," White says. "It was just for his own peace of mind that he decided it would be better for him to not really have a relationship since they had these unresolved issues. It was better for him to just be by himself."
But Phillips says Dabord's frantic phone calls just before he overdosed say it all.
"Why did Miles call me the last three days of his life?" she says. "I'm the beginning and the end - all that stuff in the middle, who knows and who cares?
"But it's true, Miles never really got over it."
Nothing explains July 7. Family friend Bryan Payton, who knew both men, says that even when the brothers argued, there was respect and love.
"B was talking about leaving college to go to the NBA," Payton says. "Miles was saying, 'Stay in college.' It was kind of argumentative. I didn't think they were going to come to blows. They were just talking at the top of their lungs.
"Neither gave in, but when we got to our destination, they hugged and made up. They said they respected each other's opinions. It was beautiful."
Phillips, Eugene Williams and all who knew Dele, Dabord, Karlan and Saldo are left with memories and speculation. Why are four people dead? If Dabord was innocent, as he told Phillips he was, why did he overdose?
Phillips says Dabord contacted a defense attorney when he returned to the United States.
"The attorney told him it would cost $100,000 to $200,000 to defend him," Phillips says. "He told Miles that nobody would believe his story. Miles said to me, 'Mom, I can't go to prison. You know what kind of person I am. I'm this big guy with a deep voice that is not a fighter. Inside a week, I'd be miserable. I'd get beaten up all the time. I'd be somebody's sex slave.'"
Phillips pleaded with her son.
"I begged him," she says. "I said, 'That's one attorney's opinion. We'll go to a different attorney.
"He said, 'Mom, I've come to the end of my life.' "
Contact Michael BeDan at bedanm@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-2631. Contact Brian Crecente at crecenteb@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-2811.
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