Number 7 Teshaun Hightower
Roughly a week after he’d entered his name into the 2020 NBA Draft, a gifted college
basketball player was taken into police custody on murder charges. 21-year-old Teshaun Hightower,
a guard for Tulane University, was identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting of 24-year-old
Georgia man Devante Long. Prior to transferring to Tulane, Hightower, a native of Georgia,
had played two seasons for the Georgia Bulldogs. He was one of six people suspected to have been
involved in the killing with the list including his brother, Jeffrey. The shooting of Long took
place on April the 8th at an apartment complex in Spindletop Way, Stockbridge, shortly before 11 am.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Long had allegedly
pistol-whipped a man named Tyreek Farmer during an altercation earlier in the morning. The latter
called for assistance and Hightower arrived at the apartment complex along with the others accused in
the case. They confronted Long in a breezeway and his girlfriend would later report seeing
Hightower pull out a turquoise and black handgun out of his pocket. She then ran to hide in the
apartment and heard gunshots. Later that evening, the basketball star tweeted out “God protect my
people” a message that investigators suspected had been connected to the shooting. While detectives
pointed to Hightower as the gunman, his attorney, Averick Walker, claimed that the authorities were
trying to “make him out to be a monster”. Walker reported that it was actually Jeffrey Hightower
who’d fired the weapon and that he’d done so in self-defense. The legal representative mentioned
that Jeffrey and the others had had a right under state law to stand their ground as Long
had emerged from the apartment with a gun that he pointed at the college athlete. No convictions had
been made and the investigation was ongoing as of the latest updates on the matter.
Number 6 Avantae Williams Avantae Williams, a sophomore safety for the Miami
Hurricanes, was arrested and charged with one count of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman,
in July of 2021. As Williams left for football practice, he and his girlfriend, who was 31
weeks pregnant with his child at the time, had gotten into argument about his new relationship.
In subsequent interviews with the police, Williams would refer to the unnamed woman,
with whom he lived and had two other children, as his ex. During the verbal exchange he’d reportedly
told her to leave the apartment they shared, in the West Kendall area, by the time he returned
from practice. Williams then flew into a fit of rage when he found her still packing at the
apartment when he came back. The football player was reported to have grabbed the mother of his
children by the hair and thrown her around the apartment before pushing her outside, causing
her to fall and hit her head on the pavement. The woman, who was later treated for bruising to her
neck and arms at West Kendall Hospital, alerted a neighbor and they called 911. Williams was
taken into custody and immediately suspended from all team activities at the University of Miami.
Number 5 Danielle Puddefoot In April of 2015, a University of Bridgeport
women’s soccer player assaulted a teammate over what police reported had been a perceived snub
at an awards ceremony. 22-year-old senior Danielle Puddefoot, originally from Slough,
England, had already been drinking on April the 30th, prior to attending a sports awards
banquet at the Connecticut university. Another athlete had received the coach's player award,
which upset Puddefoot. The young woman felt that she’d been repeatedly passed over as she hadn’t
received any official recognition during her four years playing for the team. Puddefoot was already
heavily intoxicated by the time she went to a post-banquet dorm party where she reportedly began
berating her teammates. An altercation ensued between Puddefoot and 18-year-old Hailey Marquis.
Puddefoot headbutted the teen and the strike was delivered with such force that Marquis was
knocked over two chairs and onto the floor. She was left with facial swelling and two black eyes.
Puddefoot then continued slamming her own head against the wooden wardrobe closets in the room.
After a struggle, Puddefoot’s teammates got her into the hallway where she began
ramming doors and walls with her head, until she passed out. The young woman was arrested and
charged with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct. She was subsequently granted accelerated
rehabilitation by a Bridgeport Superior Court judge with her charges to be dismissed upon the
successful completion of one year of probation. Number 4 Michael Harris
In February of 2020, an employee at a business in Grove City, Ohio, called the police to report
that an aggressive man refused to leave their building, noting that he appeared to be unaware
of his surroundings. He would later be identified as college football player Michael Harris,
a linebacker at Eastern Kentucky University. Two officers arrived at the scene and a confrontation
that took place outside of Harris’ vehicle was captured by their monitoring equipment. Officer
Carrie Rose, who was trained as a crisis negotiator, was the first at the scene and
talked with Harris for several minutes, noting that he was agitated and unable to stand still.
A male colleague of Rose’s then approached Harris, who kept his arms raised but continued exhibiting
erratic behavior. Both officers then decided to handcuff him, suspecting he was under the
influence. Before he could be restrained, however, Harris pushed the male officer away and tried to
get back in his car. Fearing an escalation of the altercation the officer pepper-sprayed Harris
but it proved ineffective as he’d pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his face.
Then, as Rose and her colleague struggled to handcuff a crouched Harris, the football
player lifted the male officer high into the air and then slammed him into the concrete,
falling to the ground with him. Efforts to restrain the 6-foot-3, 245-pound athlete continued
with the intervention of Rose and that of a third officer who approached the scene from a separate
cruiser. Lt. Eric Scott with the Grove City Police Department described the officer at the scene as a
very strong man in his own right, but quoted him describing the altercation with Harris as saying
“I cannot believe the strength this man had”. The college athlete was successfully
taken into custody and charged with assault against a police officer, a felony in Ohio,
as well as with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct while intoxicated. A digital scale and
drugs were also allegedly found in his vehicle. Number 3 Emily Hise and Koreen Varney
Two volleyball players from Florida Atlantic University were arrested and charged with grand
theft, in April of 2017. Emily Hise and Koreen Varney had entered a Macy’s retail store, in the
Town Center of Boca Raton, with Pacific Sunwear bags that were relatively empty. Luca Rispoli,
the store’s Asset Protection Representative had reportedly noticed suspicious activity on
behalf of the students in the women’s active-wear department. The pair had entered several fitting
rooms and two Macy’s employees subsequently determined that a number of items were missing.
Rispoli noticed that Hise and Varney had emerged with their bags considerably larger.
They’d allegedly “passed all points of sale” and made no attempts to purchase
the concealed merchandise, the combined worth of which was estimated at $1,400.
Rispoli recovered the items and the two prominent college athletes
were arrested by the police, charged with theft and issued trespass warnings
for Macy’s. They were described as “extremely remorseful” by the responding officers. It’s
unclear what type of punishment they received from FAU’s athletic program but both were set to appear
at the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida court in Palm Beach County, in June of that same year.
Number 2 Kamiyah Street A promising basketball player at Georgia’s
Kennesaw State University was charged with robbery and murder, along with four other suspects, in
November of 2019. On July the 16th of that year, businessman Nashiem Hubbard-Etienne, aged 21,
was gunned down at the Heritage Station apartments in Atlanta. While her role remained unspecified,
21-year-old star athlete Kamiyah Street would later admit to her involvement
after she was identified by the Atlanta Police Department through surveillance footage of the
homicide. It was reported that Street’s group had begun shooting at Hubbard-Etienne and an
unidentified man accompanying him, as they emerged from a car in the apartment complex’s parking
area. The former suffered fatal gunshot wounds but some sources proposed he’d been the collateral
victim of an ongoing dispute. In an interview with the media, Maiyanne Hubbard-Armster,
the deceased’s mother, reported that the other man had been the intended target of the shooting as
he’d allegedly owed money to Street from a game of dice. Hubbard-Armster also noted
an utter lack of remorse on the sportswoman’s part as she returned to playing basketball in
the murder’s aftermath. Street’s accomplices were named as Dontavious Bradley, Johnerton Gilstrap,
Tabias Wells and Cortez Banks. All but Bradley were apprehended within months of the shooting.
Street was arrested just days after she’d been named Player of the Week by the ASUN Conference
for the fourth time in her college basketball career. She risked spending the rest of her life
in prison as her numerous charges included three counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated
assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of armed robbery and firearm possession. While no
further information has been made available since, it’s believed that Street might be
granted immunity or a more lenient sentence under a deal to testify against the others.
Number 1 Rashaun Jones
On the evening of November the 7th of 2006, Bryan Pata, a defensive lineman for the Miami
Hurricanes, was fatally shot in the head as he got out of his SUV in front of his apartment complex,
located about four miles from the Miami campus. Investigators determined that the gunman,
who’d most likely been lying in wait, had ambushed the college sports star and then
fled the scene within minutes. Before his life was cut short, 22-year-old Pata had been
only months away from likely being selected in the NFL draft. He was found by his girlfriend, Jada
Brody, who’d reportedly heard the gunshots. Police interviewed dozens of people and amassed thousands
of pages in the case file before ultimately arresting Pata’s former teammate, Rashaun Jones,
roughly 15 years after the incident. Multiple reports indicated that their relationship was
marred by conflict during their time at the Hurricanes. Jones had previously dated Brody,
an aspect that became a source of contention between the two men. Two months before his death,
Pata had reportedly bested Jones in a physical altercation to which the latter reacted by
threatening to shoot him. Investigators claimed that Jones, aged 35 when he was arrested in 2021,
had always been a suspect but building the case against required time. After the shooting,
a witness had given a description of a man fleeing in the area and the rendering of a sketch artist
closely resembled Jones. The same witness picked him out of photo lineup in 2007 and again in 2020.
On the night of the killing, Jones had missed a mandatory team meeting and, while he claimed to
have been at home, cellphone location data placed him near Pata’s apartment. The bullet recovered
from the victim’s head also matched a caliber of handgun that Jones was known to have owned.
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