Journalism Showcase: ESPN’s Impact Journalism Aids in Leading to Arrest in a 2006 Miami Murder Case

But was that really true?

Pata’s family didn’t think so. And neither did Features Unit members Danny Arruda, Scott Frankel, Ben Webber and others, who passed on the GameDay idea but started to think about the story as a longform podcast.

The ESPN Investigation Begins

“Their instincts were right on, and it quickly became apparent that we were headed into a complex and deep reporting effort,” said Christopher Buckle, ESPN Vice President of Investigative and Enterprise Journalism. “We ultimately put together a large group of reporters, producers and editors to re-examine the entire police investigation.”

Investigative and enterprise reporters Paula Lavigne and Elizabeth Merrill and researcher John Mastroberardino joined the team, which was led by Investigative deputy editor Mike Drago with an assist from senior deputy editor Jena Janovy. Dwayne Bray and Patricia Mays had important early roles, too.

Key to the reporting and re-activating police in the case was an effort by ESPN to get public records from the Miami-Dade Police Department, which refused to provide even a copy of the police report.

“In the summer of 2019, we hired attorneys in Florida to press the issue with the police, and once they got involved, the police released a copy of the nearly 200-page report, but it was heavily redacted,” said Drago. “Their argument was this was an active case, but our reporting had shown otherwise – that the last substantive entry in the police report itself was 2010.”

ESPN Goes to Court

In March 2020, ESPN filed a civil lawsuit against the Miami-Dade Police Department alleging violations of Florida’s open records law. Although the judge agreed the case was still an active investigation and police could withhold what they determined were key details, ESPN did get some portions of the records un-redacted.

“What was more significant, however, was the surprise we got during the police officers’ testimony,” Lavigne said. “In trying to make their argument that the case was active, they made statements that contradicted what they had told us during interviews; they did indeed have a prime suspect – even came close to an arrest – and it was someone who had been on the [University of Miami football] team. That was a bombshell admission and really changed the course of our story narrative.”