by W.C. Moriarity
Exclusive to www.chinmusic.net
When ChinMusic! first had the bright idea to take a peek inside the Arizona Fall League, we originally arranged a little gabfest with a group of AFL players at Alice Cooperstown, the downtown Phoenix bar and restaurant owned by the legendary rocker and dedicated golfer. Of course, we never imagined that one of those players, 25-year-old Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson, would be murdered in a Phoenix suburb just a few nights before our scheduled meeting.
Naturally, this cast a bit of a pall over the close-knit little league where everybody seems to know everybody else. Games were cancelled the following day and flags were flown at half-mast at ballparks all around the AFL. Some of the circumstances surrounding Stenson's death were a bit hazy, and once the games resumed, everyone seemed curious to find out exactly what happened to the good-natured guy everybody seemed to like. Initially, his death appeared to be some type of carjacking or robbery gone awry. But after a while, a more bizarre story started to emerge.
Some of the facts were clear from the beginning. Stenson was found shot to death, with his hands tied behind his back, on a quiet street in a Phoenix suburb early on the morning of Wednesday, November 5. It turned out that Stenson had also been run over by his own car, a black 2002 Isuzu Rodeo, which was later recovered when it was spotted being driven around town by one of the men who would later be charged in connection with the crime. The police also arrested the man's half-brother, his cousin, and another accomplice who had previously done time for attempted car theft.
From the looks of things, most people assumed that this was just a case of a carjacking or robbery that had somehow spiraled way out of control. Then, a couple of weeks later, word came out that just two weeks before he was killed, Stenson had told local police that his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Gaddis of Indianapolis, had been sending him death threats via text messaging on his cell phone (further evidence that modern technology can only lead to no good). One of the messages reportedly read, "U better pray I never see U again. I swear Dernell U R worth a Murder charge 4 & that is all U R worth." Gaddis, who claimed to have a child fathered by Stenson, reportedly sent threatening messages to the ballplayer for months.
Another interesting angle emerged when it was discovered that one of the suspects was from Indiana, and that he and his brother had left for Arizona just weeks before Stenson's killing. But even more interestingly, it turned out that, along the way, the brothers had been stopped by federal drug agents somewhere near St. Louis and then released after being ordered to surrender more than $11,000 in cash that was found in their possession. On top of that, an Arizona newspaper also discovered that one of their alleged accomplices in Arizona turned out to be in the federal witness protection program.
So let's get this straight…we've got an angry ex-girlfriend sending death threats; a couple of guys from her neck of the woods suddenly heading out to Arizona with a fat wad of cash in their hands; an ex-con and a snitch hiding out in Arizona just waiting to hook up with them; and a dead ballplayer laying in the street while one of these guys is out cruising around in his car. Hmmm…you don’t have to be Columbo to figure this one out.
At the time this article was written, the four men had all been charged with various crimes related to the incident, but Stenson's ex-girlfriend had not been charged with anything…yet. Stenson's agent, Stanley King, pretty much summed things up by saying, "I'm not a mystery writer, but this is just bizarre!" Who says agents don't have a clue?