Columnist Dean Juipe: It’s a script Shakespeare would enjoy

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, March 6, 2002 | 10:08 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Armed with a morbid curiosity, it's apparent that Jayson Williams wanted to see someone die.

But who would it be? And how would it happen? Those were the intangibles, and for all we know they gnawed at Williams for years.

In retrospect, it's obvious he wasn't going to be satisfied until seeing someone breathe their final breath. And he didn't want to go to a cancer ward to have to do it.

He wanted it to be a coldblooded killing, as if that was vital to his twisted sense of excitement.

It was a bizarre and Shakespearian fetish, to be sure. But Williams eventually got his wish and today he stands as a reminder to us all that celebrity, in and of itself, often fails to reflect a man's true character.

Little did any of us realize as Williams played in the NBA and then cordially made his way to NBC Sports as a studio analyst that he was such a dangerous fellow. But if you hung with him, you courted the devil.

That he escaped a murderer's role in earlier close calls that continue to surface only strengthens the belief that this time he may have actually plotted someone's demise. That he chose his chauffeur just adds to the pity.

Williams, as you likely know, stands accused of manslaughter in Trenton, N.J., following the death of his driver, Costas Christofi. Should he receive anything less than a life sentence in prison it would be the equivalent of a walk.

He'll have to pull an O.J. to get out of this one.

Sports Illustrated will report in its upcoming issue that Williams not only fired the gun that killed the unsuspecting Christofi, but that he later tried to put the dead man's fingerprints on the gun and that he disposed of his own bloody clothes before police arrived. This behavior is not consistent with Williams' stated view of the incident, which is that Christofi either died accidentally or by his own hand.

If this had been Williams' first brush with a calamity, his side of the story may not have been questioned. But he's a repeat offender when it comes to putting others in warm's way, even if there hadn't been any previous fatalities.

As he freely admitted in his autobiography, Williams almost shot Wayne Chrebet of the New York Jets on a skeet-shooting range at his estate. He has also acknowledged hitting a man over the head with a beer mug in a bar, as well as taking part in numerous scrapes and brawls.

Even as he prepares to defend himself in the death of Christofi, Williams has an assault charge pending from striking a police officer in New Jersey.

He's a habitual delinquent if not habitual felon and/or criminal. But it's his status as a nationally known broadcaster and former player that sets him apart from similar miscreants, and it's what makes his descent so enthralling.

Rich, famous and popular, he lacked any reason to invite trouble. Yet he was so desirous of it that it may simply have overwhelmed him.

He may have rationalized that the life that was lost was that of an inconspicuous man and that suicide or even horseplay made for a believable scenario. But today it sounds like a game gone awry, or just plain murder.

Given where he's going, Williams will have plenty of time to relive the grisly details that once so intrigued him.