Monday, July 26, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
Jayson Williams was accused of shooting his chauffeur.
Ted Williams' head is frozen in an Arizona lab.
Brian Williams is missing and presumed dead.
And now Ricky Williams is walking away from the Miami Dolphins at the age of 27.
If these guys were related, they'd have a heck of an interesting family reunion even without inviting Venus and Serena. Perhaps a TV sitcom would emerge, presuming Jayson -- formerly of the New Jersey Nets -- could resist playfully pointing a gun at anyone.
Beyond their surname, what each of these Williamses would have in common is a characteristic many admire yet few comprehend. Each, it seems, is or was something of a free spirit.
Ricky Williams shocked the Miami Dolphins over the weekend when he suddenly quit the team at the age of 27, depriving it of a big-time running back on the eve of training camp. He's walking away from a contract that would have paid him $3.5 million this season and he says, instead, he'll spend several months traveling through Asia as he leaves football behind.
I'm not so sure he won't bump into Brian Williams along the way.
I may be in the minority on this, but I'm not so sure he's dead. I knew Brian from covering him as part of a Bishop Gorman state championship basketball team, and I followed him as he excelled at the collegiate level with Maryland and Arizona before he began an NBA career that took him from Orlando to Chicago to Detroit. A disappearing act was very much within his potential.
Brian Williams, a k a Bison Dele, walked away from a professional basketball contract that was scheduled to pay him $45 million over seven years. It was still guaranteed to pay him $36 million when -- harbinger of Ricky -- he quit the sport at the peak of his career in 1999.
Once diagnosed as clinically depressed, Dele was an avid reader and classical music buff who once ran with the bulls in Pamplona; bicycled from Tucson to Salt Lake City; opened a water purification plant in Beirut with a college acquaintance; camped extensively in the Outback of Australia; and did his best despite his 6-foot-11, 280-pound frame to live discreetly among the Polynesians in the South Pacific.
If he did, indeed, die at the age of 33, he lived a full life. He may also have pulled a Houdini, going further into a dark, primitive world where he simply cannot be found.
The son of former Platters singer Eugene Williams (who later drove a cab in Las Vegas), Brian Williams might well have orchestrated his own disappearance. He might also have been murdered by his brother, Kevin, who later changed his name to Miles Dabord.
Dele, Dabord, Serena Karlan and Bertrand Saldo were on board as Dele's sleek 55-foot catamaran set sail from French Polynesia on or about July 7, 1999, bound for the island of Raiatea, 136 miles away, with Honolulu listed as an eventual destination. Karlan was Dele's girlfriend and they were close enough that he gave her a check for $50,000 to cover her business expenses so she could join him for a few months aboard the Hakuna Matata as it cruised the South Pacific under the direction of Saldo, the captain.
Dabord, 6-foot-7 and 270 pounds, had been invited to join the group after failing ventures in a credit-repair business and as a computer operator. A former collegiate basketball player with a vagabond career, he was overshadowed by his brother's successes and later targeted by police as a potential murder suspect.
For several months, the group sailed the South Pacific, using Auckland, New Zealand, as an occasional base while also spending considerable time in and around Tahiti. Prior to leaving French Polynesia, Karlan e-mailed her mother in New York and reported "I'm fine. Love, Serena."
It was the last official correspondence from anyone who was on the boat.
The FBI sent 13 investigators to resolve the mystery of the boat and its inhabitants' disappearance, and as is easy to believe the details remain sketchy. The FBI, which was working on a two-month-old trail, never closed the case. It tracked the boat's course by using satellite phone records and it believes the vessel was last seen near the island of Maiao, west of Tahiti, a day or two after it had set sail.
It was never confirmed by the FBI, but Dabord's girlfriend (who lived in California) reportedly later told authorities that Dabord had said that he and Dele got into a fistfight on the Hakuna Matata -- which is Swahili for "No Problem" -- and that Karlan and Saldo had attempted to break it up. During the melee both Karlan and Saldo were killed, Dabord's girlfriend saying that Karlan had been accidentally struck and hit her head and that Dele had struck Saldo with a wrench.
Their fight renewed, Dabord then picked up a handgun and killed Dele, Dabord's girlfriend supposedly said.
The trail goes cold from here, aside from innuendo and a couple of questionable sitings. Among them: a sole sailor arrives at Taravao, French Polynesia, on July 16 piloting a boat (matching the description of the Hakuna Matata) that had its letters peeled off and replaced by a hand-painted new name, Aria Bella; on Sept. 5 a man using Dele's credit card and passport attempts to buy $152,000 in gold coins in a Phoenix coin dealer's shop; and on Sept. 14 a man matching Dabord's description is found unconscious on a street in Tijuana, Mexico, where he was admitted to a hospital, listed as comatose and later died.
That was five years ago and there is nothing new to add. But it was always a very curious tale, one replete with every element of a first-rate novel or movie, including the possibility that it was all a hoax and that Brian Williams is alive and well.
Ricky Williams, headed for the mysterious continent of Asia, should beware. The Williamses, it seems, are both cursed and blessed.
At the least, he doesn't want to end up with his head in a box like his distant uncle Ted.
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