Dayton James Webber, a 27-year-old quadruple amputee who built a national profile as a professional cornhole player, is facing first-degree murder charges after allegedly shooting and killing the front-seat passenger in his vehicle during an argument in La Plata, Maryland, on Sunday night.
ABC News reported that the victim, 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells, was found dead in a yard in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, nearly two hours after witnesses reported the shooting shortly before 10:30 p.m.
Authorities say Webber fled the state and was eventually located in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was taken into custody after seeking treatment at a nearby hospital.
The Charles County Sheriff's Office obtained an arrest warrant and charged Webber as a fugitive from justice. He now awaits extradition to Charles County, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and additional charges that have not yet been specified.
Webber's story, until Sunday, had been cast as one of triumph over extraordinary adversity. At ten months old, he contracted a bacterial infection that led to sepsis, ultimately resulting in the loss of all four limbs. ESPN profiled him in 2023.
He was crowned the best cornhole player in Maryland in 2020 and competed in the American Cornhole League World Championships the following year. He once called cornhole his "calling."
That arc makes the charges against him all the more jarring. This was not an anonymous suspect. Webber was a public figure, someone whose resilience had been packaged into an inspirational narrative and broadcast nationally. The gap between that story and what authorities allege happened Sunday night is vast.
The American Cornhole League released a statement Monday acknowledging the gravity of the situation:
"This is an extremely serious matter and our thoughts are with all those impacted, including the family and loved ones of Bradrick Michael Wells."
The league added that it would not comment on specific allegations while proceedings remain active, noting that it respects the judicial process.
According to the Charles County Sheriff's Office, Webber allegedly shot Wells during an argument while both were in Webber's vehicle. Two back-seat passengers witnessed the shooting and reported it to authorities shortly before 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
Webber allegedly asked the witnesses to help dispose of the body. Nearly two hours after the initial report, an individual discovered Wells's body in a yard in Charlotte Hall.
By that point, Webber had allegedly fled south. An Albemarle County Police Department officer located his vehicle at a gas station in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Webber himself was found at a nearby hospital, where he had gone seeking treatment. Upon his release, he was taken into custody and charged as a fugitive from justice.
It remains unclear whether Webber has retained an attorney. No representative responded to media inquiries sent through his sponsorship email.
There is a familiar pattern in how media and the public process stories like this one. A person becomes known for a single defining trait, whether it's athletic achievement, disability, charity work, or some combination.
That identity hardens into a kind of shield. When something horrific intrudes, the instinct is confusion, sometimes even reluctance to believe the facts.
That instinct should be resisted. A man is dead. Authorities have charged a suspect with first-degree murder. The suspect's prior media profile, however sympathetic, is irrelevant to the facts of the case. Inspirational branding does not tell you what someone is capable of on a dark Sunday night in southern Maryland.
This is worth stating plainly because the coverage of this case will inevitably frame it through the lens of Webber's disability and athletic career.
Some of that is natural. Some of it risks becoming a distraction from the central reality: Bradrick Michael Wells was allegedly murdered, his body left in a yard, and the man accused of killing him allegedly tried to recruit witnesses to help cover it up before fleeing across state lines.
Wells has a family. He deserves to be more than a footnote in someone else's story.
Webber awaits extradition to Charles County. The charges he faces, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and unspecified additional counts, suggest prosecutors believe this was not a spontaneous act but one that carries the weight of premeditation or at least deliberate malice.
The presence of two witnesses in the back seat gives authorities firsthand accounts of what transpired.
The judicial process will determine guilt or innocence. But the facts as alleged are damning, and no amount of feel-good backstory changes what a family in Maryland lost on Sunday night.
