Audrey McAvoy
A professional cornhole player who’s also a quadruple amputee has been accused of fatally shooting a passenger in the front seat of a car he was driving during an argument, Maryland authorities say.
Dayton James Webber, 27, was featured by ESPN in 2023 in a story of inspiration, noting he rode dirt bikes, wrestled and played football before becoming a professional cornhole player. In the same year, he wrote an essay for the Today show about how he became a professional competitor.
On Sunday night, he was arrested and charged as a fugitive from justice by police in Albemarle County, Virginia, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Charles County is seeking his extradition from Virginia and said he will be charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and related charges.
Webber didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment sent to an email address listed for him.
In a 2023 essay for the Today show, Webber said doctors amputated his arms and legs when he was 10 months old to save his life after he contracted a serious blood infection. His medical team gave him a 3 per cent chance of surviving, he wrote.
Webber went on to become a professional player of cornhole, in which players throw bean bags through a hole in a slanted wooden board to score points. In the essay for the Today show, he said he learned to grab the bean bag by the corners and throw it using his amputated arms.
Webber pulled over after the shooting in La Plata, Maryland, and asked two passengers in the back of the car to help pull the victim out, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office said. The witnesses refused, got out of the car and flagged down police officers.
Webber fled with the victim still in the car, the sheriff’s office said. Two hours later, a resident in Charlotte Hall, about a 16-kilometre drive away, reported a body in a yard. Officers found the victim, Bradrick Michael Wells, 27, of Waldorf, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The American Cornhole League posted a statement on its Facebook page saying it is aware of allegations involving Webber but said it would not comment on what it called “an active legal situation” while proceedings were ongoing.
AP
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