NBA Star Bison Dele Met A Sad Fate The People Are Still Struggling To Understand

To the casual observer, June 13, 1997, should have been the best day in Dele’s life. At their home stadium, the Chicago Bulls had beaten the Utah Jazz to be named champions of the NBA — and the crowd was going wild. As their forward-center, the young man took his place on the winners’ podium as confetti rained down on the players’ heads. 

Later, point guard Steve Kerr would confirm that Dele had played a vital role in the championship — and that the Bulls couldn’t have won without him. But the tall, handsome player looked far from jubilant as his teammates celebrated with abandon. And just a few years later, he would abandon basketball for good.

Born Brian Williams in Fresno, California, in 1969 Dele was the youngest of two sons. When he was still an infant, his father Eugene was recruited into The Platters, a successful rock and roll band. And at first, his childhood was spent roaming from place to place with his parents and older brother Kevin.

According to reports, these early forays into travel were far from adventurous: they mostly involved holing up in hotel rooms around the world. Eventually, the Williams’ marriage fell apart, and Dele’s mom Patricia took her sons back to Fresno for a fresh start. There, she remarried, although this new relationship was also not fated to last.

From an early age, Dele showed prowess in athletics, initially excelling at field and track. But when a growth spurt hit during his teenage years — he would eventually reach 6’10” — he settled on basketball as his sport of choice. According to some, though, he never showed any great passion for the game. 

But while Dele might not have loved basketball, he was undeniably good at it. And after a year playing for the University of Maryland, he took a place on the team at the University of Arizona. From there, in 1991 he found himself drafted into the NBA by the Orlando Magic, where he remained for two seasons.

As Dele’s star was on the rise, his brother was struggling to get by. At 6’8”, Kevin could have been a formidable athlete himself, but his extreme asthma prevented him from competing. According to reports, he also struggled socially and was prone to irrational outbreaks of anger.

Eventually, Kevin dropped out of college and turned his attention to various money-making schemes instead. But without the capital to fund these ventures, he often asked Dele for financial support. And even though the NBA star regularly handed out money to his brother and mother, the family began to grow apart.

Despite issues with his family, Dele was rarely alone. Surrounded by a network of close friends, he enjoyed setting out on adventures — such as riding his motorcycle more than 650 miles from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Phoenix, Arizona. But to those who loved him, he was a man forever weighed down by his troubled past.

According to Sports Illustrated magazine, Kerr once called Dele “maybe the most physically gifted player I ever saw.” Meanwhile, media relations director Tommy Sheppard opined that the player was “perceived as an athlete first, but he had an artist’s heart.” Intelligent and charming, he had no problem winning friends — even though he preferred reading books over socializing with his team. 

On one memorable occasion, reports claim, Dele insisted that his share of the playoff bonus be split between ballboys, trainers, and other members of staff. In other words, he was not your typical NBA sensation. But even so, he enjoyed a promising career, transferring to the Denver Nuggets in 1993.

Two years later, Dele transferred once more — this time to the Los Angeles Clippers. And after being forced to sit out much of the 1996-1997 season due to a contractual dispute, he joined the Chicago Bulls just in time to help them win the championship. Later that same year, he was signed to the Detroit Pistons, where he remained until 1999. 

After one season with the Pistons, Dele announced that he was changing his name. His new surname, he explained, was a nod to his African roots, while his forename, Bison, was in recognition of his Native-American heritage. But while he continued to play under this new moniker, it was becoming clear that he wanted more out of life than basketball.

Off of the court, Dele continued his adventures — and now he had a new partner in crime. The son of a wealthy insurance broker, Patrick Byrne had beaten cancer at just 21 years old. And as a result, he was determined to live life to the fullest. This attitude clearly resonated with the NBA star, and the pair bonded over a love of travel.

Already, Dele had spent time in war-torn Lebanon and traveled to Pamplona in Spain to experience the Running of the Bulls. And with Byrne at his side, there were more adventures on the horizon. From skydiving to earning their pilot’s licenses, the pair were soon doing everything together — and no activity seemed too extreme.

And while Dele’s thoughtful, poetic approach to life might have set him apart from other NBA stars, his love life was just as dramatic as you might expect. At one point, he was linked with the superstar singer Madonna, as well as a string of actresses and models. But according to reports, he never seemed the sort to settle down.

Then in 1997 Dele met Serena Karlan, the 25-year-old roommate of a friend living in Los Angeles. Enamored with the beautiful young woman, he pursued her at intervals over the coming years — but nothing much came of it at first. In the meantime, the Pistons’ highest-paid player was reaching the end of his basketball career.

In 1999 Dele still had five years on his contract, but he quit — walking out on more than $36 million in wages. And despite attempts by rival teams to lure him back to the NBA, he never looked back. Instead, he dedicated his time to globetrotting, taking in Beirut and the Mediterranean before vanishing into the Australian outback for weeks at a time. 

“He was trying to find peace,” Ollie McPherson, an artist who traveled with Dele in Australia, reportedly told the press. “Something was looming out there for him and he was headed towards it, like he was trying to cleanse his life or his spirit.” Whether he succeeded, though, is one of many mysteries that might never be solved.

What we do know is that Dele eventually wound up in Tahiti, a Polynesian island paradise where people flock to forget the worries of everyday life. There, he purchased a $650,000 catamaran which he christened Hukuna Matata, after the laid-back “no worries” motto referenced in The Lion King. Apparently, he had always dreamed of learning to sail.

At almost 56 feet long, the Hukuna Matata was a luxurious vessel, equipped with multiple bedrooms and a plush lounge with wraparound seating. Now a man of leisure, Dele used it as the setting for a new series of adventures, inviting various travel companions to join him in exploring the waters of the South Pacific.  

According to reports, Dele soon became something of a local celebrity, welcomed in ports from Vanuatu to Papua New Guinea. And on at least one occasion, Sports Illustrated reported, he turned the sails of the Hukuna Matata into a makeshift cinema, projecting music videos for spectators in nearby canoes. In short, he was finally living the life that he’d always wanted.

But there was still something missing. And in 2001 Dele contacted Karlan once more, urging her to join him in his island paradise. At a loose end, she decided to fly out to the South Pacific, where the pair enjoyed a blissful vacation together. Within months of returning, she was back in New Zealand, ready to start a life with her new beau. 

At first, reports claim, everything was going well between Dele and Karlan — two wanderers who had found each other at last. But then Kevin arrived in New Zealand to join his brother, and things began to unravel. Apparently, he was behaving strangely, casting a dark cloud over the couple’s blissful existence.

What happened next is a matter of some debate. One of the few things that is known for certain is that the Hukuna Matata left Tahiti on July 6, 2002 — about five months after Kevin’s arrival in the South Pacific. After sailing for about 20 hours, the vessel arrived in Raiatea, an island some 150 miles away.

According to reports, there were four people on the voyage: French captain Bertrand Saldo, Dele, Karlan, and Kevin, who was now known as Miles Dabord. Together, they sailed for Hawaii — but the dream soon went awry. After a satellite call made on July 8, the Hukuna Matata and its passengers mysteriously disappeared.

Sadly, Saldo, Dele, and Karlan were never seen again. But there was one member of the party that did make it back to shore: Dabord. According to witnesses, he was seen relaxing with his girlfriend on the island of Moorea, the same day that the last satellite call from the Hukuna Matata was made.

Eight days later, reports claim, a man matching Dabord’s description sailed the catamaran Aria Bella into Tahiti. On closer inspection, the vessel was later revealed to be the Hukuna Matata with its name plate stripped from its hull. Soon after, Dele’s brother embarked on a long journey, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to Belize and Arizona.

For months, Dabord’s activity remained under the radar while the authorities searched fruitlessly for the missing boat. But in September 2002 Dele’s assistant Kevin Porter received a bizarre notification from a bank in Phoenix, Arizona. Apparently, someone using the checkbook and passport of the missing star had attempted to purchase $150,000 worth of gold.

Doubting that Dele could have turned up in Arizona, thousands of miles from where he disappeared, Porter notified the police. And they soon apprehended Dabord, who had been attempting to pass himself off as his brother. At first, he told police that he was legitimately purchasing the gold on behalf of his sibling — who was alive and, to his knowledge, in perfect health.

Unable to prove otherwise, the police released Dabord. And by the time that his activities over the previous months had come to light, he had already fled across the border to Mexico. Before the law could catch up with him, he overdosed on insulin on a Tijuana beach, dying in hospital on September 25.

So what had really happened on board the Hukuna Matata? To date, there has only ever been one first-hand account of events, supposedly relayed by Dabord to his girlfriend Erica Weise before his death. According to this version of the story, Dele and his brother fell out during the trip, eventually coming to blows.

Somehow, in the chaos, Karlan was accidentally struck, falling and hitting her head on a metal davit. According to Dabord, she died on impact, leaving the rest of the passengers in shock. But when Saldo insisted on reporting the incident, he said, Dele panicked, murdering the captain in cold blood.

But that wasn’t all. In Dabord’s version of events, Dele turned on him next — and he was forced to kill his brother in an act of self-defense. Unsure what to do next, he claimed, he had pushed all three bodies into the ocean and returned to Tahiti, where he’d attempted to conceal the entire debacle.

According to Weise, Dabord had feared that his story would not be believed — and he was right. Over the years, many people, including Dele’s close friends, have questioned the narrative provided by the only man to survive whatever happened on board the Hukuna Matata. Meanwhile, investigators have highlighted the lack of evidence supporting his claims.

“The explanation that Miles gave to Erica, his girlfriend, forensically it didn’t pan out,” FBI agent Elizabeth Castaneda, who investigated at the time, told Sports Illustrated. “According to him, [Dele] struck the captain in the head with a wrench. That’s going to cause blood spatter… The top of the area [where they fought] had a ceiling. There was nothing there… it just doesn’t make sense.”

But if Dele hadn’t murdered the captain — and his brother hadn’t killed him in self-defense — then where did the passengers of the Hukuna Matata go? After a long investigation, representatives from the FBI made an official announcement. Dabord, they believed, had shot the three people on board and disposed of their bodies, hoping to steal the identity of his successful elder brother. 

But there is a problem with this version of events — namely the lack of bullet holes or any other signs of a struggle on board the vessel. Privately, Castaneda has come up with a theory of her own. In this, the killer forced Dele, Karlan, and Saldo into the shark-infested ocean, sailing away and leaving them behind to perish. 

Dele’s mother Patricia, meanwhile, has refused to accept that one son murdered the other — although she acknowledges that foul play was involved. On October 12, 2002, a shared memorial service was held for the two brothers in Los Angeles, during which Reverend Eugene Marzette said, “Only God knows the truth.” And to this day, the mystery of what happened on board the Hukuna Matata remains unsolved.