Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
LA PLATA, Md. — A 27-year-old professional cornhole player with no arms and no legs has been charged with first-degree murder. Witnesses say he shot a man in the passenger seat of his Tesla, drove away with the body, dumped it in a yard ten miles away, and then it appears his car fled to Virginia after dropping him off at a nearby hospital. Law enforcement remains unable to answer the rather significant question of how any of this even happened.
Guessing the bag he threw isn't the one behind him. (Courtesy American Cornhole League)
Dayton James Webber, of La Plata, is a quadruple amputee who lost all four limbs to a blood infection as an infant. He went on to become the first person with his condition to compete professionally in the American Cornhole League, appearing on ESPN and winning two Maryland state championships. On Sunday night, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office, he added first-degree murder to his ever-growing list of accomplishments that no one can fully explain.
The incident began around 10:25 p.m. on La Plata Road, where Webber was driving a Tesla SUV with three passengers. According to the two backseat witnesses, an argument broke out, at which point Webber, the driver, who again does not have arms, shot front-seat passenger Bradrick Michael Wells, 27, of Waldorf, in the head. Webber then pulled over and asked the two surviving passengers to help drag Wells out of the car. They declined this invitation, got out, and flagged down the police instead.
Webber then drove off with the body still in the vehicle. Nearly two hours later, a resident on Newport Church Road in Charlotte Hall called 911 to report that there was a dead man in their yard. Wells was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives tracked Webber’s Tesla to Charlottesville, Virginia, roughly 120 miles from Charlotte Hall. Webber himself was located at a nearby hospital, where he was receiving treatment for an unspecified medical issue. He was arrested by Albemarle County police upon his release and charged as a fugitive from justice. He is currently awaiting extradition to Charles County, where he’ll face charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and whatever else the state’s attorney can think of while staring at the case file and quietly murmuring, “How?”
The Charles County Sheriff’s Office has not explained how Webber operated the vehicle. They have not explained how he fired a weapon. They have not explained how he pulled over, attempted to solicit help disposing of a body, drove another ten miles, deposited said body in a residential yard, then somehow his car navigated to a different state after dropping him off at a hospital. Spokesperson Diane Richardson told reporters, “There’s no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved in the shooting and that he acted alone,” which answers a question that nobody asked while elegantly sidestepping every other question everyone did ask.
This is not, it should be noted, Webber’s first interaction with traffic law. According to Southern Maryland News Net, he has a prior arrest for impaired driving in St. Mary’s County, during which he struck a police car and a building. No one appears to have asked how the hell that happened either.
Meanwhile, the American Cornhole League has been enjoying a moment of its own. ACL Commissioner Stacey Moore recently renewed the league’s broadcast deal with ESPN and launched an international federation with the goal of making cornhole an Olympic sport by 2032. The league currently features 256 professional players, team licensing deals at $25,000 a pop, and one member now facing a homicide charge that doubles as a physics problem.
Webber, for his part, once wrote an essay for NBC’s TODAY describing his journey from childhood illness to professional athlete. “I went from overcoming a serious blood infection and undergoing a quadruple amputation as a baby to becoming a professional athlete as an adult,” he wrote. He did not, at the time, mention any plans to become the most logistically confusing murder suspect in Maryland history.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Detective R. Johnson. Anyone with information about how any of this was at all physically possible is presumably also welcome to call, though the department has not said so explicitly.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
