Dayton James Webber, a professional cornhole player who was quadruple amputated, appeared in Charles County District Court by videoconference on Wednesday for a bail review after prosecutors charged him in connection with a March 22 shooting of a passenger in the defendant’s Tesla, according to court proceedings described by the Associated Press.
At the hearing, his lawyer said Webber acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Bradrick Michael Wells during what authorities described as a heated argument in the car. “The truth here is that he would have been a murder victim if he had not acted immediately in defense of his life,” defense attorney Andrew Jezic said after the hearing, according to reporters.
Judge Patrick Devine ordered Webber held without bail and noted that he left Maryland after the shooting, according to the Associated Press report. The judge also ordered Webber to remain jailed. Webber has not entered a plea and is due in court for a May 6 preliminary hearing, the report said.
Prosecutors, including Karen Piper Mitchell, described the case to the court as prosecutors argued for continued custody. Mitchell said witnesses in the car told authorities the argument was over a gun that a friend of Wells had stolen from Webber, and that Webber was upset that Wells was still friends with the person accused of taking the firearm, according to the report. Mitchell also said Webber and Wells had a history of arguing, including a 2024 incident in which Webber ordered Wells to leave his home.
The report said Mitchell told the court that Webber fired a shot from a second-floor window in the 2024 incident when Wells was leaving. Jezic, by contrast, told the court his client fired “into the air” during the March 22 confrontation, according to the Associated Press account.
The charging documents described in court filings say Webber shot Wells twice in the head during an argument, according to police documents summarized by the AP. The report said authorities have not publicly addressed whether the Tesla’s cameras captured what happened or whether self-driving functionality was in use at the time of the shooting.
After the shooting, Webber pulled over in La Plata, Maryland, and asked two backseat passengers to help pull Wells out of the vehicle, the report said. The two passengers refused, got out of the car, and flagged down police officers. The Charles County sheriff’s office said Webber fled with Wells still in the car, and that about two hours later a resident in Charlotte Hall, roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) away, found Wells’ body in a yard along a road and notified officers.
Detectives tracked down Webber’s car in Charlottesville, Virginia, and found him at a hospital where he was “seeking treatment for a medical issue,” the sheriff’s office said, according to the AP report. The report also said Webber was extradited from Virginia to Maryland to face the charges.
Webber, whose arms and legs were amputated when he was 10 months old after he contracted a serious blood infection, has been featured by ESPN in a 2023 story and later wrote an essay for NBC’s “Today” show about becoming a professional competitor, according to the AP report. The report also cited a YouTube video posted two years ago showing Webber loading and firing a handgun.
After the hearing, Jezic told reporters that his client was “terrified,” according to the Associated Press report.