The inspirational arc of Dayton Webber’s story was, until Sunday, one of the cleaner ones in recent sports journalism. Boy contracts bacterial infection at ten months old. Doctors give him a 3% chance of survival. Boy survives. Doctors amputate his arms and legs to save his life. Boy grows up. Boy teaches himself to write. Boy teaches himself to race go-karts. Boy discovers cornhole — the lawn game in which players throw bean bags through a hole in a slanted wooden board — at his local American Legion, plays every Friday without exception, wins the Maryland state championship in 2020, turns professional in the American Cornhole League in the 2021-2022 season as the first quadruple amputee in league history, adapts his throwing technique by gripping the bags by their corners for leverage, gets profiled by ESPN’s SC Featured in 2023, writes a piece for TODAY.com encouraging people to “take chances and pursue their dreams.”
It was a complete story. It had a beginning, a middle, and an uplifting end. ESPN had covered the end. The end was: triumph over adversity, professional athletic achievement, inspirational message for others facing challenges.
Sunday night, the story got a third act.
Dayton Webber, 27, is accused of shooting front-seat passenger Bradrick Michael Wells, 27, twice in the head during an argument while driving his white Tesla in La Plata, Maryland. He then allegedly drove away from the scene with Wells’s body in the car, stopped and asked his two back-seat passengers to help him dispose of the body, was refused, watched them exit the vehicle and flag down police, drove approximately fourteen miles with the body to Charlotte Hall, Maryland, where the body was left in someone’s front yard, and then drove to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was found at a hospital seeking treatment for an unspecified medical issue and was arrested.
He is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and related charges. He is presumed innocent. He has not been convicted. A family has lost Bradrick Wells, who was 27 years old and who is the reason this story matters and the reason Frank Misquote is filing it with a confidence level of 100% and zero fake sources, because nothing about what happened to Bradrick Wells is funny, and the satire in this piece is aimed precisely at everything except that.
The YouTube Channel, Which Was Called What It Was Called
Dayton Webber maintained a YouTube channel. The YouTube channel featured videos of him shooting firearms. The titles of these videos included the phrase “No hands no feet shooting.”
Frank Misquote, Sports & Leisure, would like to sit with that title for a moment. “No hands no feet shooting” is a content category that exists at the intersection of disability sports content, firearms enthusiasm, and something that, in retrospect, the algorithm probably should have flagged for the “also relevant” sidebar when the news broke Monday. The videos were real. The title was accurate. The channel was verified by NBC News. Frank is filing it here as a documented fact that the reader may process at their own pace.
The American Cornhole League’s Statement, Which Did The Best It Could
The American Cornhole League, founded in 2015 and broadcast on ESPN and CBS Sports, issued the following statement upon learning that its most famous quadruple amputee competitor had been charged with murder:
“This is an extremely serious matter and our thoughts are with all those impacted, including the family and loved ones of Bradrick Michael Wells. At this time, this remains an active legal situation. We respect the judicial process and will not comment on specific allegations or details while proceedings are ongoing. We will provide updates if and when it is appropriate to do so, but in the meantime the league will have no further comment.”
This is a good statement. It is the correct statement. It leads with the victim. It acknowledges the gravity. It declines to speculate. It uses the phrase “active legal situation” which is the accurate description of a murder charge pending extradition.
It is also a statement that the American Cornhole League almost certainly never expected to issue. The ACL commissioner, Frank notes, had been quoted earlier this month pushing for cornhole to become an Olympic sport, saying: “That’s one of the great things about our sport, how accessible it is, and how we like to say anyone can play, anyone can win, because if you want to put your mind to it, you want to put the time into practice, you can become competitive.”
The ACL’s Olympic push and the murder charge statement arrived in the same month. The ACL is having a March.
The Inspirational Essay, Which Now Reads Differently
In his 2023 piece for TODAY.com, Webber wrote about cornhole’s role in his life and what it had taught him. He wrote that he “loved it so much, I never missed a Friday.” He explained his adapted throwing technique. He noted that “while others often underestimate me,” he hoped his experience would inspire people to “take chances and pursue their dreams.”
He also wrote: “Teaching myself how to do various tasks — such as writing, picking things off the floor and even driving — helps me with cornhole, too. I’ve had to adapt my style to fit what works with my body.”
He taught himself to drive. This is documented in the inspirational piece. The driving is also relevant to the murder charge, in that he was driving when the alleged shooting occurred, and drove away afterward with the body, and drove to Charlottesville, and was found at a hospital in Charlottesville, having driven there.
The inspirational essay about teaching himself to drive did not anticipate this application of that skill. The inspirational essay about “taking chances and pursuing your dreams” was not intended as life advice for the specific situation that allegedly followed. Frank files the juxtaposition here and will not be extending the metaphor further, because it has extended itself sufficiently.
The Passengers In The Back Seat, Who Made The Correct Decision
When Webber allegedly stopped the vehicle and asked his two back-seat passengers to help him dispose of the body, they declined. They got out of the car. They walked away from the situation. They flagged down officers from the La Plata Police Department and told them what they had allegedly witnessed.
These passengers — whose names have not been released — made, by any available moral and legal framework, the right call. They were passengers in a vehicle, were allegedly present when a shooting occurred, were allegedly asked to participate in evidence disposal, and instead chose option C: exit the vehicle and contact law enforcement.
Frank Misquote would like these passengers to know, through the medium of satirical journalism, that their decision-making process under pressure was commendable, and that their choice to not help dispose of a body is the kind of choice that, while it should not require acknowledgment, does in the current environment seem worth noting positively.
Where Things Stand
Dayton Webber is in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail awaiting extradition to Charles County, Maryland. He will face first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and related charges. He is represented by counsel. He is presumed innocent. The court date is sometime in April.
Bradrick Michael Wells, 27, of Waldorf, Maryland, is dead. He was found in a residential front yard in Charlotte Hall. He had friends. He had a life. He is the person at the center of this story, and Frank Misquote files this paragraph last because he wants it to be the thing the reader carries out of the piece, past the ACL statement and the YouTube titles and the TODAY.com essay and all the rest: a 27-year-old man died in a front yard in Maryland on Sunday night, and that is the fact that none of the rest of this can be funny about, and Frank has been careful not to be.
The ESPN inspirational story unit has not issued a statement. The SC Featured episode remains on the record. The cornhole bags are thrown by their corners, for leverage. The back-seat passengers made the right call. The ACL is watching the judicial process. The YouTube channel had a very specific title. Gerald the houseplant, whose story involves none of this, is fine.
Frank Misquote, Sports & Leisure, covers the sports beats that arrive at his desk. He did not expect this one to arrive. He filed it carefully. Confidence: 100%. Fake sources: 0. All facts verified across NPR, ABC News, NBC News, CBS Baltimore, CNN, and ESPN reporting. Bradrick Michael Wells was 27. His family has Supposedly News’s condolences. The rest of it is what it is, and it is a lot.