ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Nelson Washington had held on to the improbable hope that missing Baylor University player Patrick Dennehy would be found alive.

Hope gave way to acceptance and anger Monday night when police in Maryland charged Dennehy's former roommate, Carlton Dotson, with murder.

The warrant naming Dotson was issued by police in Waco, Texas, where Dennehy has been missing since mid-June, Chestertown Police Chief Walter Coryell said.

No body has been found, but Washington and others close to the talented 6-foot-10 center and former University of New Mexico player felt their worst fears would soon be confirmed.

"I was hoping he'd turn up, but now I know that's not going to be the case," said Washington, who coached Dennehy for four years in AAU basketball tournaments.

Dennehy's girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa, lives in Albuquerque.

"I don't understand this. I don't get it. Patrick just cared so much about Carlton," De La Rosa told Albuquerque television station KOB-TV.

"She finds this very hard to believe," said De La Rosa's mother, Debbie. "She still wants to know where Patrick is."

Efforts to reach Dennehy's parents in Carson City, Nev., were unsuccessful.

Washington, reached by telephone in Las Vegas, Nev., called Dennehy's disappearance and the fact his whereabouts remain unknown "sickening."

"I want to find him and give him a proper burial," Washington said. "Who knows where he's been."

Steve Filios, Dennehy's high school coach at St. Francis High School in California, echoed Washington's emotions.

"I have a very heavy heart and it's not the result that I prayed for," Filios said in a telephone interview from California. "Nothing is completely confirmed but obviously if Carlton Dotson has been arrested for murder, it's a pretty good indication Patrick is no longer with us."

Filios, like Washington, said he had prayed for a miracle.

"I was hoping that for some reason he was hidden or hiding," Filios said. "Your mind always hopes for a situation where things would come out where he was safe. These current events indicate that's not the case."

Washington expressed anguish that if Dennehy was murdered, his body has not been located.

"You don't leave someone just sitting out there somewhere," he said. "If it was an accident, leaving him out there wasn't an accident."

According to an earlier search warrant affidavit, an unidentified informant reported to Delaware authorities that Dotson told a cousin he shot Dennehy as the two argued while shooting 9mm guns in the Waco area.

Some of Dennehy's friends say he told them that he and Dotson were being threatened and that they obtained guns. Dennehy's family have said Dennehy told coaches he feared for his life.

Filios said his last contact with Dennehy was by telephone last December.

"Everything was great and going good," Filios said. "There were no indications of any concerns. He was feeling good about things, other than a sense of impatience at having to sit out a year."

Former Baylor assistant coach Brian O'Neill, who left the Bears' program in April to return to Albuquerque, was in Virginia when he learned of Dotson's arrest.

"I just thought about a career that we'll never know how good Patrick would have and could have been," said O'Neill. "He had so much promise."

O'Neill also said he was surprised that Dotson had been charged in the case and reiterated that he believed Dennehy and Dotson had a good relationship. O'Neill noted that the two players traveled together from Texas to Albuquerque in May to take part in the New Mexico Games.

"For Patrick to come back to Albuquerque to play ... and to take Carlton with him would tell me that he cared for the guy," O'Neill said.

Dennehy played two years at New Mexico and transferred to Baylor in the spring of 2002. He went through a productive, but often turmoil-filled sophomore season.

On a team wracked by dissension, Dennehy quarreled with two of his teammates on the court in the waning minutes of a game at Air Force. During an ensuing time-out, Dennehy shoved another teammate, kicked over a chair, left for the locker room and didn't return.

He remained on the team, but two months later was kicked off by newly hired coach Ritchie McKay, who replaced Fran Fraschilla at the end of that tumultuous season. McKay dismissed Dennehy after he walked out of an offseason workout.

Dennehy averaged 10.6 points and 7.5 rebounds a game his final year with the Lobos and sat out last season at Baylor as is required when a player transfers from one Division I school to another.