DALLAS -- Carlton Dotson's attorney believes the jailhouse interview involving his client was acquired under false pretenses. But the family of slain Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy claims Dotson's comments of betrayal equally are off-base.

Brian Brabazon, Dennehy's stepfather, told The Dallas Morning News that suggestions of self-defense in the murder Dotson's currently charged with simply do not add up. Dotson told the Morning News on Wednesday that Dennehy pointed a gun at him during an argument.

"The thing is, he knew he committed a crime. I don't care what he says now. I'm sure Patrick would not point a gun at anybody, even in jest," Brabazon told the newspaper. "If Carlton is trying to claim self-defense, why didn't he go to police when he committed the crime? Why did he shoot twice? He wanted Patrick dead, and that's what he did. He got what he wanted. And now he's trying to pull self-defense and mental deficiency and all that stuff. He wasn't mental. It was murder."

Dotson, in the copyright newspaper report published Thursday, said he believed Dennehy was his friend but betrayed him.

"If someone points a gun at you and shoots and it doesn't go off, what would you do?" the story quotes him as saying. "If someone is pointing a gun at you and they start putting more bullets into the gun, what would you do?"

Dotson's attorney, Grady Irvin, said in a written statement that intern Shani George did not disclose her affiliation with The Dallas Morning News before meeting his client Wednesday at a Maryland detention center.

"It is our understanding that the intern did not provide any identifying information as being a reporter or intern," Irvin's statement said. "Instead, it is our understanding that she represented herself as a Christian who was there to let Mr. Dotson know that she was 'praying' for him."

Dotson, 21, was arrested in his home state of Maryland in the shooting death of Dennehy, who had been missing about six weeks when his decomposed body was found July 25 in a grassy field four miles from the Baylor campus in Waco. Dotson is awaiting extradition to Texas on a murder charge.

The Morning News defended its story, saying George was following up on several interview requests from the newspaper when she went to the jail during visiting hours and told the desk officer she hoped to interview Dotson.

The paper said George gave the officer a copy of her press credentials and an unsealed note to Dotson identifying herself as working for the paper and requesting an interview.

"She immediately introduced herself to Mr. Dotson as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, not, as Mr. Irvin suggests, as 'a Christian,"' Stuart Wilk, vice president/managing editor of the newspaper, said in a written statement.

"Mr. Dotson said he was willing to tell his side of the story to the public. Mr. Dotson apparently noticed a small gold cross necklace Ms. George was wearing and asked if she was a Christian. She said she was."

Warden Ron Howell told The Associated Press that George did not tell guards before the interview that she was a journalist, but that she was not required to do so. She was only required to show a photo identification, which she did, he said.

He said George mentioned as she left the jail that she was a member of the press.

Irvin's one-page statement does not dispute the accuracy of the story but says George took no notes and identified herself at the end of the meeting as a "friend of someone who worked for the newspaper."

George, an intern in Washington, D.C., for the Morning News' parent company, Belo Corp., told CNN that Dotson agreed to meet with her and she identified herself to him as a reporter.

"He had been corresponding with another reporter before, so he was familiar with my organization and he was just, I think he just wanted someone to talk to," George said.

She acknowledged no notes were taken, but didn't say why.

Immediately after talking to Dotson, George called an editor in Dallas and related the brief conversation, including the direct quotes that were still fresh in her mind, Wilk said.

Visitors to the jail are not allowed to carry recording devices or cameras, though they are allowed to carry pencil and paper, Howell said. The jail doesn't record conversations between inmates and visitors, so he said authorities don't know whether she identified herself as a reporter during the interview.

Dotson, who was arrested July 21, told FBI agents he shot Dennehy after the player tried to shoot him, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

After his arrest, Dotson told The Associated Press that he "didn't confess to anything." He has declined requests for an interview with The AP.

On Thursday, two local attorneys representing Dotson visited him at the jail and approved a "visitors list" for Dotson. Anyone not on the list will not be allowed to talk to him, Howell said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.