The Arizona Republic and Indianapolis Star

Authorities are trying to piece together whether a jilted girlfriend and $11,182 in cash seized by federal drug agents in Missouri had any connection with the execution-style slaying of Reds player Dernell Stenson on a quiet Chandler, Ariz., street two weeks ago.

Friends and family confirm the ex-girlfriend harassed Stenson across several states for at least 18 months, claiming at various times that she was pregnant by him, miscarried his child, was pregnant again and miscarried again.

At one point, Stenson's agent said the woman faked her death to try to force the player to call her.

Then, two weeks before Stenson was kidnapped and murdered, police said the ex-girlfriend sent a death threat by text message to Stenson's cell phone: "U better pray I never see you U again. I swear Dernell U R worth a Murder charge 4 & that is all U R worth."

Stenson, a quiet, mild-mannered man, was so upset by the message and two others he received Oct. 21 that he filed a complaint with the Scottsdale Police Department.

A police report identified the ex-girlfriend as Jennifer R. Gaddis of Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Star has learned that detectives questioned Gaddis, who is a Star employee, for at least nine hours Friday and searched her home, but Chandler police refused to call her a suspect, and she was not charged. It was the second time in two weeks Gaddis has been questioned.

The Arizona Republic has learned that a day after Stenson alerted police about the threat, two men later charged in his death were stopped by authorities in Missouri on suspicion of unrelated drug activities as they drove from Illinois to Arizona.

The men, half brothers Kevin G. Riddle, 43, and Reginald A. Riddle, 19, were stopped Oct. 22 near St. Louis, Mo. A spokeswoman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Missouri confirmed the men were released after being forced to surrender $11,182 in cash they were carrying.

Under federal law, agents can seize assets from suspects found to be carrying drugs or if sniffer dogs alert the agents to the scent of drugs.

Investigators said they believed the Riddles had driven to Arizona from Illinois or Indiana just weeks before Stenson's killing and that neither had a job.

Kevin identified himself as an Indiana resident when he was arrested on charges of car theft Nov. 5, just two hours after Stenson was found lying face up on a Chandler street with his hands and feet bound. Stenson was shot in the head, chest and abdomen at close range, then run over by his car, a black 2002 Isuzu Rodeo, that Kevin was driving when he was arrested.

Reginald, of suburban Chicago, was arrested the next day and charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Two other men also have been charged in the case. David Griffith, 20, of the Salt River Reservation near Scottsdale was charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. He was released from prison in March after serving 21 months for attempted car theft.

Robert Lee Maye, 32, of Phoenix, was arrested three days after the killing and accused of hindering prosecution by trying to rent a motel room for one of the suspects.

The Republic learned last week that Maye, who said he was a cousin of Kevin Riddle, was in the federal witness protection plan after testifying for the prosecution in a case against key members of the Gangster Disciples gang in Chicago.

Maye posted bond shortly after his arrest and disappeared but was rearrested Thursday afternoon on a Nov. 10 federal warrant for probation violation.

The bizarre swirl of menacing messages, cash-carrying drug suspects and a disappearing federal witness was an unlikely postscript to Stenson's mostly quiet life.

"I've never heard him raise his voice, not once," said Stanley King, a New Jersey sports agent who had represented Stenson since 1996.

King said the same ex-girlfriend Stenson complained of harassing him last month had haunted him repeatedly during the 2002 season.

"She called and left an emergency message at the stadium saying she killed herself or died," King said. "Then she called again to say she was pregnant. This was just one week after she had called to say she miscarried.

"These are conversations she had with me, so I'm not relating anything from a third person."

While being questioned by Arizona police by telephone in October, Gaddis said that she and Stenson had an 8-month-old child and she was 11 weeks pregnant with a second child, a police report said.

Police said Stenson told them that he had never seen the baby.

An obituary that ran in The Star on May 29, 2002 identified an infant, born prematurely, as the son of Stenson and Gaddis. The infant, named Jaden Dernell Gaddis Stenson, died May 18, 2002.

The infant died in Lucas County, Ohio, according to a death certificate, and was brought to Indianapolis for burial two weeks later.

A one-paragraph obituary published in the Indianapolis Star on May 29, 2002, identifies Jaden Dernell Gaddis Stenson as the infant son of Dernell Stenson and Jennifer Gaddis of Indianapolis. The obituary said the boy died May 18 and that his funeral would be held June 1, but that there would be "no calling" at the funeral home.