MIAMI — Jurors heard from the lead Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office detective on Tuesday in the murder trial of former University of Miami football player Rashaun Jones.

Jones, 40, is accused of killing teammate Bryan Pata on Nov. 7, 2006.

On the stand on Tuesday, MDSO Detective Juan Segovia explained why all roads led to Jones.

Thats despite Jones insisting to Segovia in a 2021 interrogation that he did nothing wrong.

“I’m telling you, I have nothing to do with this guy. Nothing,” Jones is heard saying in a video clip. “Ain’t no 15 years of telling myself I didn’t do it or ain’t no trying to convince myself I didn’t do nothing.”

Segovia has assisted with the case since the murder happened. He was there a year later when former UM professor Paul Conner identified Jones as the suspect.

In 2020, Segovia was assigned to take over as lead investigator for the case for what was then the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Segovia told jurors what he felt made a compelling case for arresting Jones, 15 years after Pata’s murder.

“It was all the historical previous threats he had made to the victim, accompanied (by) the display or talk of the same type of firearm that killed the victim,” Segovia said. “It was the phone records. It was the identification of Mr. Conner.

“(It was) the fact that he never showed up ― the only player who never showed up to the Hecht Center the night of, the only one (who) couldn’t be contacted by his own girlfriend and teammates, the fact that he had called a random player asking for money, but wouldn’t give a reason why he needed the money, and then just hung up on that player. The lies about where he was at night.”

Segovia also testified that there were “many” conflicts between Jones’ statements and those of other witnesses.

On Tuesday evening, Jones’ attorneys began cross-examining Segovia, trying to poke holes in the quality of the investigation and questioning why an arrest was made after so long, even after there was no fundamental change in the available evidence.

Proceedings were expected to continue on Wednesday.

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