CNN.com - Dennehy's body released for cremation

Funeral set for Thursday in basketball player's hometown

WACO, Texas (CNN) -- The body of Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy has been released to a mortuary in Waco, where it will be cremated, a spokeswoman for the Dallas medical examiner said Friday.

Pastor Dick Bernal of the Jubilee Christian Center in San Jose, California, where Dennehy grew up, told CNN he will fly next week to Waco to pick up the ashes and take them back for a funeral service.

The service is to be held Thursday at 11 a.m. [2 p.m. EDT] at the Pentecostal church, which can hold 3,600 people.

The medical examiner determined in a preliminary autopsy report that Dennehy died of gunshot wounds to the head. It could take several weeks before toxicology test results carried out by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas are returned and the autopsy is complete.

The preliminary report said the cause of death was homicide.

Dennehy was shot and killed where his body was found last Friday, a gravel pit four miles southeast of the Baylor University campus, the report said. His head was found separate from, but near, the body.

The number of gunshot wounds was not disclosed.

Dennehy, 21, had not been seen since June 12. A former teammate, Carlton Dotson, also 21, was arrested July 21 and charged with his murder. He is being held without bond in Maryland and is fighting extradition to Texas.

A source close to the investigation told CNN that information about the body's location was obtained during an interview with Dotson.

The arrest warrant for Dotson said he had confessed to FBI agents that he had killed his friend. Outside a courthouse in Maryland last week, Dotson told a reporter with The Associated Press, "I didn't confess to anything."

An informant's account in an affidavit given to police said Dotson shot Dennehy during a dispute while the two were shooting guns in a field north of Waco.

CNN producer Gregg Canes contributed to this report.