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DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- Former Baylor University basketball coach Dave Bliss has admitted improperly paying tuition fees for Patrick Dennehy, and now audio tapes have turned up, indicating Bliss tried to get players to say Dennehy was involved in drugs -- as an attempt to hide the payments.
Dennehy's body was found after an extensive, weeks-long manhunt, and his friend and former teammate Carlton Dotson has been charged with his murder.
CNN anchor Bill Hemmer gets the latest developments from correspondent Ed Lavandera in Dallas, Texas.
HEMMER: The water may be getting a bit deeper for Dave Bliss. Audiotape transcripts quote him as saying, "Our whole thing right now, we can get out of this. There's nobody right now that can say that we paid Patrick Dennehy. Because he's dead, what we've got to create here is drugs." That's a quote from the transcript.
LAVANDERA: Since the death of Patrick Dennehy, investigators have been looking into NCAA rules violations in Baylor's basketball program. Investigators want to know whether Dennehy and some other players were being paid improperly to play basketball.
According to published reports in the Fort Worth Star Telegram and confirmed to CNN by the university's lead investigator, head coach Bliss allegedly asked several players and an assistant coach to give university investigators false information to protect the basketball program.
Bliss reportedly suggested that Dennehy be portrayed as someone involved with drugs.
The Star Telegram quotes Bliss as saying that, "If there's a way we can create a perception that Pat may have been a dealer, even if we had to kind of make some things look a little better than they are, that can save us."
Baylor assistant coach Abar Rouse taped three hours of conversations between himself, Bliss and several players in late July.
The university's lead investigator tells CNN that Bliss was confronted about these conversations last Friday and admitted to the conversations. Bliss was said to be shocked that he had been recorded.
Repeated attempts by CNN to reach Bliss and assistant coach Rouse have been unsuccessful.
Baylor officials say they feel betrayed by Bliss, who resigned as head coach on August 8.
Robert Sloan, president of Baylor University, said, "I'm outraged not only by his own deception, but his efforts to enlist players and assistant coaches in this scheme."
According to the Fort Worth newspaper, Bliss told them he was "completely wrong" in what he did and that he knows he's disappointed a lot of people.
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