Jim Dunaway

Jim Dunaway
No. 78
Position: Defensive Tackle
Personal information
Date of birth: (1941-09-03) September 3, 1941
Place of birth: Columbia, Mississippi
Height: 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Weight: 277 lb (126 kg)
Career information
High school: Columbia (MS)
College: Mississippi
NFL Draft: 1963 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3
AFL draft: 1963 / Round: 2 / Pick: 9
Career history
Career highlights and awards
  • 4× AFL Allstar (1965, 1966, 1967, 1968)
  • 2x AFL Champion (1964-1965)
  • Super Bowl VII Champion
  • All American (1962)
Career NFL statistics
Player stats at NFL.com
Player stats at PFR

James Kenneth Dunaway (born September 3, 1941) was an American football player. A defensive tackle, he played college football at the University of Mississippi, and played professionally in the American Football League for the Buffalo Bills, as part of a defensive line that held opposing runners without a rushing touchdown for a pro football record seventeen consecutive games in the 1964 and 1965 AFL seasons.

Murder charge and aftermath

In 1998, Dunaway's ex-wife, Nonniel Dunaway, was found dead in a half-empty swimming pool. An autopsy revealed that she had a fractured skull and was unconscious when she was placed in the water by her assailant where she drowned. Prior to this event, she had won a divorce judgment which gave her more than 800 acres (3.2 km2) of property that the couple owned, $1800 a month in alimony and half of Dunaway's NFL pension. They had been divorced since 1995 and Dunaway was planning to appeal.

Dunaway was charged with her murder but a grand jury chose not to indict Dunaway of the charges. In response, his children filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that Dunaway was responsible for their mother's death. In 2002, Dunaway was found liable and ordered to pay $579,000 to his children.

Coincidentally, Dunaway had been a teammate for three seasons of star running back O. J. Simpson, who was similarly found responsible for his ex-wife's death after being acquitted of her murder in a controversial trial in 1995.

See also

Article about the suit.

Article about the civil suit

Article about his arrest.

- Comedy site names Dunaway a member of the "All-Criminal Team"


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