| No. 78 | |
|---|---|
| Position: | Defensive tackle |
| Personal information | |
| Born: | September 3, 1941 Columbia, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died: | May 12, 2018 (aged 76) |
| Height: | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) |
| Weight: | 277 lb (126 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school: | Columbia (MS) |
| College: | Ole Miss |
| NFL Draft: | 1963 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3 |
| AFL Draft: | 1963 / Round: 2 / Pick: 9 |
| Career history | |
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| Career highlights and awards | |
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| Career NFL statistics | |
| Player stats at NFL.com · PFR | |
James Kenneth Dunaway (September 3, 1941 – May 12, 2018) 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.[1]
On July 27, 1998, Dunaway's ex-wife, Nonniel Dunaway, was found dead in a half-empty swimming pool.[2] 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, $1,800 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.[3] In response, his children filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that Dunaway was responsible for their mother's death.[4] In 2002, Dunaway was found liable and ordered to pay $579,000 to his children.[5]
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.