Looks like ESPN had to call an audible. The sports media giant is doing some damage control after admitting that its reporting involving free-agent defensive lineman Mike Pennel and a homicide investigation in the Dominican Republic “contained errors.” That’s never the sentence you want attached to one of your biggest stories.
The original report spread quickly. After all, when a well-known NFL player is linked to a murder investigation, people are going to click. Headlines flew across social media at warp speed, and everyone suddenly became an expert on the case before finishing their morning coffee.
Then came the plot twist. ESPN quietly deleted the story and later acknowledged that the report contained mistakes. In other words, somebody hit the publish button a little too confidently.
The saga started April 25, when ESPN first named Pennel a person of interest in the case, reporting that the remains of Carli Franchesca Guzmán Roche had been found in January on a Puerto Plata property Pennel previously owned. That story has since been deleted outright, returning a dead link. Pennel’s camp called the report false at the time, saying he didn’t know Guzmán Roche at all.
“This isn’t a story. I’m not legally involved,” Pennel wrote to ESPN in a text message at the time. “This is fake news being reported. I’d advise you to speak with my agent/lawyer… before writing a false story. Damaging my reputation.”
ESPN followed up on June 18 with a more detailed investigative piece, reporting that people close to the victim and police records described an ongoing relationship between Pennel and Guzmán Roche whenever he was on the island. The story, bylined by ESPN’s T.J. Quinn and Juan Recio, framed the finding as a direct contradiction of Pennel’s earlier denial, reporting that witnesses had told Dominican police as far back as 2021 that Pennel and Guzmán Roche had an ongoing relationship when she went missing.
Imagine being Mike Pennel for a moment. One minute you’re minding your business, the next, your name is trending for reasons nobody wants. Then the story disappears, but the internet never forgets.
The story remained live until ESPN replaced it with an update, as noted by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, who had also covered the June 18 story before it came down.
The update doesn’t use the word “retraction,” but it now occupies the same URL where the June 18 story used to live. ESPN says Pennel’s representatives have since supplied travel and financial records supporting his claim that he wasn’t in the Dominican Republic when Guzmán Roche disappeared in September 2021.
Attorney Brian Wainger, in a separate statement, said passport records, banking records, and geotagged photographs place Pennel in Denver at the time, receiving treatment for a sports injury before signing with the Atlanta Falcons that September. Wainger also said Pennel’s own surveillance system had captured people trespassing on the property the night Guzmán Roche went missing, footage he says he turned over to Dominican authorities who didn’t know it existed.
In the race to break news, accuracy should always cross the finish line first. Otherwise, you’re left deleting articles, issuing corrections, and hoping the internet is feeling unusually forgiving.
On June 18, 2026, ESPN published a story about Michael Pennel Jr. and an investigation into the death of a woman in the Dominican Republic who disappeared on September 5, 2021. ESPN has determined the story contained errors and has removed it. Since the publication of the story, Pennel’s representatives have provided ESPN with documentation, including travel and financial records, supporting Pennel’s statements to ESPN that he was not in the Dominican Republic at the time the woman disappeared.
Flip the pages for the woman who disappeared and was found dead on his property.
