The Associated Press reports that investigators have found what appears to be blood traces on Bison Dele?s 55-foot catamaran. Authorities found traces of the substance on the inside and the outside of the vessel, said Michel Marotte, Tahiti's chief prosecutor. The findings must be verified in a laboratory "but it does seem to be blood traces,'' he told The Associated Press on Friday.

Dele's brother, Miles Dabord who is also known as Kevin Williams, was in a coma and in critical condition at a hospital in Chula Vista. He was found unconscious in Mexico last week. The FBI arrested him Thursday on a fraud charge after learning his identity. Dabord allegedly used his brother's former name, Brian Williams, while trying to buy $152,000 in gold in Phoenix earlier this month.

Dabord's mother, Patricia Phillips, told the Los Angeles Times she fears her son may have tried to commit suicide in a fit of guilt, somehow believing he was responsible for his brother's disappearance. On Friday, she stood at his bedside in a San Diego hospital. "I wanted to hug him, to stroke his face, to hold his hand,'' she said.

In a Sept. 13 telephone call, Phillips said Dabord sounded groggy and spoke of committing suicide. He told her he hadn't killed his brother and that he wanted her to know this before ending his life, she said.

Marotte said there is reason to think that Dele, his 30-year-old girlfriend Serena Karlan and Bertrand Saldo, the captain of Dele's sailboat, were killed July 6 or 7 during a layover in Tahiti. Investigators are working on the suspicion that a single person committed the killings, and "that is the brother of the victim, Kevin Williams.''

"We presume that the bodies of these people must be in the sea, the ocean, and will probably never be found,'' said Marotte, who speculated that the bodies could have been weighted down to sink them. "But we're still looking.''

The LA Times adds that Dabord may not live to tell his side of the story. Law enforcement officials admitted Saturday that they might never know exactly what happened to a missing former NBA player and two others who are presumed dead in the waters of the South Pacific.

Dabord is "dead, living only through artificial means," his mother said. Patricia Phillips said doctors have discovered severe damage to her son's brain--injuries they have told her are the result of an insulin overdose and Dabord not taking his asthma medication.