ESPN deletes Mike Pennel murder investigation story, admits it ‘contained errors’

ESPN has walked back its reporting on free-agent defensive lineman Mike Pennel and a homicide investigation in the Dominican Republic, admitting the most recent story “contained errors.”

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.

Witnesses told police in 2021 that NFL veteran Michael Pennel Jr. had an ongoing relationship with a young woman whose body was found on a property he owned when she went missing, via ESPN’s @TJQuinnESPN and @JuanRecioM.https://t.co/ZeoRmh5h0H

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 19, 2026

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.

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.

Pennel, a 12-year veteran and two-time Super Bowl champion who played for the Chiefs and Bengals in 2025, remains a free agent. Whether the retraction closes the book on ESPN’s reporting or simply pauses it remains to be seen, as Dominican authorities continue to treat Guzmán Roche’s death as an active homicide investigation.