Was Manager Danton's Secret Friend?
(St. Louis, Missouri) The bizarre murder for hire case involving St Louis Blues' forward Mike Danton took another strange twist Tuesday with three local media outlets naming the NHL player's manager as the person who he intended to have killed.
The FBI arrested Danton at the airport in San Jose, Calif. last week after the Blues were knocked out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. (story)
According to documents filed in U.S. district court Danton sought the help of a 19 year old friend, Katie Wolfmeyer, to find a hit man to kill the man who was living with Danton. The victim was not named in the FBI documents.
The court papers said Danton had a severe argument on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 with the alleged victim concerning Danton's "promiscuity and use of alcohol," and that the man had "threatened to leave Danton."
From the moment Danton was charged his manager, Dave Frost, denied that Danton was gay or that the hit was aimed at a lover.
Tuesday, as reports spread that it was Frost himself who was the intended victim, the controversial manager took to the microphones to deny the reports.
"I wasn't the target," Frost said, adding that everything will come out in the trial.
But, Frost's relationship with Danton is under the microscope. He has a reputation for being manipulative and overbearing. A former Junior A hockey coach, Frost pleaded guilty several years ago to assaulting one of his own players during a game and was eventually banned from coaching in most Canadian junior leagues.
Frost "discovered" Danton when the player was just a young teen in the Toronto suburb of Brampton and using his birth name Jefferson. People who knew the player then, say Frost spent an inordinate amount of time with Danton.
John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League, recalls that Frost "practiced mind control. He was just a very unusual gentleman.”
Danton was described by his junior hockey teammates in Canada as quiet and antisocial.
But they say he had reservations about spending time with Frost. “It was certainly odd from our perspective,” said Robert Ciccarelli, owner of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sarnia Sting, where Danton once played.
Frost also reportedly spent a lot of time alone with Danton behind closed doors at the home of the family he was staying with, Ciccarelli told the Toronto Star.
“It definitely concerned [the family] and it concerned us as a team,” he said. Junior hockey players in Canada traditionally are billeted family in the towns where they play.
Frost regularly signed Danton out of high school, claiming to be his guardian. Before long, Danton had become estranged from his family, and continues to refuse to see them.
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