Details still sketchy in Rice student's death

More details are emerging in the Thursday stabbing death of Rice basketball player Jonathan Bailey — but that doesn't mean things are necessarily getting any clearer. The Chronicle has information from the Brazos County sheriff's office about the incident, which apparently grew out of a bar scuffle between Bailey's twin brother Janson and Michael Fuller, a Marine who had recently come home from Iraq:

The Bailey brothers were in the V Bar in the Northgate area of College Station, belatedly celebrating their April 4 birthday with friends and relatives.

According to the records, Johnson said that Fuller told him that Janson Bailey had been "humping up on his leg," and he had shoved Bailey, who then punched him.

The records indicate that all four men were told to leave the bar and the fight continued outside in several locations, culminating with the brothers' stabbings.

Humping up on his leg? All right, then. According to KHOU, Fuller claims the Bailey brothers were beating him up and the accused stabber, fellow Marine Ronald Andrew Johnson Jr., came to his defense. "This young man was outside the bar and, for lack of a better term, he was getting stomped on," Rick Ramos, Fuller's attorney, said. Though Ramos isn't allowing interviews with Fuller, Fuller's mom did talk: "I mean, it could be [Fuller] that was dead," she said. "We could be burying our son. Ron came to his rescue. Ron saved him." When police found Jonathan and Janson Bailey on the street early Thursday morning, witnesses told them two men had fled the scene; they were later able to find Fuller using a credit card and driver's license he had left at the bar. Fuller told officers he was involved in the fight, but Johnson initially denied having anything to do with it. Later, he changed his story, but said "his intention was not to kill anyone," according to sheriff's records.

The Baileys were taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Bryan, where Jonathan died and Janson was treated for stab wounds. Johnson is still being held in the Brazos County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail; Fuller hasn't been charged, and police would not say whether they consider him a suspect.