PAPEETE, Tahiti -- The brother of missing former NBA player Bison Dele reportedly is on life support, and FBI agents were wrapping up their investigation Sunday in Tahiti.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that Dele's brother, Miles Dabord, is "dead, living only through artificial means," according to his mother. Dabord was found unconscious Sept. 14 in Tijuana, Mexico, and taken to a hospital in California. He has been in a coma since, and the FBI only learned his identity Thursday.

Jackson remembers Dele fondly

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson called Bison Dele an intelligent and inquisitive player with a "zest for life.'' Dele played for Jackson in 1997 when the Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship. Jackson said he withheld comment about him until Monday because "it seems very unlikely that Bison and his companions will be found.'' "He was a pleasure to work with for not only me, but for the entire coaching staff,'' Jackson said. "Bison had a zest for life and a deep hunger for trying new things and expanding his horizons.'' Dele and his girlfriend, along with the skipper of a sailboat the trio was cruising in, disappeared more than 10 weeks ago in French Polynesia. French investigators believe Dele's older brother, Miles Dabord, killed his three companions in a struggle aboard the boat. Dabord is in a San Diego hospital, comatose and on life support. He hasn't been charged. -- The Associated Press

Dabord's condition remained critical Sunday evening, said Lynne Fruehling, a spokeswoman for Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista, Calif.

The Times reported that Dabord's mother, Patricia Phillips, said doctors discovered severe damage to her son's brain as a result of an insulin overdose and failure to take his asthma medication.

Phillips told the newspaper the decision on whether to remove Dabord from life support was "inevitable," and that she plans to meet with a neurologist Monday to assess her son's brain damage.

According to a report in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, police say they have withdrawn an arrest warrant for Dabord since he is unlikely to emerge from his coma.

The FBI arrested Dabord on suspicion of impersonating his younger brother while trying to buy $152,000 in gold in Phoenix.

Phillips had told the Times she fears her son may have tried to commit suicide because he was overcome with guilt, believing he was responsible for his brother's disappearance.

Investigators in Tahiti believe Dabord killed Dele, Dele's girlfriend and the French captain on board Dele's sailboat in July. Dele, his girlfriend Serena Karlan and the skipper, Bertrand Saldo, haven't been seen since July 8. A team of FBI-led investigators found what they believe are bloodstains on the catamaran, which Dabord docked at a Tahitian port July 18 before departing the French territory.

Phillips told The New York Times, in a story published Sunday, that she received a phone call from her son earlier this month, during which he was crying and told her: "I found something and I tried to cover it up, but I didn't do what they're saying. No one will believe me."

On Friday, Phillips was at her son's bedside at Scripps Hospital in San Diego. "I wanted to hug him, to stroke his face, to hold his hand," she said.

The FBI agents were departing Tahiti on Sunday, a French police official said, on the customary condition of anonymity.

The catamaran was encircled by yellow police tape Saturday, but it was unguarded. Sun-faded American and French flags hung from the mast.

Dele changed his name from Brian Williams during an NBA career in which he played for several teams, including the Chicago Bulls' 1996-97 championship team. The free-spirited center walked away from a $35 million contract with the Detroit Pistons in 1999.

Dabord was traveling with Dele and his party on a trip from New Zealand to Hawaii when they stopped at an island near Tahiti.

Dabord's girlfriend, Erica Weise, told the San Francisco Chronicle that on either Sept. 7 or Sept. 8 Dabord told her that there had been a struggle on Dele's boat. On Sept. 9, Weise said, she reported the details to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department. Deputies then contacted the FBI. Weise said Saturday that Dabord did not tell her about the incident when she visited him in Tahiti for a vacation on July 8.

She disputed police accounts that Dabord told her he killed Saldo because he was the only remaining witness. Weise, who lived with Dabord in Palo Alto, Calif., declined to discuss specific details of the case.

"I'm sorry, but the FBI has asked me not to talk," she told the newspaper.

According to authorities, Weise said Dabord told her that he and Dele had gotten into a fight on the boat. When Karlan got between them to break it up, she was inadvertently knocked down, hit her head on a cleat and died. The struggle between the two men intensified, and Dele was killed.

Dabord, a former computer engineer, told Phoenix police that his brother "took care of him," even giving him a Lincoln Navigator. Recently, however, Dele had been threatening to cut his brother off, authorities said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.