Witness Shares New Details On Patriots Fan’s Death After Fight

We’re starting to learn a bit more about the events that preceded the death of a New England Patriots fan Sunday night.

Dale Mooney, a 53-year-old season-ticket holder from Newmarket, N.H., was pronounced dead at Sturdy Hospital after attending the Patriots’ Week 2 loss to the Miami Dolphins, according to Massachusetts State Police. Authorities haven’t offered any additional details, but the situation is under investigation with an autopsy to take place as early as Tuesday.

Multiple witnesses have told local news outlets that Mooney collapsed after getting into a fight with a Dolphins fan. Mooney’s wife, who didn’t attend the game, told WFXT that she heard the same thing, but added her husband was being “taunted” and didn’t throw any punches. Videos shared by WJAR-TV and WBTS-CD show a man in a Dolphins jersey hitting a man witnesses claim to be Mooney.

The Boston Globe on Tuesday spoke with New Hampshire native Joey Kilmartin, who offered his own account of what happened. Kilmartin said Mooney, whom he didn’t know, was punched twice in the head by a Dolphins fan, then collapsed and didn’t respond to first-aid care. He also said he was seated near Mooney in section 310 at Gillette Stadium, whereas the Dolphins fan was in section 311.

“In a nutshell, it was a basic argument back and forth,” Kilmartin told the Globe. “(Mooney) went over to Section 311 and he basically engaged in mutual combat with another fan. A lot of people started trying to pull them apart. … It looked like somebody was in the middle of them and then a man in the Dolphins jersey reached over and he connected with two punches to the victim’s head.”

“It wasn’t something crazy or out of the ordinary until, 30 seconds later, the guy wasn’t getting up. … The way he slumped over, a lot of people knew he wasn’t okay.”

Testimonies from other witnesses paint a similar picture but don’t include Kilmartin’s description of a “mutual” altercation.

“It was really one punch that I saw and the victim got punched really hard on the side of the head and went down,” a witness told WBTS-CD. “He’s a bigger guy but he just crumbled.”

Another witness told WFXT: “It looked like people grabbing and pulling at each other at first at some point (and) the guy in the Dolphins jersey punched the victim twice in the face and that’s when the victim fell into his seat unconsciousness.”

Authorities said the fight started shortly before 11 p.m. ET. No charges were filed as of Tuesday afternoon, but WFXT reported investigators are “now waiting on the Medical Examiner’s findings to help determine if that confrontation played a role in Mooney’s death.”

NESN.com reached out to the Patriots for a statement early Tuesday morning but hadn’t heard back as of 1:36 p.m.