FORMER CFL’ER PHILLIPS FOUND DEAD
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips – who also played for Montreal and
Calgary in the Canadian Football League – was found dead in his California prison cell early Wednesday, and officials said they suspect suicide.
Guards at Kern Valley State Prison found Phillips, 40, unresponsive in his cell shortly after midnight. He was taken to an outside hospital and pronounced dead about 1:30 a.m., the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
He had been housed alone in a segregation cell since April 2013 after he was suspected of killing his cellmate. A Kern County judge had ruled Tuesday that there was enough evidence to try Phillips in the death of Damion Soward, 37.
Phillips played for the St. Louis Rams before being released in 1997 for insubordination. He also played for the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers in the NFL.
In the CFL, he played for Montreal in 2002 and helped the Alouettes win the Grey Cup. He spent part of the 2003 season with the Stampeders.
Phillips was once one of the top U.S. college football players at Nebraska.
He was sent to prison in 2008 to serve a sentence of more than 31 years after he was convicted of twice choking his girlfriend in 2005 in San Diego and of driving his car into three teens later that year after a pickup football game in Los Angeles.
He was sentenced for inflicting great bodily injury involving domestic violence, corporal injury to a spouse, false imprisonment and vehicle theft.
Phillips was housed with about 3,900 other inmates in the prison about 80 miles south of Fresno in California’s Central Valley.
(Associated Press)
I hope his brain is sent away for study.
Ditto.. we'll probably see more of this before it gets better but at least we're not blind to concussions any more
What part of Lawrence Phillips just being a bad person, has anything to do with concussions?
He was a troubled person long before he ever played football. I'll never forget Jim Barker said this guy is a good person. However his ability to process things and the way he reacts is not conducive to society and he is best suited for long term living in either institutions or prison. This is when he was released from Calgary. Brad Wall would say if he didn't like jail he shouldn't go there.
Cte .. probably from a crappy upbringing and many smashes dating back to pop warner peewee football. Who knows maybe just a crappy dude either way don't be ignorant and slander a dead guy show some class guys.. some of us went brought up eating from the silver spoon
His brain doesn't deserve to be sent away for analysis. His brain should not even be considered worthy of statistics. He's a burden on women and society and thank goodness he's dead.