Lawrence Phillips found dead in prison at age 40

Id say there was most likely a scheme to have him killed and make it look like a suicide. People(inmates, guards, etc) were paid off and it happened. They tried to kill him twice. Why wouldnt they try again??

 
I'll throw in a couple things...

1) LP was the greatest I ever saw but I was only 12 when Rozier was making things happen. I guess it just seemed, to me, that LP had it all. You might have even confused him for a FB to look at him but the speed and moves left no doubt. I figured that, if it were possible, an owner like Al Davis would try to get the brain of Walter Payton in LP's body to make a Frankenbach.

2) I think TO gets more grief than he should over LP. He admitted to having made a mistake, with respect to reinstating him...but I never thought he needed to. That didn't just come down to bias, either, as a Husker fan. I seem to recall having read that TO and his family had taken Scott Baldwin in. That spoke more to how TO felt about his kids. Anyway, I got a little off my intended topic with this and that was that so many coaches and programs gave LP additional chances after the football world condemned TO for having done so. I just think that was a load of BS!

Rest in peace, Husker hero - you once made us believe that the Turmanator could take us to the promised land. "We don't need no 'steenking' quarterback!"

p.s. - I got a kick out of hearing DB talk about him showing up, with an odd look (talking about fashion here) at practice and busting seventy-yard runs his first day and people were shaking their heads, saying they'd just see what would happen against the first team defense...and then LP tore off the same runs against the Blackshirts!

 
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teachercd said:
He was my partner in Spanish class...I was "Angel" and he was "Lawrenzo"
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I had AG LEC with LP in the 2nd semester of my freshman year, and It was a night class. After the National Championship victory in the fall of 1994, they were having a big celebration at halftime of a Husker basketball game, which was the same night as our class. I remember LP sheepishly asking the teacher for permission to leave class early to go to the celebration at the Devaney Center. The teacher kind of responded with "well, duh, Lawrence, go ahead". it was just a funny moment.

 
Imprisoned former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips committed suicide while he was awaiting a trial that could have brought him the death penalty, a California coroner said Friday.


The Kern County coroner’s office released no other details.

Phillips, 40, was found unresponsive at Kern Valley State Prison and died at a hospital early Wednesday.

He had been housed alone since April after he was suspected of killing his cellmate, Damion Soward, 37, the cousin of former University of Southern California and NFL wide receiver R. Jay Soward.

His attorney, Jesse Whitten, said his client seemed upbeat a day before his death even though a judge ordered him to face trial on a charge of first-degree murder. A conviction could have led to the death penalty, but prosecutors said no decision on that had been made.
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OWH

 
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Guy Chamberlin said:
VA Husker Fan said:
And let's get real. Phillips got a free education including tutoring and whatever help he needed, anger management counseling, and a multi-million dollar contract, as well as personal help from people like Osborne, Vermeil, and Darlington. What do you think would've worked for him?
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Not sure. Might have been too late by that point. He was going to sabotage anything good that came his way, because he couldn't trust anything good.

And a million dollar contract is dangerous to a guy like that.
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One of the things I remember Dr. Tom specifically advised Vermeil about was that Lawrence needed a much higher level of attention and mental health care than what the NFL (at the time) was prepared to offer...and that what Vermeil (and, TBH, the St. Louis Rams) provided LP was woefully inadequate. LP needed someone to work with him daily on and off the field, and since he didn't get that in St. Louis, things went tits up in a hurry.

Let's remember we're dealing with a man that, in many aspects, was sadly still a boy. Not having parents and being constantly rejected/told you're not good enough for Foster Care/Adoption growing up will mess up even the best of kids.

Also, on the Gang Banger issue, didn't some of the letters printed in the OWH detail that he was shacked up with a Gang Banger that was trying to force himself on LP (in more ways than one) and that LP had threatened that if they didn't move him out of that room, that he'd end up having to kill him, likely in self-defense? It seems as though LP did warn someone in one of his public letters that this would happen...just can't find them offhand, or I'd link.

 
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Chamberlain, the attorney who was representing Phillips ... expressed disbelief that Phillips would have killed himself about 12 hours after a preliminary hearing during which a judge ruled there was enough evidence to try Phillips on murder in a case where he faced the possible death penalty.

“All of a sudden he comes back from his court hearing and he kills himself? I find that incredibly skeptical,’’ Chamberlain said. “I’m going to pursue this thing a long way, I can promise you. Because what I’ve seen so far, it does not seem correct.”
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There are some things that make me skeptical about whether this was a suicide, but losing his bid to have the case thrown out and facing a murder trail does not in the least make me incredibly skeptical. Just the opposite.

 
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