Sorrowful: The Indianapolis Colts head coach has confirmed the death of his all-time favorite player

Sorrowful: The Indianapolis Colts head coach has confirmed the death of his all-time favorite player

 

Said to have been lost his way after his NFL career ended, Phillip Adams shot and killed members of a well-known local family, leaving the small city that calls itself Football City U.S.A. reeling.

Share the entire article

Phillip Adams spent six years in the NFL as a journeyman cornerback. In 2010, he suffered a leg injury that required care from trainers.

He had trouble getting a job. His desperate attempt to get on an NFL team failed. He had a child to provide for and, in a life full of expectations, not much direction. His actions became more and more unpredictable.

Then on Wednesday, for motives that are still unknown, former NFL cornerback Phillip Adams went to a well-known doctor’s house in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and shot everyone he saw before turning the gun on himself.

Now, the 65,000 football-loving residents of what it calls Football City, U.S.A., are finding it difficult to deal with Adams’ abrupt, violent turn and its fallout.

Adams, 32, shot and killed himself several hours after going on a rampage. Friends and associates said that since he had not played NFL football in almost six years, Adams had seemed adrift. Prior to killing five people, including two children, and seriously wounding a sixth person. He stayed near his family, taking care of his mother, Phyllis, a former high school teacher who was involved in a car accident ten years prior that left her paralyzed.

The many people who supported Adams throughout his career are still dealing with the loss of Dr. Robert Lesslie and his family at the hands of a local son, despite all the pressures on Adams and open questions from family members regarding whether football damaged his brain.

Joe Montgomery, the football coach at Rock Hill High School, the alma mater of many NFL players, described Adams as “the role model that all coaches hoped they could coach.” Montgomery claimed that he answered calls through tears for the majority of Thursday.

Adams, according to the authorities, shot and killed Dr. Lesslie, his wife Barbara, and their two grandchildren, Noah Lesslie, age five, and Adah Lesslie, age nine. 38-year-old James Lewis was killed while working on their house, and Robert Shook, the sixth victim, is in critical condition.

Adams was characterized by friends as “chill” and almost reclusive; the police have not yet provided an explanation for why he singled out the doctor or whether there was a relationship between the two men.

However, South Carolina Republican Representative Ralph Norman said on Thursday on Charlotte’s WBTV that he had heard from law enforcement that Dr. Lesslie had treated Adams as a patient. The relationship was not confirmed by sheriff’s office staff.

Rock Hill is included in Norman’s district. “He was treating him and stopped giving him medicine, and that’s what triggered the killings, from what I understand,” Norman said.

Every member of the Adams family has a different theory. They question if playing football might have harmed his brain in the same way that it has caused other players to become violent and, in certain cases, commit suicide.