Lawrence Phillips, says Newsweek, was a star of the University of Nebraska, and destined to be a star in the NFL. When he left college, he was already being called one of the best running backs to ever play, but by the time the 1996 draft rolled around, Phillips was already on shaky ground.
Phillips had started dating Kate McEwen in 1993, and according to the Associated Press, she filed a lawsuit against him in 1996. There were a slew of charges, including sexual assault, battery, false imprisonment, and kidnapping. Phillips was put on probation for a year and still signed on with the Rams as their first draft pick of the year.
Then, in 2005, Phillips had more charges filed against him, as per the Los Angeles Times. Then-girlfriend Amaliya Weisler accused him of choking her into unconsciousness in August, and then three weeks later, he was arrested for driving his car into a crowd of people he had accused of stealing his wallet.
No one was killed, but it still got him a slew of convictions and 10 years in jail. That and the assault on Weisler added up to 31 years of jail time, and in 2015, it looked like that could get even longer. That's when he found himself facing first-degree murder charges in the death of his cellmate, but he never went to trial: Phillips hanged himself in his cell, says CBS.
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