Ex-NFL player Lawrence Phillips dead in California prison

Phillips was taken No. 6 overall in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Rams.

Phillips eventually came back to the team, joining them at the end of the season and playing a big role in the Fiesta Bowl defeat of Florida.

The death is being investigated as a suspected suicide. His three-year tenure at the school was littered with off-field incidents including an arrest for assault on an ex-girlfriend, vandalism charges and an investigation into allegations that he received money from an agent. Prison officials said Monday, April 13, 2015, that Phillips’ cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison was found lifeless over the weekend and later pronounced dead. He was transported to an outside hospital where he was later proclaimed dead. Phillips was facing the death penalty for murdering his cellmate at Kern Valley, which would have given him the death penalty if convicted.

San Francisco 49ers running back Lawrence Phillips bows his head in a moment of silence for football player Walter Payton before the 49ers game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, Nov. 7, 1999, in San Francisco.

In the CFL, he played for Montreal in 2002 and helped the Alouettes win the Grey Cup. He was released by the Dolphins in 1998 after pleading no contest to assaulting a woman at a Florida nightclub. The two had shared the cell for just that one night as Soward was supposed to be transferred to another part of the prison, his uncle told USA Today.