Ex-NFL RB Phillips found dead in prison cell

Lawrence Phillips, the Rams’ much-heralded first-round draft pick in 1996, died in prison Wednesday; suicide is suspected.

Phillips, 40, was found dead Wednesday during a routine security check just after midnight, according to the California Department of Corrections. Phillips was alive, Simas said, when he left the prison, and was pronounced dead at 1:27 a.m.at an undisclosed hospital.

Phillips’ former cellmate, Damion Soward, was strangled to death a year ago a short time after Phillips wrote a chilling letter to his mother confessing that his anger issues might lead to him doing something drastic.

He was drafted No. 6 overall by the St. Louis Rams in 1996, but he was released the next year for insubordination.

Phillips was a college star at Nebraska before playing for the Rams, Dophins and 49ers in the National Football League in the late 1990s.

Phillips was sitting out a 31-year sentence that came from his August 2005 arrest for driving a auto into three teenagers and choking his girlfriend on two occasions.

Kern Valley, along with other California prisons, have “mental health crisis beds”, Simas said, for inmates who express “suicide ideation”.

Last April, Phillips was named a suspect in the death of his cellmate.

Phillips was facing a possible death penalty in the alleged murder of his former cellmate. The former Nebraska running back was also wanted for domestic assault at the time. He was in the early stages of a trial in Kern Country for the homicide, prison officials noted.

Coach Steve Mariucci eventually kicked Phillips off the team on a day the 49ers traveled to New Orleans for a game after Phillips was insubordinate at practice that day.

Phillips pleaded no contest to third-degree misdemeanor assault and trespassing and was sentenced to one year of probation.