An article posted by the World Heraldstates star football player Lawrence Phillips hung himself in his prison Cell. Below is the article in it's entirety:
Lawrence Phillips strangled himself to death with a bed sheet strung from a TV shelf in his California prison cell, concludes the final report of the coroner who investigated the former Nebraska football star’s death.
The long-awaited report offers other new details of what prison officials found when they entered Phillips’ cell on Jan. 13, including a “do not resuscitate’’ note taped to his chest. Phillips was hanging in a seated position, apparently because the TV shelf was so low to the floor.
There were other such oddities in the report, but nothing that on its face would suggest the death of the ultra-talented but flawed Phillips was anything but self inflicted.
“After completing an investigation in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections, the death of Lawrence Lamond Phillips was determined to be a suicide,” concluded the coroner’s report.
However, it seems unlikely the Kern County coroner’s 19-page report will satisfy Phillips’ family or other friends and supporters who have questioned whether he killed himself. The 40-year-old’s family has planned to seek an independent civil rights investigation of his death.
After receiving the a copy of the report from The World-Herald on Tuesday, Indianapolis attorney Dan Chamberlain said he had no immediate comment until he and Phillips’ family had time to review it. He said their push for an independent review has been stalled as they’ve waited nearly five months for the report.
“On behalf of the family, we have been waiting on this report,” he said.
Former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne, who has stood by and supported Phillips throughout his troubled adult life, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
A decade after Phillips made headlines nationally for assaulting a former girlfriend in Lincoln and subsequently helping lead Nebraska’s powerhouse Cornhuskers to a second straight national championship, he landed in California’s vast penal system.
He was convicted in 2005 of angrily driving a car into a group of youths he believed had stolen from him. He was subsequently also convicted in a domestic assault case — one of numerous instances after he left Nebraska in which he was accused of violence towards women.
Then last year, Phillips was charged with killing his new cell mate in central California’s Kern Valley State Prison.
Prosecutors alleged Phillips had lashed out at Damion Soward after numerous times insisting to prison officials he did not want a cell mate. Prosecutors accused Phillips of waiting until Soward fell asleep before strangling him. Phillips’ attorneys said he acted in self defense.
On Jan. 12, Phillips faced a court hearing on the murder charge, and the judge immediately found there was enough evidence for him to stand trial. Phillips left the courthouse visibly upset, verbally lashing out at a guard he accused of lying during the hearing.
Just hours later, Phillips was dead.
The Kern County coroner immediately afterward said Phillips had died of an apparent suicide, offering no details.
Tuesday, The World-Herald obtained a copy of the final report of the coroner’s inquest. This is the picture it paints of what happened after Phillips returned that night from court to his cell:
A guard who went by Phillips’ cell in the segregation unit at Kern Valley peered in the window about 11:35 p.m. and found nothing unusual. The guards make such checks roughly on the half hour, regulated by an electronic device they carry and scan outside the cell doors.
When the guard returned to Phillips’ cell just after midnight, he found the window now covered by a towel.
He knocked on the door and called on Phillips to remove the towel, but he got no response.
Guards at Kern Valley can’t unlock cell doors, which are controlled remotely by control room operators. But the guard was able to reach through the food slot and pull the towel down.
He saw Phillips in a seated position with a ligature fashioned out of bed sheet tightly wrapped around his neck. The sheet was secured to the TV shelf, set on the wall about five feet above the floor.
The guard radioed for assistance and staffers entered the cell, using a tool to cut the bed sheet. The original guard checked for a pulse and found Phillips unresponsive.
The “Do Not Resuscitate” note taped to Phillips’ chest did not stop the guard from initiating CPR. Treatment continued as Phillips was moved first to a triage area in the prison and then transported by ambulance to a hospital, arriving at 1:01 a.m. He was pronounced dead 26 minutes later.
The investigating deputy coroner first examined Phillips’ body in the hospital trauma room. She found he was clad in two pairs of boxer shorts, two pairs of socks and two shirts. Phillips’ ears were also plugged with small plastic bags stuffed with paper.
Inside one of the socks, the coroner found a note and a photograph of Phillips with a child.
The report did not indicate what was in the note, and the coroner’s office Tuesday did not respond to a request from The World-Herald for a copy.
But Phillips’ attorneys have previously reported one side of the note said: “Did you hear the one about the football player who hung himself from the TV mount in his cell?’’ The writer had later added an “X’’ before football player. The other side of the note began, “What’s the black person do?’’ and ended with, “They should just die.’’
The investigating coroner also found in Phillips’ cell that all of his personal belongings had been tied up in a large bundle with a bed sheet.
The pathologist’s examination of the body found markings on the neck and soft tissue injuries consistent with hanging. The pathologist ruled the cause of death as asphyxia due to hanging and classified it as a suicide.
“From the scene investigation, autopsy examination and circumstances around the death as currently known, the manner of death is classified as suicide,” wrote the pathologist who performed Phillips’ autopsy.
There appeared to be no physical signs of struggle. The only other visible injuries were two small, superficial abrasions on his upper back, the largest one inch in diameter.
A toxicology report revealed no drug in Phillips’ system other than caffeine.
The report also described Phillips as “extremely muscular” at 6-foot-1, 227 pounds — right around his football playing weight two decades ago at Nebraska.
Former Nebraska assistant football coach George Darlington has been among those with doubts about Phillips’ death, mystified that a man who had remained so steadfastly upbeat despite a decade behind bars would suddenly take his own life. But Darlington said Tuesday he thinks the details of the new report do make a convincing case for suicide.
“I’d say that’s pretty hard evidence to go against,” said Darlington, who had recruited Phillips to Nebraska out of the Los Angeles suburb of West Covina. “Under any circumstances, it’s (still) a real tragedy. Because he had a number of positive characteristics that people are never going to see.’’
