The handwritten letters have arrived with the same return address: Lawrence Phillips G-31982, Kern Valley State Prison, P.O. Box 5101, Delano, CA 93216.
Yes, that Lawrence Phillips.
The star running back on University of Nebraska’s national championship teams in 1994 and 1995. A first-round pick, sixth overall, in the 1996 NFL draft. A convicted felon — sentenced to 31 years for driving his car into three teenagers and assaulting an ex-girlfriend — under suspicion for the recent death of his cellmate in a maximum-security prison 140 miles north of Los Angeles.
Authorities have said little about the investigation since finding the body of Damien Soward, a former gang member serving 82 years to life for first-degree murder, unresponsive in his cell on April 11.