Police: Ex-NFL player kills 5, self in S. Carolina
At least five people are dead, including two children, in what police in York County, South Carolina, called a “case of a mass shooting” that involved a former National Football League player as the suspected gunman.
Four of the victims of the Wednesday shooting came from what authorities described as a “very prominent and very wellknown” family in the Rock Hill community: Robert Lesslie, a 70-year-old doctor; his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69; and two grandchildren, Adah, 9, and Noah, 5.
The fifth victim, James Lewis, 38, of Gastonia, N.C., was working at the home at the time of the shooting.
The York County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the suspected gunman was Phillip Adams, a former NFL player who killed himself early Thursday after an hours-long search by police. York County Coroner Sabrina Gast said
Adams, 32, died of a “selfinflicted gunshot wound.” Adams is from Rock Hill.
The coroner told
WCNC, an NBC affiliate in Charlotte, that Adams was found dead inside his father’s home after a standoff with police.
Adams’s father, Alonzo, told WCNC that his son had been “a good kid. I think the football messed him up.”
Alonzo Adams, who was visibly shaken while speaking to reporters, said that Robert Lesslie had been his doctor a long time ago and that “they were good folks down there. We’re going to keep them in our prayers.”
In a statement released by the sheriff’s office, members of the Lesslie family said they were still sorting through the heartbreak, shock and grief of the tragedy.
“We are truly in the midst of the unimaginable,” the family said in a statement. “The losses we are suffering cannot be uttered at this time.”
A sixth person was wounded in the shooting and taken to a hospital for
“serious gunshot wounds,” York County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Trent Faris said at a news conference.
Police responded to the scene just before 5 p.m. Wednesday after a report of a multiple-victim shooting. In a 911 call published by the sheriff’s office, a man who called authorities said he heard about 20 shots fired.
“I think we’ve had some trouble,” the caller said to 911. “I think there’s been a bad shooting.”
Phillip Adams, who was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2010, played for six teams over six seasons, last playing for the Atlanta Falcons in 2015. He had no previous criminal record.
The Lesslie family has been a mainstay in the Rock Hill community for 40 years, and Robert Lesslie founded Riverview House Calls & Riverview Hospice and Palliative Care.
According to the medical center’s website, the doctor and his wife have four children and eight grandchildren.