Former FSU star and NFL player is accused in shooting
Travis Rudolph allegedly opened fire on 4, killing 1
Travis Rudolph seemed to be on a path to stardom. After a stellar high school football career, he starred at Florida State University and even made it to the NFL, bringing pride to his small community in Palm Beach County.
Now he’s accused of opening gunfire on four people early Wednesday, killing one and wounding another on North Redwood Drive in Lake Park, close to his home,
The Sheriff ’s Office on Wednesday refused to release the name of the dead man or any records that may offer a glimpse of what led to the shooting. Rudolph is expected to appear before a judge Thursday when his bond will be set.
For now, the killing left people wondering how such an apparently levelheaded kid could wind up in jail. He was never the type of person who was prone to bravado or violence off the field, acquaintances said.
“It’s shocking,” said Steve
Walsh, his coach at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach. “There was never anything that would suggest he would act this way and with such violence.”
Quite the opposite. Rudolph made national headlines in 2016 when he was shown eating lunch with an autistic sixth grade student who was sitting alone in the cafeteria. The moment was captured during the football team’s visit to a local middle school, and Rudolph made many appearances afterward on national television discussing the lunch.
On Wednesday afternoon, a slew of people gathered at Rudolph’s home on Teak Drive in Lake Park. A woman was heard wailing from the home. No one wanted to comment.
Rudolph’s prowess as a wide receiver made him a source of pride for even non-football fans in his middle class neighborhood of tidy single-family homes off of busy Lake Park Drive.
Angela Englich said she doesn’t know Rudolph, but she certainly knows of him. “I know he was someone who was essentially raised
up in the community and went on to football.”
A pastor, Englich said she was alarmed to hear the accusations against him. She said she was driving home after pastoring early Wednesday morning when she spotted a helicopter hovering over her neighborhood. Not long after, crime scene tape blocked roads.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified raced from his house after hearing a succession of gunfire, followed by a pause and then another succession. He said he tried to flag down a vehicle for the driver to call 9-1-1.
He saw another motorist driving while talking on the phone. Not long after that he saw the helicopters.
“It’s scary,” said Crystal Gilkey, who lives around the corner on East Redwood Drive. She, too, described hearing a volley of gunfire.
Rudolph was one of the top high school prospects to come out of Palm Beach County in the past 10 years. A five-star recruit, he earned various accolades, including Sun Sentinel Player of the Year in 2013.
He continued to impress in Tallahassee. During his time at Florida State, he was one of the team’s top offensive players, recording 153 catches for 2,311 yards and 18 touchdowns in three seasons from 2014-16.
After three years at FSU, Rudolph opted to skip his senior season and declare for the NFL Draft.
While preparing for the draft, tragedy struck. Rudolph’s father, Daryl, was killed in an accidental shooting while making repairs at a West Palm Beach nightclub.
Rudolph went undrafted in 2017 and signed with the New York Giants as an undrafted free agent, but wasn’t able to replicate his prior success, spending most of his two seasons with the team on the practice squad. He appeared in seven NFL games, totaling eight catches for 101 yards.
After being waived by the Giants, he returned to South Florida in 2018, signing with Miami Dolphins as part of their training squad. Rudolph’s tenure was short-lived, though, as he tore his ACL in his first practice with the team, ending his season.
Rudolph was most recently with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League, but the team released him Wednesday following his arrest. Rudolph signed with the organization in December, 2019, but never played a game with the team since the CFL season canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.