USA TODAY International Edition
PHILLIPS PORTENDED DEATH OF CELLMATE
Former tailback wrote of ‘ anger near bursting’
The month before Lawrence Phillips allegedly killed his cellmate at Kern Valley ( Calif.) State Prison, he wrote a letter to his mother saying he thought his anger might lead to his death or someone else’s.
“I feel myself very close to snapping,” Phillips, the former star running back, wrote in a letter dated March 5. “My anger grows daily as I have become fed up with prison. I feel my anger is near bursting and that will result in my death or the death of someone else.”
In the same letter, a copy of which was obtained by USA TODAY Sports from Phillips’ mother, Phillips expressed disgust for the legal system and wrote, “These people are obviously working against me with no regard to the law” and “will never let me leave prison alive.”
Phillips’ cellmate, Damion Soward, 37, was found unresponsive April 11 in the cell the two men were sharing. Prison officials discovered Soward’s body at 12: 36 a. m. after a guard heard Phillips yell, “Man down,” according to a copy of the incident report obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
Prison officials removed Phillips from the cell and later found what they suspected was blood on Soward, Phillips’ T- shirt and several items in the cell, according to the incident report, which noted Phillips had an abrasion on his right forearm and cited strangulation as the suspected cause of death.
Phillips, 40, was charged Sept. 1 with first- degree murder and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday at Kern County Superior Court in Bakersfield. Phillips — who starred on Nebraska’s national championship teams in 1994 and 1995, was a first- round NFL draft pick in 1996 and played for three seasons in the league — faces up to life in prison and no fewer than 25 years on top of his 31- year sentence for assaulting an ex- girlfriend and driving his car into three teenagers.
In letters Phillips wrote to former coaches and mentors during an 18- month span before Soward’s death, Phillips said he had conflicts with gang members and accepted solitary confinement as an alternative to sharing a cell with a gang member. Soward was serving an 82- year sentence for murdering a rival gang member.
Gang culture and prison crowding contribute to inmateon- inmate homicide in California, where the incidence rate is double the national average, according to a government report in July. Between 2006 and 2014, 144 inmates in California were killed by other inmates, according to the report, titled Analysis of 2014 Inmate Death Reviews in the California Correctional Healthcare System.
Since Kern Valley State Prison opened in 2005, 13 inmates have died at the maximum- security prison as a result of inmate- oninmate homicide, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Soward had been in the cell with Phillips only that night and was being transferred to another area, said one of Soward’s uncles, Rodney Jay Soward Sr. The uncle told USA TODAY SPORTS that Soward’s mother was filing a lawsuit against the prison because Soward was not supposed to share a cell with another inmate. Efforts to reach Damion Soward’s mother were unsuccessful.
Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, said it would not comment on an active case. But she did note that a warden’s advisory group had been convened to review the practices and policies of housing two inmates in one cell.
Phillips’ mother, Juanita Phillips, noted that, at the end of her son’s letter dated March 5, he indicated he was trying to manage his emotions. “I must try to turn this negative energy into studying the law and seeing what I can do,” Phillips wrote.
But copies of the letters his mother shared reflect increasing frustration. In one dated Oct. 11, 2014, Phillips wrote he had been moved for the 16th time since he was incarcerated in 2008.
“They just do this stuff to harass me,” he wrote. “Sometimes I just want to hurt one of these people. They just will not let you rest. Just constant harassment.”
Less than a week later, in a letter dated March 11, Phillips wrote, “( I have) recovered some of my composure since my last letter, but I’m still extremely upset.” His last cellmate had been removed after prison officials said Phillips forced the cellmate out, according to the letter.
“They wrote me up saying I forced him out, which is a lie,” Phillips wrote.
Frustration also mounted over his inability to find an attorney for his appeal on the criminal convictions or the concussion matter with the NFL and what he saw as a conspiracy against him.
“They wish I would go silently into the night, but I will not,” Phillips wrote. “I am a political prisoner in these people’s corrupt system.
“The only reason I’m still here is politics. That is why all of the lawyers are afraid to touch me.”
In a letter dated April 18, a week after Phillips’ cellmate was found unresponsive, he indicated he was in solitary confinement because of an investigation into his cellmate’s death and wrote, “You know of the past struggles I have been through in these places, and I will continue to make it through them alright.”