Former NFL player Sergio Brown was arrested Tuesday in connection with the murder of his 73-year-old mother, his family and police confirmed.
San Diego police took Brown, a former safety with the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, into custody after a warrant was issued for first-degree murder, and he awaits extradition to Illinois to face charges, Maywood, Illinois, police said in a statement.
Brown was missing for nearly a month after the body of his mother, Myrtle Jean Simmons-Brown, was found Sept. 16 near a creek behind her home in the Chicago suburb of Maywood with “multiple injuries due to assault,,” the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Brown, 35, was caught as he re-entered the U.S. from Mexico, Maywood police said.
Simmons-Brown’s family said in a statement Wednesday they are “heartened by the news that Sergio Brown has been apprehended and returned to the United States unharmed.”
Attorney Christian A. Conway, a close friend acting as the family’s representative, said the family has not been in contact with Brown.
Videos surfaced last month on Instagram of a man resembling Brown calling reports about the death of his mother “fake news.” In the video, the man says he thought his mother was “on vacation” in Sinaloa, Mexico. TMZ also recovered videos of a man it identified as Brown partying in Tulum, Mexico.
Brown played football at the University of Notre Dame and went on to play for various teams in the NFL for seven seasons, including the Patriots, the Colts, the Atlanta Falcons, the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Myrtle was a beautiful, loving, and inspirational soul that made everyone around her feel like they mattered,” the Simmons-Brown family said in last week’s statement. “With her contagious smile and personality, our loss of Myrtle has left an indescribable void not only in our lives, but in our communities.”