Former NFL player Sergio Brown was arrested for the murder of his mother, Myrtle Jean Simmons-Brown.
Myrtle was found dead at 2 p.m. in a creek near her Chicago home, which she shared with her son, on September 15.
Relatives began to get worried after they could not reach Sergio or Myrtle and called the police.
The Cook County Medical Examiner officially ruled her death a homicide after they found various injuries on her body due to assault.
Sergio was nowhere to be found during this time.
Myrtle’s other son, artist Nick Brown, posted several tributes to her on his Instagram account.
“It’s a sad but hopeful time, and we will all get through this together,” he wrote. “Mom always told me, ‘Tough times don’t last,’ and our last conversation about tough times being temporary is my beacon of hope.”
He thanked his mother for always supporting him and being “strong, caring, diligent, fancy, funny.” Nick added that he was concerned for his brother as he “is still missing. If anyone knows where he is I want him to know that I love you and please come home.”
He was first spotted on September 18 when an Instagram video was posted of Sergio telling people that his mother’s death was “fake news, fake news, fake news.”
In the same video, he also blamed the FBI and the police for her death.
The video was taken down shortly after. Less than a month later, on October 3, a witness reported that they saw Sergio in Tulum, Mexico, partying.
Sergio was arrested by officers on the basis of a first-degree murder warrant when he came back to the U.S. after being deported by Mexican law enforcement.
On October 10, Sergio was taken into police custody in San Diego, where he is currently being held.
Now, the Maywood Police Department has shared that he is waiting to be extradited to Illinois, where he will face the charges. His hearing is set for November 13.
The charges come as a shock to most as he and his mother seemed close.
He played college football for Notre Dame and was best known for his celebratory backflips when his team won their game.
He thanked his mother for his backflip skills. “Me and my brother were always just goofing around in the house,” he told Notre Dame’s student paper. “It really started after the movie 3 Ninjas came out. We just started trying to flip and stuff outside with mattresses. My mom started getting scared, so she said if we’re going to do all this flipping, we might as well learn how to do it so we won’t hurt ourselves. I’ve just been flipping since.”
