Just awful. He did so much for the program and was beloved by his teammates + coaches. I'm at a loss for words and I hope we get more information on what transpired.
Police have told the family little about finding her son or the ongoing investigation into what happened to him, according to Stephanie Wingfield, who is his mother.
"They did say that it didn't look like foul play," Wingfield told The Times-Union on Sunday.
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She said it's possible her son suffered a heart attack or some other medical emergency related to his being shot in the chest nearly three months earlier during an attempted robbery.
"It's all a mystery right now until they give me more information about what happened," she said.
It's possible that until an autopsy is performed detectives don't know themselves how he died, Wingfield said.
It was unclear, his mother said, whether the 29-year-old former Raines High School defensive lineman was found in the car pulled from the retention pond.
Initial news reports from the scene said Nix was inside the car. However, Wingfield said she was told that police found his body elsewhere although no location was given.
"The last location that his phone pinged was right there, which is why they searched the lake area for him," she said.
"They didn't say where he was. They just said they located him but couldn't tell me anything except sorry for my loss. And I just lost it," she said of breaking down at the news.
The mother of Louis Nix revealed the possible cause of death for the 29-year-old former New York Giants defensive lineman, whose body was found on Saturday. Jacksonville TV reporter Ben Becker talked to his mom on Monday, who said a car accident could be to blame. His mother tells me investigators told her today “it appears to be accident something may have distracted him lost control and went into the pond.”
When I asked how investigators reached the conclusion that Nix lost control she said “Because the curve and they didn’t see the tire tracks until they really looked.”
When I asked what day and approximate time does JSO think Nix drove into the pond his mother said “They were trying to put a time line from his phone with who he was talking to last. But couldn’t find the phone.”
Nix mother shares with me excruciating details of how Nix was found “He surfaced from the water and on the grass. windows on passenger side was down. the pond is deep so it took some days for him to surface.” I asked Nix mother if there were any indications of foul play or if he was driving to get away from someone, she said “they (JSO) said no indication of foul play more accident”. I asked Nix mother did JSO suggest if he was impaired somehow from pain meds related to the shooting or anything else and she said “No they didn’t but he may have been distracted by his phone.”
ESPN reports “Nix’s family reported him missing on Wednesday to police. ... According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Nix was last seen at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, leaving his father’s Jacksonville residence.”
Becker reports the “Missing persons report 3 days before Nix was found says Nix gf last spoke w/him at 7:57p on Wed, was on way over but never showed. She says he was driving with another man and ‘suspected Nix was intoxicated due to the sound of his voice and choice of affectionate words.’”
The whole story is bizarre. Now it's being reported that it was a car accident with no foul play... but his girlfriend says that he was with someone else in the car when he left to head over to her place? I hope we get some clarity soon.