Crime Weekly - S3 Ep143: Crime Weekly News: Former NFL Player Missing After Mother Found Dead

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

On Sunday September 16th, family members reported 35 year-old former NFL player Sergio Brown and his mother, Myrtle Brown missing. 73 year-old Myrtle was found the following weekend, dead in a creek in a Chicago suburb, the Cook County medical examiner has identified her cause of death as being due to multiple injuries from an assault, the manner of her death has been ruled a homicide and her son remains missing. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Valid through 615. While supplies last. Selection mirrors by location. Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we're going to waste no time. We're going to dive right into it. This is a crazy case. And one, I don't want to say that's close to home for me, but I remember this player when he was in the NFL. He was a New England Patriot, someone that I watched on TV multiple times, so let's get right into it. On Sunday, September 16th, family members reported 35-year-old former NFL player Sergio Brown and his mother, Myrtle Brown, missing. 73-year-old Myrtle was found the following weekend dead in a creek in

a Chicago suburb. The Cook County medical examiner has identified her cause of death as being due to multiple injuries from an assault. The manner of death has been ruled a homicide and her son remains missing. As I said, this is crazy because when I saw this on Twitter a couple of days ago, my first thought is, okay, what do we have here? Do we have a potential double homicide where we just haven't found Sergio? But also the thought has crossed my mind without knowing any further details. Could this be a situation where Sergio's responsible for her death and he's on the run? I don't know what we have here. I haven't looked into it any more than that. So Stephanie, fill us in.

Yeah. So those are obviously the two options that went through my head too. Like, was this some external force that was after Sergio and ended up, you know, his mother got caught in the crosshairs and now they have Sergio or did Sergio do this? And some new reports coming out from a neighbor may give us a better indication of what happened here. Okay. I didn't even know. Yeah. Did not know about this. Yeah. Well, actually Sergio Brown is a little bit close to home for both of us because he played between 2010 and 2016, not only for the new England Patriots, but also the Indianapolis Colts, the Jacksonville Jaguars,

and the Buffalo Bills, which is my hometown football team. Yeah, but they weren't very good back then, so we don't count that. But yeah, they're good now. The Bills are not good now, dude. They're better now. They're struggling, but yeah, I digress. But back then, Buffalo was just Buffalo. They disappoint us every year, so I mean.

The Buffalo Bills slander will get me some stuff in the comments for sure. Shout out to all the Buffalo Bills fans out there. I know that there's a lot, and I know that they're diehard, but I will say— You guys dive on tables for fun. Damn. They've been losing a lot of fans because every time they get to the Super Bowl, they always fumble it. Every time. Every time.

You ain't wrong. Haven't been to the Super Bowl in a long time. So, yeah. So what's really happening here? Well, Sheila Simmons, that's Myrtle's sister, she claims that she had just talked to Myrtle on September 14th around 3 a.m. And Myrtle said that Sergio was missing. So this kind of made me think like, well, Sergio was already missing at this point. So how could he be responsible for her death?

But maybe he came back because, you know, I don't I don't know what's like what's going on here, because she said that she went. Sheila Simmons said that she went to Myrtle's home in Maywood and found that some things were out of place. And she said, quote, We're going to find out what happened because it's not normal for my sister to not answer her phone, not to respond to text messages. People have been reaching out to her since Friday. Now I get the call this morning saying that she's missing. So immediately I came out here to find out my sister is dead, end quote. So a neighbor has claimed to have seen both Sergio and Myrtle in person on Thursday, right? So this is after Myrtle called her sister saying that Sergio disappeared. And this neighbor told CBS News that he'd seen ring doorbell footage of Sergio taking out the trash and having a bonfire where it appears he was burning women's clothing.

He also said that family members have told him that Sergio has not been himself the last few months. He was out of his mind. So it is kind of looking like Sergio may have triggered something, whether he was involved with some bad people. And it very much reminds me of Aaron Hernandez, right? And you have to start wondering, is CTE responsible for this? Was Sergio another victim of having these traumatic brain injuries and having his mental facilities compromised by these brain injuries to the point where he might become violent. He might become somebody who doesn't have a lot of control over his actions. Did he do something to his mother? Had they gotten in a fight? I mean, he's seen on Ring Doorbell footage taking

out the garbage and then having a bonfire where it appears he's burning women's clothing. So what are we supposed to think here? Yeah. Well, there's a few things as investigators we have to do in this case. So first off, we're going to talk to family and friends and we're going to get the inside scoop as far as Sergio's concerned. What was going on with him over the last couple of months? Did he say or do anything that would suggest he was going through something, maybe experiencing something that was out of character for him in the past. That's number one.

Then they're going to go through his digital evidence, all the digital data he has. Look at his phone search history. Look at his Internet search history from his computer. See the places he was frequenting based on his credit card receipts. Try to get an understanding of who Sergio Brown was as a person right before this incident. What were some of the things that he was thinking about searching for to have a better understanding of the person they're not only looking for now, but understanding if he could be responsible for the death of his mother.

Then they also want to find out about the dynamic between the two of them. What type of witness statements, what type of reports do they have as far as any type of disturbance between the two of them over the last couple of weeks, last couple of months that may have led to where we are today. And then finally, you want to look at both Sergio and Myrtle as far as their interactions with people in the community. Was Sergio involved in any type of gambling, any type of drug activity? Same thing for Myrtle. Was there anything- Gang activity, stuff like that. Were they hanging around or frequenting anybody who was a suspicious or nefarious character who may be responsible for both of their deaths? Because I do want to emphasize here,

Sergio, we don't know where he is right now. And it's very possible that he's a victim in all of this as well. Stephanie and I do not have a single clue either way. Obviously, this is a really new, open investigation. So there's a lot more that the police department knows than what we're able to report here tonight. But ultimately, they're going to go through all that and they're going to try to create a picture of what Sergio's life was over the last couple of months and what Myrtle's life was over the last couple of months. And then they're going to look at the incidents in place. You mentioned a couple of things here, and I always get a little skeptical about the accounts. So with Sheila,

you know, she's saying that she called Myrtle on the 14th to say that Sergio was missing or did Myrtle call Sheila? It looks like Myrtle called Sheila missing or did Myrtle call Sheila? It looks like Myrtle called Sheila. Okay. Myrtle called Sheila to say, hey, Sergio's missing. So I wonder if this person, this neighbor who said that they saw Sergio after this call or allegedly after this call, if they're mistaken by the date, right? Because if he's missing on the 14th and this neighborhood clean. No. So she called Sheila at like three 30 in the morning. Yep. Three on the 14th technically, but it would have been like, you know, very late Wednesday

night. And then the neighbor says he saw Sergio and Sheila both on Thursday. Right. Right. So that's after Myrtle reported that her son was missing to Sheila. Or did he come back? See, and I don't think he did. Okay. See, I don't think that would make a lot of sense for him to come back. But for the sake of this, who's to say you're wrong? But Sheila's still alive, though.

You mean Myrtle's still alive? Yeah, Myrtle's still alive when she's talking to her sister Sheila. And then the neighbor sees, allegedly sees Sergio afterwards taking out the trash and burning clothes in a bonfire. So hear me out. What I'm saying is this person, this neighbor who said they saw Myrtle and Sergio on Thursday. What if they're mistaken and they actually saw them on Wednesday morning? You get what I'm saying? They're just off by one day because then the story makes more sense.

But he has ring doorbell footage, so I'm sure it's dated. Well, the ring doorbell footage, because you said it in two different things there. Are you saying that that ring doorbell footage saw both of them or the ring doorbell footage just saw the bonfire with Sergio later that day? You follow what I'm saying? The article's not clear, but I'm going to go ahead and say that all of this was seen on the ring doorbell footage. OK, if it's all seen on the ring doorbell footage, then I guess I guess Sergio could have came back. Obviously, if she's saying he's missing and then the next morning he comes back and then maybe whatever happens happens. If there's also a chance that the neighbor says I saw physically saw Sergio and Myrtle on Thursday, I believe. But then I have ring door footage that shows Sergio by himself later burning women's clothing. If he's right in that, at that point, I think we can start to assume something happened to Myrtle and potentially Sergio was responsible for it. If we definitively

know he was burning women's clothing. And I would venture to say, based on speaking to those neighbors and a deeper conversation, it might not have been a normal practice for Sergio to have bonfires in the first place. This might've been something where- Right. That's another question. The kind of like, is this something you often did or were you just doing it to burn clothes? Did you often see Sergio outside having campfires or was it the first time ever he was in the backyard burning up anything for that matter? So all of these questions have to be answered. I do think we could find out potentially that Sergio may be responsible for Myrtle's death, but is no longer with us as well. That's also possible. Or he could be on the run. Or he could be dead as well from someone else who's also responsible for Myrtle's death. Everything's a fair game here. But as far as everything you laid out, and if it's all accurate,

that doesn't seem normal as far as the women's clothing. And we might be looking at a real tragic situation here where a son could potentially be responsible for his mother's death. And if that's the case, I think you're onto something with what you said. We have a lot of these incidences now where we're finding that former NFL players are undiagnosed with CTE and it's causing them to do some really, really horrible things and acting out in a violent manner without every very little cause. So I guess we'll see how it unfolds. It's always tragic to hear these stories. We have someone who is so successful, so talented, have the sport that put them in a position to really excel, also be responsible for some of the worst things in their life.

I was wondering, did they live together, right? So I wish the neighbor kind of would have elaborated on that. Did Sergio live with Myrtle? Because that's going to add a different layer. Like when you are a grown-up living with your adult parent, there can sometimes be some stress and tension between you. Was there arguments happening? Did the neighbors hear several arguments? Was this building? Was this something that Sergio did

because he snapped because they'd been arguing and there was all this tension between them? Or was it something completely unrelated and he did not have control over what he was doing? Was he using drugs? Where is he now, right? Like, is he alive? There's so many questions that aren't answered. And I think the police are being purposely very tight lipped about this. Yeah, because they have to know way more. Like you said, they most likely already pulled his electronic communications. They most likely already pulled his cell phone records, his credit card history. They know what he was doing. And when the neighbor says he was not being himself and he completely lost his mind, what specifically

does that mean? Did he seem very angry? Did he seem vacant? Was he saying things that didn't make sense? What kind of not himself was he? So those little details obviously are going to add a lot of texture and context to this. And it's going to let us know, was this somebody who's just spiraling into like rage and anger and violence? Or was this a mental illness? Or was this brought on by drugs or alcohol? Or was he afraid because he knew somebody was after him? As we saw with Aaron Hernandez, these ballplayers, especially when they're starting off and they're young, they can sometimes fall in with the wrong crowd because they got a lot of hangers on. They got people who all of a sudden want to, you know, like maybe they're criminals or maybe they're into something. And they do that sometimes. Well, why did Aaron do it? Because it was like

street cred for him, you know, to continue hanging out with these kinds of people even after he had made it. So is that what happened with Sergio? Were there people after him? Did he owe people money? Was what happened to his mother a sign to him, supposed to send a message to him, and he got the message and he took off so that he wasn't next? We don't know. But either way, any info on Myrtle's death or Sergio's whereabouts should be given to the Maywood police. You can call 708-368-4131, or you can call Maywood's anonymous tip line at 708-450-1787. Yeah. And guys, keep a lookout for what police end up coming out with, because this is what I would say. As of right now, as far as I know, there hasn't been a bolo put out for Sergio. And that could mean a couple of things. They're still

doing the investigation. Or was there something found in the house that was a letter written to police or family members from Sergio that would suggest Sergio is no longer with us. These are all things that we don't know yet that could really tie up a lot of loose ends and answer a lot of questions that we're posing right now. So keep a lookout for that. Obviously, police know more than us, but if something comes up, we'll mention it here. But I think very shortly, we'll hear an update from law enforcement on this one. I don't think it'll take them long to put this one together. And also with all the science and technology we have today, it's really hard to kind of drop off the map with no credit card or not being seen by a camera system. Obviously, he's a public figure, so his face

is pretty recognizable. So we'll see how it goes. We're thinking of their family, the Brown family. Obviously, they've lost one person and they potentially lost two family members. So our thoughts go out to them and we'll be thinking of them and we'll keep you guys updated on the case. Any final words from you, Stephanie? No, that's it. Okay. Just hoping that Sergio is not responsible for this and hoping that he's okay. Of course. Couldn't agree more. Guys, everyone stay safe out there. We will see you later this week with another episode of Crime Weekly.