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One minute, an athlete can have it all. The money, the fame, the girls—everything. The next minute, it can all be gone after a robbery attempt goes horribly wrong, the same fans that worship your existence turn their back on you, or the woman you consider close to you turns homicidal. It's a harsh reality that Andres Escobar faced 19 years ago. As a member of Colombia's 1994 World Cup team, Escobar gave up an own goal that essentially cost his country an opportunity at hoisting the World Cup trophy. Upon returning to his home country, Escobar was shot multiple times and killed because of his mistake on the pitch.
Of course, not every player's sudden death is as vindictive. So, on the anniversary of Escobar's untimely and unwarranted death, we take a look at the other people in sports, like Sean Taylor to Steve McNair, who suffered their horrific demise at the hands of another individual or individuals, here is A History of Murdered Athletes.
Frank Bell
Date of death: 4/14/1891 (aged 28)
Sport: Baseball
Frank Bell registered 10 games for the Brooklyn Grays before finding a second career as an umpire and later a police officer. He was shot and killed by a bartender after a card game turned sour.
Henri Pelissier
Date of death: 5/1/1935 (aged 46)
Sport: Cycling
Henri Pelissier was a one-time Tour de France cyclist who famously lashed out at his rival riders, one time saying, "The others are cart horses; I'm a thoroughbred." After his wife committed suicide in 1933, Pelissier kept the gun she killed herself with. After attempting to kill his new lover with a knife, she gunned him down with the same exact gun.
Len Koenecke
Date of death: 9/17/1935 (aged 31)
Sport: Baseball
After only hitting 22 home runs in four Major League seasons, Len Koenecke is remembered for his highly unusual death. During a flight to New York, he drank a quart of Whiskey and became belligerent. Passengers shackled him to his seat, and he passed out to find himself alone in a Detroit airport. Koenecke then chartered a flight to Buffalo, but while in the air, he tried to hijack the plane. To stop him, a passenger and the pilot whacked him over the head with a fire extinguisher, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He wasn't even drunk during the flight!
Lloyd Seay
Date of death: 9/2/1941 (aged 21)
Sport: Auto racing
Lloyd Seay started off as a "moonshine runner," driving booze from state to state. A Georiga deputy who repeatedly pursued Seay called him, "the best automobile driver of this time." He eventually took up stock car racing, and won three races in 15 days before his cousin shot him over a moonshine business dispute. An epic, if short-lived career by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame inductee.
Rikidōzan
Date of death: 12/8/1963 (aged 39)
Sport: Wrestling
Many folks in the States may not be familiar with Rikidōzan, but in Japan, he's a legend. In addition to obtaining a heavyweight championship title in three different organizations and two separate tag team titles, Rikidōzan also started the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance in 1957.
On Dec. 8, 1963, Rikidōzan was stabbed with a knife covered in urine by Katsuji Murata, a member of the organized crime group called Yakuza. Even after the incident took place, Rikidōzan still managed to throw Murata out of the club and continue partying. A week later, Rikidōzan died of inflammation of the abdominal lining, or peritonitis.
Spider Sabich
Date of death: 3/21/1976 (aged 31)
Sport: Alpine skiing
Nicknamed "Spider" for his long arms and premature birth, Sabich competed at the 1978 Winter Olympics, and was a two-time champion of the pro ski tour in the '70s. At age 31, Sabich was shot and killed in the shower by his girlfriend Claudine Longet, who claimed that he was just showing her how to use the gun. Due to procedural errors by the prosecution, three pieces of key evidence were disallowed, and she wasn't convicted of murder: Longet's blood sample, which contained cocaine; Longet's diary, which detailed how their relationship had soured; and the gun, which was defective and needed to be fire multiple times to discharge, suggesting that the shooting was no accident.
Oscar Bonavena
Date of death: 5/22/1976 (aged 33)
Sport: Boxing
Oscar Bonavena was a successful boxer in both Argentina and the United States. He's famous for giving Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier evenly contested fights, barely losing the World Heavyweight Title to Frazier in 1968. He was shot to death by the guards of a brothel in Nevada after having an affair with the wife of the brothel's owner. Love hurts.
Ben Wilson
Date of death: 11/21/1984 (aged 17)
Sport: Basketball
The subject of Benji, one of ESPN's 30-For-30 films, Ben Wilson was the number one ranked high school basketball player in American going into his senior year. "Magic Johnson with a jump shot" was tragically shot after getting into a fight while walking home with his girlfriend. He later died in the hospital. As a tribute to Wilson, Juwan Howard, Nick Anderson, Derrick Rose, and Jabari Parker have all worn his No. 25 at some point during their basketball careers.
Lyman Bostock
Date of death: 9/23/1987 (aged 27)
Sport: Baseball
Throughout his career, Lyman Bostock was a skilled contact hitter with a career .311 average. In only his third season in the majors, Bostock hit .336 and ended a mere two points behind Dave Parker for the American League batting title. The following season, Bostock was playing for a new team, the California Angels, when all of a sudden, it was all gone.
Following a Saturday afternoon game in Chicago, Bostock visited his uncle, Thomas Turner. After seeing Turner, Bostock saw a girl named Joan Hawkins, whom he knew when she was a teenager. When Turner agreed to drive Hawkins and her cousin Barbara Smith, who was living with her at the time, to their cousin's house, Barbara's estranged husband, Leonard Smith, witnessed the four of them getting into the vehicle.
Leonard thought his wife was having an affair with Bostock since he believed she was unfaithful to him before. As the car with the four individuals stopped at an intersection, Leonard pulled up alongside and fired his shotgun once in the direction of where he thought Barbara was seated. Instead of hitting his wife, Bostock was struck in the temple and died shortly thereafter.
Dino Bravo
Date of death: 3/10/1993 (aged 44)
Sport: Wrestling
Following his retirement from the WWE, where he won the Canadian Championship belt and Tag Team title once, and competitive wrestling in April 2002, Dino Bravo was watching a hockey game at his Vimont, Laval, Quebec home when he was shot a total of 17 times in the head and body. There is a belief that Bravo's death was the result of his ties to illegal cigarette smuggling in Canada. According to Bret Hart's autobiography, Bravo had a strong feeling that his life was coming to an end and sadly, he was correct.
Andres Escobar
Date of death: 7/2/1994 (aged 27)
Sport: Soccer
Following a surprising 3-1 loss to Romania in their first match in Group A of the 1994 World Cup, Colombia needed to defeat the United States. In the 35th minute, Andres Escobar accidentally deflected the ball into his own team's net. Colombia was never able to recover from Escobar's error and went on to lose the game, 2-1.
Shortly after the team's loss and subsequent elimination, Escobar went back to Colombia and visited a bar called "El Indio" with a couple friends. At 3 a.m., Escobar returned to his car, which is where he was approached by three men who opened fire and screamed "goal" with each shot fired. Escobar died shortly after reaching a nearby Medellin hospital.
Marlin Barnes
Date of death: 4/16/1996 (aged 22)
Sport: Football
A University of Miami linebacker, Marlin Barnes was beaten to death with a shotgun inside of a campus apartment by Labrant Dennis. Understandably angered by her son's death, Barnes' mother told Dennis during his sentencing, "I want your death to be 22 times as horrific as Marlin's was." Dennis was later given the electric chair.
Fred Lane
Date of death: 7/6/2000 (aged 24)
Sport: Football
Originally an undrafted free agent, Fred Lane worked his way to become the Carolina Panther's starter. During the 1997 season, turned-in a then franchise record 147 rushing yard performance. He was shot and killed by his wife, who was believed to be after his $5 million life insurance policy.
Ivan Calderon
Date of death: 12/27/2003 (aged 41)
Sport: Baseball
Ivan Calderon played 10 seasons in the Major Leagues, notching one All-Star appearance. He was shot in the back at a bar in Puerto Rico. The bar, "El Trompo," had already seen several killings during that year alone. We'll be sure to steer clear of that bar the next time there's a Puerto Rican office vacation.
Darrent Williams
Date of Death: 1/1/2007 (aged 24)
Sport: Football
After only two seasons in the NFL, Darrent Williams looked like he was well on his way to becoming a stalwart on the defensive end for the Denver Broncos. While attending a birthday party held Safari nightclub for then-Nuggets player Kenyon Martin, teammate Brandon Marshall got into a verbal dispute with some people who happened to be members of a gang.
As Williams, Marshall, teammate Javon Walker and a female friend rode away in an Hummer H2 limousine, Crips gang member Willie D. Clark fired at the car and struck Williams in the neck. He fell into the lap of Walker and died immediately afterwards. He was only 24 years old.
Sean Taylor
Date of Death: 11/27/2007 (aged 24)
Sport: Football
In only four seasons in the NFL, Sean Taylor looked promising. In his last third year, Taylor earned first Pro Bowl appearance after recording 89 tackles, one interception and three forced fumbles. The next season, Taylor set a new career-high in interceptions with five in only nine games. Unfortunately, his career came to a shocking and sudden end.
A little more than a week after his Palmetto Bay home was burglarized, intruders broke into his house again but this time, Taylor was there with his girlfriend and their 18-month-old child. Eventually, Taylor was shot in the leg, striking the femoral artery. After undergoing emergency surgery, Taylor remained in a coma. Three days later, he died at the age of 24.
Steve McNair
Date of Death: 7/4/2009 (aged 36)
Sport: Football
On July 2, 2009, one year after his retirement from the NFL, Steve McNair was riding in a 2007 Cadillac Escalade with his mistress, Sahel Kazemi, when the car was pulled over. When the driver Kazemi was arrested for a DUI, McNair didn't do anything to help her out and instead left the scene, only to bail her out later on.
Shortly after that incident, Kazemi apparently bought a gun from someone who was looking to buy her car and in turn, she used the firearm to shoot McNair twice in the head and twice in the body while he was asleep on the couch. Kazemi then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.
Vernon Forrest
Date of Death: 7/25/2009 (aged 38)
Sport: Boxing
Any fans of boxing from the late '90s through the early to mid-'00s knows who Vernon "The Viper" Forrest was. He posted a record of 41-3 and held titles in the welterweight and light middleweight divisions. Around 11 p.m. on July 25, 2009 Forrest was shot and killed after an attempted robbery at gas station in Atlanta.
Kendall Berry
Date of death: 3/25/2010 (aged 22)
Sport: Football
Kendall Berry was a stand-out running back for Florida International University. He was stabbed to death outside of FIU's rec center after a verbal argument with his eventual murderer.
Lorenzen Wright
Date of death: Sometime between 7/18-28/2010 (aged 34)
Sport: Basketball
Lorenzen Wright was never really the type of player to grab headlines. His best all-around season came in 2001-02 with the Memphis Grizzlies when he scored a modest 12 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. However, over the summer of 2010, Wright's name was mentioned plenty of times as mystery surrounded his sudden six-day disappearance.
On July 18, 2010, Wright left his ex-wife's Collierville, TN home and never returned. Four days later, Wright's family filed a missing persons report. His lifeless body was eventually found on July 28. It is believed that Wright was shot after a drug deal gone wrong in the early morning hours in Germanville, Tenn. on July 19.
Greg Halman
Date of death: 11/21/2011 (aged 24)
Sport: Baseball
Greg Halman, a Dutch baseball player for the Mariners, was stabbed to death by his brother in the Netherlands. His brother, who had been under a "marijuana-induced psychosis", was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. What was he smoking, bath salts?
Corrie Sanders
Date of Death: 9/23/2012 (aged 46)
Sport: Boxing
"The Sniper" once knocked out Wladimir Klitschko to win the World Heavyweight title and posted a career record of 42-4. He was shot and killed after shielding his daughter from bullets during an armed robbery at a party for his nephew. What a Dad.
Hector Camacho
Date of Death: 11/24/2012 (aged 50)
Sport: Boxing
Hector Camacho held seven championships at one point during his storied boxing career, becoming the sport's first Septuple Champion—title winner in seven different weight classes—Manny Pacquiao is the only other fighter to have that distinction. With a career 79-6-3 record, Camacho is regarded as one of the best Puerto Rican boxers ever. Along with his childhood friend Mojica Moreno, he was killed in a drive-by shooting in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.