The Mystery of Why a Foundering Football Player Killed a Family

A small city that bills itself as Football City U.S.A. is grappling with the shooting deaths of members of a prominent local family by Phillip Adams who, many say, had been adrift after his N.F.L. career ended.

He struggled to find work. His last-ditch chance to make an N.F.L. team fizzled. He had a child to support and little apparent direction in a life freighted with high expectations. His behavior was increasingly erratic. Then on Wednesday, for reasons no one yet knows for sure, Phillip Adams, a former N.F.L. cornerback, went to the Rock Hill, S.C., home of a prominent doctor and shot everybody he saw before fatally turning the gun on himself. Now, the football-loving community of 65,000 that bills itself as Football City U.S.A. is struggling to contend with Adams’s suddenly violent turn and its aftermath. Before he killed five people, including two children, and critically wounded a sixth person, Adams, 32, who shot and killed himself several hours after his rampage, had seemed adrift since he last played N.F.L. football almost six years ago, friends and associates said. He remained close to home, caring for his mother, Phyllis, a former high school teacher who became a paraplegic after a car accident a decade ago.