The Bears selected cornerback DJ Moore in the fourth round of the 2009 Draft. In two seasons in Chicago he's played in 19 games, made 42 tackles and intercepted four passes. But two months ago, nothing Moore had accomplished in his brief NFL career mattered after he got a frantic message from his sister that his brother, Edward III, had been killed. He was 25.
Even now, the details remain sketchy, but Edward III was murdered on May 7 in a quadruple shooting near Morrow, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. The Chicago Tribune's Vaughn McClure wries that "While Clayton County police officer John Schneller said details of the shootings will not be released while the case is being investigated, the Clayton News Daily newspaper reported that county officer Tina Daniel said, 'this crime was not 'stranger-on-stranger.'"
Moore thinks that drugs were involved in his brother's death.
"I've heard so many stories," he told the Tribune. "When you're pretty much in somebody else's neighborhood in a shootout, it's not going to go that well."
When the Bears played in Charlotte against the Panthers last season, Eddie had just been released from prison after serving more than two years for cocaine distribution. It was the first time he had seen DJ play since high school.
"If you don't want to be (in jail), you've got to change what you're doing," DJ told the Tribune at the time. "You do the same thing again and you're going to be back. … I don't want to go back."
What did Eddie mean to his younger brother? "Everything," Moore said. "I wouldn't say he taught me how to play, but when he was playing, I was playing. He was better than I was in basketball. Athletically, we were like the same."