NFL Serial Killers: Quick Guide

One of my best series to date on sports true crime has been the multi-part serial killer Sundays. The only other that comes to mind is my Homicide Brides series. Not that my standalone work (found here) isn’t fantastic either. It’s just that you don’t come across a series like this every day. 

However, what I haven’t done yet is a comprehensive “quick guide” to all of our NFL serial killers. Fantastic websites like Murderpedia know that you start with the basics and delve into additional articles as you see fit. So that’s where this article comes into play. 

The Definition of a Serial Killer

Before we begin profiling, it is always important to establish our definition of a ‘serial killer, since it can differ from source to source. The FBI had an entire symposium to narrow down exactly what the term meant. Here is what they came up with that we accept: one or more offenders (they sometimes work closely with an accomplice), two or more victims, with a “cooling off” period with the deaths happening at different times at separate events. 

Also, do not proceed if information about death, murder, true crime, and variations thereof disturbs you. This is your trigger warning. Click back at a different time if now is a good time, or avoid it all together if it’s just not your thing. It isn’t everyone’s, and that’s probably best. The world can only handle so many people like me.

The NFL Killers:

Each man in this quick guide has varying careers as an NFL player. If you were only on the practice squad, barely drafted, or had a 10-year career, you’re in the quick guide. It’s a small enough group as is.

#1:

• Our first individual on the roster is not the best-known NFL player listed, but he is the most notorious serial killer. Here is some information about Randall Woodfield, i.e., the I-5 killer. 
  • He was born in 1950 in America to a typical American family with his two sisters.
  • He started showing signs that he had “deviancies” by age 13. Randy was a peeping tom and a flasher who seemed to… enjoy women seeing him when they didn’t want to.
  • Woodfield’s parents tried to get him help, but the therapist felt his creepy ways were just typical teenage boy antics.
  • Randall had mom-issues like most serial killers.
  • Despite being a deviant mom-hater, Randy was actually fairly popular and excelled in football. He was so good that the colleges he attended looked over his growing adult criminal record. It’s unclear if it was Woodfield’s play or his “off-field behavior” that concerned the Green Bay Packers enough to kick him off the practice squad after drafting him.
  • Randy would escalate from solo behaviors. He started by forcing nonconsensual acts on women, then murdering the women after. Mostly young white women in their 20s. 
  • Self-control was not a strong suit for Woodfield, who was caught after only two years. He was becoming more violent, more often, and it ended up catching up with him. That and picking women who were loosely in his social circle. Randy wasn’t the brightest.
  • He killed seven women officially, although the number is more likely to be somewhere between 20 and 40 victims.
  • Randall is still uncomfortably flirty in prison, serving out his life sentence in Salem, Oregon. Woodfield still carries around his plane ticket to training camp in Wisconsin for the Packers. He keeps all the correspondence he had with the team as well.

#2

• Randall Woodfield personifies the typical “serial killer” vibe: white, middle-agedish, hates his mom, etc. The second man on this list (and the third) could not be more different. Meet Robert Rozier Jr.
  • Robby was a military brat, really f*cking good at football, a prodigy of sorts, which made up for his 1.32 high school GPA and no diploma.
  • The Berkeley player was not a deviant, but he was a troublemaker. Petty crimes are what got Junior kicked off the St. Louis Cardinals after they drafted him, and he played six regular-season games. His check fraud is what kept his CFL numbers limited. Even the Oakland Raiders let him go after two weeks when he returned to America.
  • After a short prison stint in Miami, Rozier joined the Nation of Yahweh cult in 1982. To give you an idea about that group, you got “jumped in” after you killed a white guy. Robert cut off a man’s ear like he’s Picasso to prove he deserved his tear-drop tattoo.
  • Junior confessed to seven murders and was convicted of four. All committed in 1986.
  • Robert received a 22-year sentence and only served 10 after snitching on the cult leader of his group. Many believe that he never would have killed had he not been in a cult, and he was motivated by external forces, unlike people like Randall Woodfield. This likely contributed to his light sentence.
  • People were likely right because Robert has never killed again. He helped raise his kids, had different businesses, and worked in web design when the internet was born. However, Rozier’s bad habit of bad checks put him back in the slammer, and because of Cali’s three-strike law, he got an instant-life sentence. Junior is still alive and well in prison today. 

#3

• Last but not least is serial killer Anthony Smith. His story is so wild that he has lived rent-free in my head since I wrote about him the first time two years ago. Please read his full story here.
  • Anthony witnessed his mother being placed on a wood-burning stove that was lit by his stepfather because he thought she cheated on him. She died when he was just a little boy, and he was raised by his older brother, who was physically abusive. 
  • Smith was an athletic prodigy like Rozier, who played at the University of Alabama and Arizona. Unlike Rozier (and Woodfield), he was drafted in the first round of his draft, 11th overall. Anthony played seven seasons with the Raiders. In 1997, Smith signed with the Denver Broncos and quit during training camp. 
  • The Raider was injured in 1993, so he took the season to “shoot hoops” with the kids on projects in Los Angeles. Smith became a surrogate father to many of the kids. Anthony would attend the kids meetings at school if they struggled academically and pay for multiple shopping sprees for children. This helped the loner find a sense of family with the kids and their families who “adopted” him.
  • Life post-career has been complex for Smith. There was the ex-wife with the broken arm, the firebombing of a business that crossed him, and an individual (who is no longer alive under suspicious circumstances) that witnessed his ‘murder kit.’ The kit had a literal how-to guide for murder, a police uniform, weapons, zip ties, and silencers.
  • Smith was convicted of the deaths of his neighbor’s brother and the former NFL player’s alleged drug dealer. He was also convicted of murdering the Nettles brothers for no clear motive after herding them both into his car for “questioning” from Anthony, the “police officer.” 
  • Anthony is still in prison today for life. He remains married (to a district attorney) and shares three kids with his wife. 

Quick Ending to a Quick Guide

That’s enough serial killer fun for one day. Definitely check out the full articles for some of the best true crime in sports you’ll find out there.

Love this quick guide? Want to see another one on serial killers who played a different sport? I haven’t studied serial killers in other sports, but I am more than willing to. Sound off below with the next quick guide you want to see!