Ex-NFL player found dead

FORT STOCKTON Pecos County Sheriff's Office officials are awaiting autopsy results on a former NFL player who died in Pecos County.

Pecos County Chief Deputy T.J. Perkins said the body of Curtis Whitley, 39, was sent to the El Paso Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy on Monday after the ex-football player was found dead at 6 p.m. Sunday at his FM 1053 mobile home.

"He was located face down by his friends in the bathroom of his trailer," Perkins said.

Perkins said there was no foul play suspected in the death.

The deputy chief said Whitley was a retired NFL player and was currently working in construction.

Whitley played for San Diego, Carolina and Oakland from 1992-'97 and had two suspensions for violating the league's drug policy.

Whitley was a San Diego's fifth-round draft pick out of Clemson in 1992.

He played three seasons for San Diego, but was released in 1994 after an arrest for investigation of drunken driving, then re-signed after a 26-day stay at the Betty Ford Center.

The Carolina Panthers chose him in the 1995 expansion draft, where he played two seasons.

He was suspended four games in 1996 for what officials said was an alcohol-related violation of the drug policy. He was released by the Panthers before training camp the next season.

Whitley spent 1997 with the Raiders, where he had one start. He was suspended for the entire 1998 season for violating the drug policy and never played in the NFL again.

Whitley admitted snorting crystal methamphetamine while with the Panthers in a book chronicling Carolina's 1996 season called "Year of the Cat." He said in the book his four-game suspension in Carolina was for drug use, not alcohol abuse as the team had said.

He also revealed in the 1997 book that he had used crystal methamphetamine often since 1992.

OA staff writer Casey Foran and The Associated Press contributed to this report.