Ex-Dallas Lineman Bethea Kills Self; Linked to Heists

Former Dallas Cowboys player Larry Bethea, convicted last year of stealing his mother’s life savings, shot himself to death today after committing two armed robberies, police said.

Police found Bethea, 30, lying in the backyard of a friend’s home with a gunshot wound to the head. Bethea, a former No. 1 draft choice of the Cowboys, was rushed to Hampton General Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 2:08 a.m.

Police spokeswoman Sgt. Lynn Pearson said Bethea was a suspect in armed robberies of two convenience stores late Wednesday night. Bethea had been identified by one of the robbery victims, she said.

Bethea was a defensive lineman for the Cowboys from 1978 to 1983. He lettered at Michigan State from 1974 to 1977, winning the governor’s award as the most valuable Spartan.

Allegations of drug use had dogged Bethea since he was convicted of stealing $64,000 last August from a safe in his mother’s attic. He received a four-year suspended sentence in January but was to complete a two-year probation and undergo random drug testing as a condition of his release.

He was arrested Aug. 4 in Dallas with more than $61,000 in cash in his pockets after allegedly attacking his estranged wife, Gloria Bethea. Police found her bruised and bleeding.

Bethea pleaded guilty in 1985 to setting three fires in Mt. Rainier National Park in Paradise, Wash.

At the time of his death, Bethea was living with his mother in a Newport News house he helped her buy in 1982.

He once said, “I get a little bit confused in the big picture and I hurt my family.”