KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Despite their victory Sunday, there wasn't much celebrating in the Kansas City Chiefs locker room. However, there was praise.
"I wanna tell you guys how proud I am of everybody in this room," Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said while holding the game ball. "What you guys fought through this last day and a half is unbelievable."
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Unbelievable because just a day earlier, Chiefs linebacker Javon Belcher, 25, shot himself in the head in front of his head coach and general manager at the team's practice facility.
Belcher's suicide was preceded by an even more disturbing act of violence. Earlier Saturday morning police said Belcher had shot and killed his 22 year old girlfriend, Kassandra Perkins, the mother of his three month-old daughter.
Perkins had ties to Texas. She went to high school in Austin and her mother's family lives in the Dallas area.
"Our prayers go out to the family of Kassandra Perkins," Chiefs Head Coach Romeo Crennel said in a press conference after Sunday's win over the Carolina Panthers. "They are grieving and we send our condolences to that family. Our prayers and condolences go out to the family of Javon Belcher. They are also grieving. Our prayers and hopes go out to three-month-old Zoe. A little girl who'll never get to know her mother and father."
Coach Crennel was among those who witnessed Belcher commit suicide.
"I'm choosing not to answer any questions about what I saw yesterday," Crennel said. "I think that you'll understand that, and hopefully you'll respect my wishes on that. Because it wasn't a pretty sight."