Former NFL player Sergio Brown was arrested Tuesday after a warrant was issued for first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Natalie Kainz of NBC News reports.
Brown, 35, had been missing since Myrtle Jean Simmons-Brown’s death last month.
He was taken into custody in San Diego while re-entering the U.S. from Mexico and is awaiting extradition to Maywood, a suburb of Chicago.
Mexican law enforcement officers have known Brown’s whereabouts since at least Sept. 19, and they deported him after authorities in Illinois obtained a felony fugitive arrest warrant.
The body of his mother was found in a creek behind her Maywood home on Sept. 16, and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office determined she died from injuries related to an assault. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Brown, a defensive back, signed with the Patriots as an undrafted free agent in 2010. He played seven seasons in the NFL with the Patriots, Colts, Jaguars and Bills.
Simmons-Brown’s family released a statement Wednesday, saying they are “heartened by the news that Sergio Brown has been apprehended and returned to the United States unharmed.”