Hitman in Murder of Ex-NFL Player’s Pregnant Girlfriend Dies Behind Bars

Van Brett Watkins, the self-confessed trigger man in a plot by a then-Carolina Panthers player to murder his pregnant girlfriend in 1999, died earlier this month after decades behind bars, according to online records. He was 63.

Watkins died at a hospital from natural causes on Dec. 3, a Department of Adult Correction spokesperson told the Associated Press. It was not immediately clear when he’d been transferred to the hospital from Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he’d been incarcerated for more than 20 years.

Had he lived, Watkins would have been released in 2045, at the age of 85, according to department records.

Read more at The Daily Beast.