National Football League

Belcher, GF fought over paternity?

Published Dec. 14, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

The mother of former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher has told investigators that her son had argued with his girlfriend over their baby's paternity before he shot and killed her, according a report in the New York Post.

Belcher, 25, murdered his girlfriend, 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins, on the morning of Dec. 1 before committing suicide at the team's facility.

Cheryl Shepherd, Belcher's mother, believed "that there was an issue over whether [Belcher] was the father,” a source close to the Chiefs told the Post. “She said he [believed he] wasn’t necessarily the father of the child.”

According to the Post, it is still unclear whether or not the paternity issue sparked the fight that resulted in Perkins' death.

The Post also reports that a Kansas City law-enforcement source confirms that Belcher’s mother told police that there was a question surrounding the paternity.

The couple's daughter, Zoey, is just three months old.

Belcher shot Perkins multiple times, killing her the day before the team's home game against the Carolina Panthers.

Belcher then drove to Arrowhead Stadium, where he thanked coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli for all they'd done for him. As police arrived, Belcher slipped behind a car and committed suicide, shooting himself in the head.

Belcher told officers, who found him sleeping in his car outside an apartment complex hours before he committed the murder-suicide, that he was there to visit a woman he described as his "girlfriend," but that she wasn't home. Police reports indicated that he later entered an apartment, and witnesses saw him leaving the premises around 6:30 a.m.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.