Former NFL player Sergio Brown is missing and may be in Mexico after his mother's death, police say

• Former NFL player Sergio Brown and his mother were first declared missing on Saturday.
• On Sunday, authorities said they found his mother dead in the creek behind her home.

When Sergio Brown made his first major early career tackle for the New England Patriots, his proud mom was the first phone call he made.

"She was excited," Brown told the Telegram and Gazette. "She was just waiting on the phone call."

Now his mother is dead, and Illinois police are still searching for Brown.

Police believe Brown is now in Mexico, Forbes reported Wednesday. That might explain some of the palm trees seen in a series of bizarre videos Brown appears to have posted to Instagram since the weekend.

His most recent video, posted Wednesday morning, shows him walking down a palm-tree-lined street. The location tag reads "Maywood, Illinois." But Instagram allows users to tag any location in their stories and palm trees do not typically grow in Illinois. They are, however, a very common tree in Mexico.

"Oh my God, if I die, I'm a legend," Brown raps for the camera while walking down the street.

In another now-deleted video posted earlier this week, Brown claimed either the FBI or Maywood police broke into his home "twice" and that he believed his mother was on vacation.

A family member first reported Brown and his mother missing on Saturday, according to WBBM, a local news outlet in Chicago. The next day, Maywood police declared his mother — 73-year-old Myrtle Brown — dead after she was found in a creek behind her Maywood home. Her death has been ruled a homicide, a spokesperson for the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office told Insider on Thursday.

A neighbor told WBBM that his Ring doorbell captured footage of Brown burning his mother's clothes last Thursday. "They seen him taking out the trash, and they seen him have a bonfire where he burned all her clothes," Carlos Cortez told WBBM.

Maywood police are still searching for Brown and have not released information on any suspects, CNN reported. The Maywood Police Department did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment from Insider.

Brown was first signed by the New England Patriots in 2011 and has since played for several teams. He last played for the Buffalo Bills in 2016.

September 21, 2023: This story was updated to include information provided to Insider by the Cook County Office of the Medical Examiner.