MIAMI -- As the pro football world mourned Tuesday's death of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor from a bizarre nocturnal shooting a day earlier, homicide investigators combed through the NFL star's troubled past and searched for a killer for whom they have neither a motive nor a description.
Taylor, 24, never regained consciousness after being airlifted Monday from his walled and gated home where an intruder had burst in at 1:45 a.m. and shot him.
Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center informed Taylor's family, friends and teammates that he'd lost too much blood in the first minutes after suffering a single gunshot wound to his groin that had severed the femoral artery.
"It's a tremendously sad and unnecessary event," family friend Richard Sharpstein said. "He was a wonderful, humble, talented young man, and had a huge life in front of him. Obviously, God had other plans."
The break-in and shooting occurred only eight days after another intrusion at Taylor's home, during which rooms were ransacked but nothing taken and a kitchen knife was left on a bed.
Taylor was pronounced dead at 5:30 a.m., about 28 hours after he was shot, shocking those who stood vigil at the hospital overnight who had been encouraged by reports he was responsive to medical personnel, having squeezed the hand of a nurse as he lay unconscious.
"Maybe he was trying to say goodbye or something," Sharpstein said.
Taylor, who led the Redskins with five interceptions this season, was not with the team for Sunday's loss at Tampa Bay because he was recovering from a sprained knee. In the NFL, it's typical for injured players not to join teams on the road.
"This is a terrible, terrible tragedy," Redskins owner Dan Snyder said, his voice cracking and barely audible as he spoke during a news conference at the team's headquarters in Ashburn, Va.
Coach Joe Gibbs said the team would practice as scheduled today, after a prayer service, in preparation for a home game Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. Snyder said players would honor Taylor by wearing a patch on their jerseys and a sticker on their helmets with Taylor's No. 21.
"I have never dealt with this," Gibbs said. "We're going one hour at a time here."
Miami-Dade Police were searching for a shooting suspect but conceded in a statement that they had no description of the gunman or reliable information on the number of perpetrators involved.
