Ex-NFL QB's wife: My husband is on 'manhunt' and trying to kill me
Former NFL quarterback Erik Kramer was arrested at his home in Southern California last week on charges of trying to injure his wife in a domestic dispute.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Kramer on charges of “suspicion of felony corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant” at his Agoura Hills home Wednesday, according to department records.
Kramer — who played for the Atlanta Falcons, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears and San Diego Chargers from 1987 through 1999 — was released on a $50,000 bond less than three hours after the arrest.
Kramer’s wife, Cortney Baird, said she believes her husband is on a “manhunt” to kill her and her daughter.
“I am terrified that he is out looking for me at this very moment and will kill me and my daughter,” Baird said in her request for a restraining order against Kramer.
Baird said she and Kramer had gotten into a verbal altercation the previous night and approached him on Wednesday morning to try and talk things out.
But according to incident reports obtained by TMZ Sports, Baird said Kramer “snapped” during Wednesday’s incident and alleges he threw various pieces of household items at her, including ice packs and their knife block.
After failing to hit her with those items, Baird alleges Kramer began grabbing glasses, candle holders and picture frames and smashing those items on the ground.
Baird called 911 and police arrived on the scene and arrested Kramer, who reportedly admitted to getting physical during the altercation.
“Mr. Kramer was cooperative at the time of the arrest,” Sheriff’s Department Capt. Joshua Thai said in an email to The Los Angeles Times.
Baird filed for divorce from Kramer on Friday.
Kramer compiled a 31-36 record as a starter in his NFL career. He led the Detroit Lions to a playoff victory — its only one since 1957 –during his time with the team from 1990-1993. Knee injuries eventually ended his career.
Kramer, who has battled depression for more than a decade, survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound in August 2015. It came near the end of a four-year stretch that included the death of one of Kramer’s sons from a drug overdose, the death of his mother, the diagnosis of his father being terminally ill and a breakup with his girlfriend.
“He is a very amazing man, a beautiful soul, but he has suffered depression since he was with the Bears,” his ex-wife Marshawn Kramer told NBC News after the suicide attempt. “I can promise you he is not the same man I married.”
In a 2016 interview with Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Kramer talked about the final moments before he put a gun to his head on Aug. 18, 2015 in a hotel room in California.
“It was time to either do it or not do it,” Kramer said of the intent to kill himself. “I think I hung out for a little bit. I think I may have gone to eat some dinner somewhere and then came back and, I don’t know what time, but sort of took the gun, crawled into bed and pulled the trigger.”
The bullet traveled through his chin, left a hole in his tongue, went up through his sinus cavities and out the top of his head. While it did not kill Kramer, the wounds required surgery to repair his tongue and replace a chunk of his skull, and two stays in brain-rehabilitation clinics that lasted several months.
Kramer said he never was diagnosed with a concussion during his playing days in college or the NFL, and doesn’t believe the physical toll of playing football impacted his mental health.
“I’ve thought about that often, but nothing really stands out as connecting football to the sort of feeling I’ve had with depression,” Kramer told the Free Press. “It very well may be linked. It doesn’t feel like it to me.”
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