The Wrong Turn

Even those closest to Komlo could make little sense of what he had done. How could the BMOC and successful businessman have turned into a fugitive from justice? Komlo wouldn't be the first athlete to make a mess of his life after his playing career. But to those who knew him, his downfall defied belief.

It seems everyone in Komlo's life has a theory to explain his decline. His parents and siblings think it all started with his divorce. "When his marriage fell apart, he fell apart," says Wendy Komlo. Several friends think his volatile relationship with Winters was the catalyst. Clearly, drugs and alcohol were also factors. A Florida attorney who represented Komlo, Kenneth Lemoine, says, "I think he lost faith in the system. He didn't think he could get a fair shake."

Those less sympathetic to the old quarterback, such as Chester County prosecutors, throw around clinical terms such as sociopath and psychotic.

It's hard not to wonder whether the "athlete's mentality" cited admiringly by Tubby Raymond also played a role in Komlo's downfall. When he played football in college, he overachieved through sheer self-confidence. His risk-taking was rewarded. Again and again he was able to make the big play. Even as criminal charges against him mounted, he carried himself in a way that suggested that somehow he'd pull off life's equivalent of a hook-and-ladder. The guys liked him; the girls still thought he was hot. Everything would be O.K. Then, suddenly, he realized he was out of downs.

Greece? No one could recall Komlo ever talking about Greece. He had no relatives there, no business dealings or known contacts. The Talmud, the text of Jewish laws and ethics, states that "if a man feels that his evil passion is gaining the mastery over him, let him go to a place where he is unknown." Komlo, a Roman Catholic, might have been more concerned about his freedom.

Informed of Jeff's whereabouts after he was sighted on that Greek train by Christie Komlo's friend, the Chester County district attorney's office looked into extradition. But federal authorities felt it wasn't worth the expense or effort, Frei says, because none of the outstanding charges against Komlo were sufficiently grave. Life moved on.

Her divorce made final in 2008, Jennifer Komlo found a job working in the office of a Main Line plastic surgeon. Jennifer Winters returned to Florida and became engaged to another man. When Callye Komlo went to her senior prom with Wayne Ellington, who would go on to play basketball for North Carolina and be named MVP of the 2009 Final Four, she simply accepted that her father wouldn't be on hand to watch her date fumble with the corsage. William Komlo continued working with horses; in fact, he trained Tone It Down, a long shot in the 2009 Preakness.

Jeff, meanwhile, had a girlfriend in Greece and was working for a hair implant clinic in Athens called NHI. The clinic caters mostly to Brits, who fly to the Greek capital for something called the Choi Method—which, according to the NHI website, is "a procedure far too labour intensive to operate in the UK." Komlo's job, not surprisingly, was to greet clients, put them at ease and show them a good time on the town before their procedure.

Like many wild rides, Komlo's would come to an abrupt end. At around 3 a.m. on Saturday, March 14, 2009, he was reportedly killed in a car accident in southern Athens. Frei, the Pennsylvania A.D.A., was skeptical. "I wouldn't put it past this guy to fake his death," she said. But the U.S. State Department matched fingerprints and confirmed that, yes, the body was Komlo's. According to Drew Komlo, Jeff's car hit three others before crashing to a halt. Jeff was flung through the windshield and died of a cranial fracture. He was 52.

On April 1 there was a memorial mass for Jeff Komlo in Rockville, Md. It was a small, private affair. His parents and siblings were there; his four daughters were not. He was then cremated.