Former New Orleans Saints defensive end Glenn Foster Jr. died in police custody. His family wants answers

PAMELA FOSTER TURNS the question over in her mind, day in and day out: Why did her husband, a retired New Orleans Saints player turned successful businessman, end up dead in the backseat of a police SUV, two days after he was arrested in rural Alabama?

Nearly three months after the death of Glenn Foster Jr., his grieving family has received no answers from authorities in Pickens County, Alabama, where Foster was taken into custody halfway through his drive from New Orleans to Atlanta on a business trip.

They have no official autopsy results. No incident reports. No explanation from the sheriff’s department that was transporting Foster when he died.

“Every day, you want to make a story in your head, but nothing adds up,” Pamela Foster told ESPN. “So it is very difficult. It is very hard to breathe when you are trying to put pieces of this puzzle together, and the pieces are just not there because there is no transparency.”

Everyone who knew Foster said he had big ambitions, a big heart and a big personality to match his 6-foot-4, 270-pound frame. The former Saints defensive end grew up in a striving, middle-class family steeped in entrepreneurship. He played just two years of pro football before his career was cut short by injury. But Foster turned the setback into a springboard to realize his lifelong dream of going into business.

The only thing Alabama officials have said is that Foster, 31, was found unresponsive in a police vehicle on Dec. 6 after being transported from the Pickens County Jail to a hospital a half hour away in Northport, Alabama, for a mental health evaluation. Alabama’s State Bureau of…