Wilbur John Moore (April 22, 1916 – August 9, 1965) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. Ther ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for the

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

. He played college football at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

and was drafted in the ninth round of the

1939 NFL Draft The 1939 National Football League Draft was held on December 9, 1938, at the New Yorker Hotel in New York City, New York. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Chicago Cardinals selected center Ki Aldrich. Player selections Round on ...

. On August 9, 1965, Moore was shot to death in front of his wife's home in

Mitchellville, Maryland Mitchellville is an upper-class majority African-American unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 11,136. Geography Mitchellville is locate ...

. He and Clara Moore had been separated for three months, and had been seen arguing before she killed him with a single shot from a .22 caliber revolver."Wilbur Moore, Grid Ace, Slain", ''Chicago Tribune'', August 10, 1965, p1

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* 1916 births 1965 deaths People from Austin, Minnesota American football running backs United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II Minnesota Golden Gophers football players University of Minnesota alumni Washington Redskins players Players of American football from Minnesota United States Marines Deaths by firearm in Maryland People murdered in Maryland Male murder victims Mariticides {{runningback-1910s-stub