‘‘I was so excited when he became a father,’’ Wilmot told the AP in a phone interview, ‘‘because he would be a great father.’’

Kansas City police said Belcher and Perkins had been arguing recently, and a friend of the couple, Brianne York, said the root of the argument was that Belcher ‘‘sometimes he would just be down in his man cave or whatever,’’ and Perkins wanted to spend more time as a family.

Other friends said Perkins was out late at a concert before their final argument took place.

‘‘It doesn’t seem that that would be the end of their story,’’ York said. ‘‘It just seems like if things didn’t work out, they would have gone their separate ways.’’

The reality is that nobody may ever know exactly what happened in those final hours, minutes, seconds.

‘‘I think what we try to do is explain the unexplainable,’’ said Chiefs linebacker Andy Studebaker, who was close to Perkins as well. ‘‘This is such an unexplainable event that I don’t think we could easily get through it with a single-sentence explanation.’’

Unexplainable, and with devastated families left behind.

‘‘I was once told the hardest thing a person can go through is burying their child, so my heart goes out to their families — Kasandra’s and Jovan’s families,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘You can just imagine what they’re going through right now, and as a team, we lost a brother. It’s going to take time, but life goes on.’’

___