Cops Investigate Mystery Deer, Hit-and-Run, NFL Player's Abandoned Car

— -- Massachusetts State Police were investigating whether there was any connection between a car registered to a New England Patriots linebacker found abandoned on an interstate, a reported collision with a deer, and a hit-and-run that left three people injured.

Shortly before 3:30 a.m. today Massachusetts state troopers responded to a report of a vehicle in the median strip of Route 495 in Foxboro, Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said.

Cops were told by a representative of the OnStar on-board navigation system that the operator of the vehicle reported hitting a deer.

When troopers found the 2011 Mercedes Maybach abandoned in the median strip with damage to its front end, whoever had been driving it was no longer at the scene, and there was no sign of a deer having been struck, Procopio said.

The Mercedes was registered to Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes, he said.

A short time later troopers responded to a report of a 2009 Nissan Murano, also on Route 495 northbound in the same area as the abandoned car, whose occupants reported they had been rear-ended by another vehicle that they did not see.

All three people in that vehicle -- a 51-year-old man, a 32-year-old woman, and a 12-year-old boy, all of Billerica -- were taken to a hospital for examination and treatment, he said.

The investigation was ongoing into both incidents, including who was driving the Mercedes and what car struck the Murano, he said.

He said thus far no connection has been definitively established between the two incidents, but investigators are looking into that.