DIX HILLS, N.Y. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who shot and killed his girlfriend before taking his own life earlier this month, was laid out Tuesday in an open silver casket surrounded by flowers and displays of family snapshots at a church where hundreds of mourners gathered at a wake to remember him.

The wake, to be followed by a funeral on Wednesday, was held at the Upper Room Christian World Center in Dix Hills, east of New York City and a few miles north of the West Babylon home where the 25-year-old Belcher was raised. A woman answering the telephone at the center’s office earlier Tuesday said she had no information on details of the funeral but noted members of the center’s clergy weren’t expected to participate.

The center, which features an auditorium capable of seating at least 1,000 people, describes itself on a website as “a Bible based non-denominational, multi-racial, family church.”