Off the field, he heads a foundation to provide help to disadvantaged kids through food drives, auctions and other events.

"We got to change the way our children think. We got to change the way these gangs are dictating and running our streets," Lewis said during a sermon at Empowerment Temple last year. "We have the ability to do that! But it's called tough love."

Still controversial

Not everyone is buying Lewis' tale of redemption.

"You got all this attention glorifying him, and then he was involved in what happened down in Atlanta, but yet still people don't seem to care," Wilson --stabbing victim Jacinth Baker's uncle -- told CNN. "They are more interested in football."

It's true that many of the homages in the media to Lewis have made scant or no mention of what happened in Atlanta.

But it still comes up frequently.

People mentioned "Lewis" and "murder" in nearly one of every 10 messages posted about him to social media websites in late January, according to analytics firm Fizziology. About 18% of the 63,319 posts about him were negative. But 40% were positive, the company said.

Some in sports media have been critical, as well. NBC Radio host Amani Toomer, the former New York Giants wide receiver, told USA Today last week that he thinks Lewis is a hypocrite.

"If you want to say you're Mr. Religious and all of that, have a clean record. Don't say all of that stuff if you know there's stuff that might come back," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "Those are the things that, when I look at him, I just think hypocrisy."

On Tuesday, as he prepared to close out his career with one last game, Lewis declined to talk about the Atlanta killings, as he has so often since they happened.

"Nobody here is really qualified to ask those questions," Lewis told reporters, according to numerous media reports.

Revisiting the scene

For 13 years, Reginald Oakley has also remained silent about what happened in Atlanta.

But this week, he agreed to walk through the Atlanta neighborhood where the killings happened and talk about that night.

It's the first time, he said, he's returned to the scene. The neighborhood has changed drastically, but the memories are still fresh.

"It was self-defense for me because someone attacked me," Oakley told CNN.

He still maintains he did not stab anyone.

But for the first time, Oakley cast doubt on Lewis' version of what happened that night. Lewis wasn't a peacemaker, he says, but a participant in the fight.

"I don't know if he was wrestling or fighting, but I know he was right in the mix with everybody else," Oakley said. "I think he was just standing up for himself. It's just too bad that when the police asked him what happened he wouldn't come clean."

But Garland, the defense lawyer, remains unrelenting in his defense of the football star.

"He was not involved in the fight; he didn't cause it," Garland said. "He didn't take an act or step or statement to make this happen. He was no more guilty than the other 100 people on the street."

Storybook ending?

The convoluted accounts of what happened that night still anger the families of the victims.

"All of them were involved in it and nobody wants to tell the truth with exactly what happened," Wilson said.

And he just doesn't understand how football fans can get swept up by the story of Lewis' redemption.

To him, Lewis is a criminal ringleader "hiding behind the Bible."

"This will never fade," Wilson said. "I hope it haunts them for the rest of their life until the day they die and then they burn in hell."

But if Lewis is thinking back on what happened in Atlanta, he's not letting on. He was all smiles during Super Bowl media appearances this week, even while batting down fresh accusations claiming he used a banned performance-enhancing substance.

He hasn't gone out this week, he says. He doesn't want to. All he's thinking about is football.

"You draw up a lot of storybook endings, but for me, how else would I rather go out than be on the biggest stage ever," Lewis said, "giving everything I've got for my teammates to be able to touch that Lombardi trophy."

Of course, the true end to Lewis' playing career will come in a few years when he is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

It's just a few miles down the road from where Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar, childhood friends from Akron, Ohio, were buried 13 years ago.