Vikings cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said he talked to his brother, Timothy Moore, “about a hundred times” last weekend.

Asked for a better estimate, Munnerlyn pulled out his phone and went through his records.

“I will tell you exactly,” he said. “It was 32.”

Moore, who is 13 years Munnerlyn’s elder, was a father figure to him before being convicted of murder in a 1995 shooting incident in the family’s hometown of Mobile, Ala. Timothy spent 18-1/2 years in prison in Atmore, Ala., before he was granted parole last June.

Moore is living in a transition center in Thomasville, Ala., until Feb. 11, 2016.

Last weekend, he received his first pass and went out into civilization as a free man for the first time since the 1990s.

Munnerlyn couldn’t join his brother at a family gathering in Mobile because he was with the Vikings for a game in Detroit, but he was plugged in for many hours on FaceTime. Munnerlyn is holding out hope that his brother will be able to get another 48-hour pass and see Minnesota play Nov. 29 at Atlanta.

“It would be great,” said Munnerlyn, 27, a seven-year veteran. “I know I’d be amped up because my big brother would finally get to see me play football, especially in the NFL. It has been a dream come true for me to make it to the NFL, and he has been talking to me about it step by step.

“I always told him that I was going to make the NFL, so it would definitely be a blessing to see him in the stands, and I’d be overwhelmed. A lot of emotions would flare up in me.”

Munnerlyn was 7 when Moore, 40, was charged with murder. His brother has only occasionally seen him play football on television.

Moore plans to check with his parole officer to see if he can get a pass to attend the game in Atlanta. Munnerlyn’s other brother, Gregory Moore, 36, called it a “30-70” percent chance because Timothy might not be eligible for another pass until December.

The Vikings don’t have any December games near Alabama. Gregory, who will attend Minnesota’s Nov. 8 game against St. Louis at TCF Bank Stadium, said it might be too risky for Timothy to fly somewhere and perhaps not make it back on time.

If it doesn’t work out this season, Timothy Moore is resolved to wait until 2016.

“It’s going to be overwhelming whenever it is that I get a chance to see Captain play in person,” he said. “I never saw him play in high school, I never saw him play in college (at South Carolina), I never saw him play in the NFL. It’s going to be so emotional.”

Munnerlyn and his two brothers grew up in Happy Hill, a drug-ravaged section of Mobile. While Munnerlyn was a child, his two older brothers were running the streets and dealing drugs.

In 1995, Timothy, then 19, had some items stolen. When he and Gregory, then 15, were driving in a car and saw the guy who allegedly took them, Timothy opened fire. Instead of hitting the intended target, the bullet struck a 15-year-old boy in the back and killed him. Timothy was convicted of murder in 1996.

Gregory was acquitted in that case, although he later served a year in prison on a robbery conviction.

During the murder trial, Evelyn Munnerlyn, mother of the three boys, said she gave her life to Christ. She eventually got into church work and is now a minister at Mount Hebron Church Ministries in Mobile.

Timothy and Gregory say they both followed their mother’s lead. Gregory lives in Birmingham, Ala., and does prison ministry work.

“I was able to turn my life around when I was in prison,” Timothy said. “I just turned it around and gave it all to God. I am very remorseful. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about a life that was lost.”

Timothy said he was well down a destructive path before going to prison, already acquitted of murder following a shooting incident in the early 1990s.

While both brothers sold drugs, Gregory said Timothy, as the ringleader, made the bulk of the money.

“It was cocaine and weed,” Gregory said. “My brother might have spent $13,000 a week sometimes on dope. I’d say $3,000, $4,000 a week he could make.”

A young Munnerlyn was shielded from a lot from what was happening. While he said he later learned Timothy “was really out there” with what he was doing, he admired his older brother.

“We were definitely really close. He was like a father figure to me since my dad had passed away,” said Munnerlyn, whose father, Larry Crear, was shot to death when Captain was 6.

“I looked up to my big brother,” Munnerlyn said. “He would buy me whatever I wanted, video games and everything. He would buy me all the latest Air Jordans that came out. I had an idea where the money was coming from, but then again, I was so young that I didn’t really know.”

Munnerlyn gets emotional when he talks about the years Timothy spent in prison.

“That’s my big brother,” he said. “I miss my big brother. But if my brother hadn’t have gone through this murder trial, I don’t think I’d be here today (in the NFL). I think it changed my whole family’s life around 180 (degrees). My mom changed her life and she got saved and she’s a preacher now, and it changed my brother Gregory’s life.

“I’m sorry that somebody lost their life; you never want to see that happening in life. But I feel that Timothy paid the price. He has been in prison for a very long time. People can be forgiven for stuff they do in life.”

Timothy agrees Munnerlyn might never have made it out of Happy Hill had it not been for his murder trial and his subsequent conviction.

“If it hadn’t happened, I think he would have followed in my footsteps,” Timothy said. “I was into drugs, and I was not setting a good example. He probably would have grown up selling drugs and looked up to me because I was doing it.”

Munnerlyn lives during the offseason in Charlotte, N.C., but he made it a point over the years to visit his brother in prison whenever he was back in Alabama. The two spoke on the phone whenever prison rules would permit.

Munnerlyn never will forget his brother calling June 16 to say he had been granted parole. It was the first day of a three-day Vikings minicamp, and Munnerlyn was nursing a foot injury.

“I got the call, and it was like, ‘I’m finally coming home,’ ” Munnerlyn said. “It was amazing. He was so happy to be coming home.”

Last weekend’s visit marked Timothy’s first trip to Mobile in nearly two decades. His mother arranged a cookout at her home, and about 100 people attended. His mother, Gregory and Timothy’s best friend, Lewis Snipes, took him shopping for clothes, and Timothy met his brother’s son, Captain Jr., 4, for the first time and watched him play in a pee-wee football game.

“I got to see Cap Jr. play running back,” Timothy said.

For a man who hadn’t been out in society for so long, there was plenty during his Friday-to-Sunday visit that had his head spinning.

“Everybody is talking on phones now,” Timothy said. “Nobody is paying attention to anybody. They’re all just talking on phones with all the technology in the world now.”

Munnerlyn laughed when talking about one innovation that boggled his brother’s mind.

“He at first didn’t know what FaceTime was,” Munnerlyn said. “He couldn’t believe that you could actually see somebody when talking to them.”

Timothy’s visit concluded with him giving a 15-minute testimony to several hundred worshippers Sunday morning at Mount Hebron. He talked about mistakes he made and how he had worked to rebuild his life.

“I had tears in my eyes,” said Evelyn Munnerlyn, 56. “It was emotional. I had told God that he had to be sent to prison so that he could save his life. I asked God to protect him when he was in prison, and thank God he is coming home. The greatest gift the family has had is that we’re going to be united again.”

After Timothy is released in February, he vows to give back to the community. He hopes to work with paroled inmates transitioning from prison and to coach children in youth football.

And, of course, Timothy wants to see his brother on the field as much as possible.

“He always says, ‘I can’t wait to see my brother play,’ ” Snipes said. “It’s like a dream. He’s always wanted to see him play. He can’t believe that from where they came from, he went off to prison, and who would have thought his baby brother would have gone on to the NFL?”

Follow Chris Tomasson at twitter.com/christomasson.