Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
New York Post
Steve McNair documentary explores questionable police investigation into QB’s murder
By Dylan Svoboda,
4 hours ago
A new Netflix “Untold” documentary is calling into question the investigation into former NFL star Steve McNair’s death.
McNair was 36 when he was shot to death on July 4, 2009, in his apartment in downtown Nashville.
It was determined by the Nashville police he had been killed by his girlfriend, Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi, in a murder-suicide.
Fifteen years later, there are still questions as to whether the police department thoroughly vetted the case, leaving those close to McNair, the 2003 NFL MVP and three-time Pro Bowler, to wonder about the true nature of his death.
Steve McNair was murdered in his downtown Nashville apartment in 2009. Netflix
“I think once people start to see the gaps, the holes and the things that don’t make sense in this case, anybody with common sense is gonna say, ‘Wait a minute guys, like, you screwed up,’” Vincent Hill, a private investigator who wrote a book criticizing the police’s narrative of the murder, said in the documentary.
Investigators found Kazemi, a 20-year-old Dave & Buster’s waitress, to be the one who pulled the trigger on McNair, and then on herself, after finding a gun underneath her and gunpowder on her hand.
The couple, police found, had been having relationship problems in recent days and Kazemi had also gotten a DUI two days before their deaths, among other findings that led them to conclude she killed McNair and herself.
But Hill alleges that the case wasn’t so simple.
Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi was found to have killed McNair and then herself in a murder-suicide. Netflix
“Nashville Police, it made a lot of mistakes,” Hill said.
The biggest one, Hill alleges, was believing the story of Adrian Gilliam, who claimed to have barely known Kazemi before selling her the gun used in the murder, which was under his name.
After interviewing him a day after the murder, police would later find out that Gilliam had, in fact, been close with Kazemi, exchanging more than 200 calls in the weeks leading up to the murder and one right after midnight on the day of their deaths, police records indicate.
Steve McNair (center) during a Titans-Raiders game in 2002. AP
Those initial falsehoods, Hill said, should have set off an alarm for investigators at the time.
“Adrian Gilliam lied about where he was at the time of the murders,” Hill said. “Lied about how many times he had been in contact with Jenni. His alibi is shot, he’s the last person to call her, [and] it’s his gun. It’s not rocket science.”
Jeff Fisher coached McNair for ten years in Tennessee and Houston. Netflix
Hill also interrogated the actions of McNair’s longtime friend, Robert Gaddy.
Gaddy and another friend, Wayne Neely, discovered the bodies.
Gaddy reportedly had a dispute with McNair before the murder over $13,000 and was the one to call 911 at the apartment.
In an interview in the documentary, lead investigator Charles Robinson refuted the claims, questioning the credentials of Hill.
The crime scene after Steve McNair’s death Netflix
“Ask him for his resume. “… How many murders did [he] work on the police department?” Robinson said.
“Zero. And [he] wasn’t even doing investigative work when [he] left the police department. His first investigation was, guess what? Steve McNair.”
Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi was found to have killed McNair and then herself in a murder-suicide. AP A memorial for Steve McNair Netflix
Former Titans head coach Jeff Fisher, who coached McNair for 10 years in Houston and Tennessee, including a Super Bowl run in 1999 with the Titans, didn’t want to make guesses during his appearance in the documentary.
“I can make a case that things don’t add up,” Fisher said. “… I don’t want to speculate. Just let it go. Let it go.”
For the latest in sports, top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com/sports/
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0