The untold story of Steve ‘Air’ McNair, the NFL icon who was brutally murdered in mystery which has inspired Netflix doc

WHO really killed NFL icon Steve ‘Air’ McNair?

The brutal murder of the former Tennessee Titans quarterback in 2009 has been the subject of constant mystery and speculation.

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Now McNair’s shocking death is being explored in season four of the Netflix sports documentary series Untold.

McNair, a former NFL MVP, was just 36 years old when he died from multiple gunshot wounds in his downtown Nashville apartment in the early hours of July 4, 2009.

At the time, Nashville police declared that the retired quarterback had died in a murder-suicide at the hands of girlfriend Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi .

Kazemi was a 20-year-old waitress at a Dave & Buster’s restaurant whom the married McNair had been dating for a few months.

The 9mm gun used to kill them both was found under Kazemi’s body and later tests revealed evidence of gunpowder residue on her left hand.

Nashville police said that the motive for the murder-suicide was down to Kazemi’s spiralling debts and that she suspected that McNair was seeing another woman.

“We can’t put ourselves in the minds of people who do these terribly irrational acts, but we do believe there’s evidence that she was spinning out of control,” Ronal Serpas, Nashville’s police chief said at the time.

Police said Kazemi shot McNair in his left temple as he slept on his couch.

Cops said after she killed her lover, she shot herself in the temple.

But the ruling made little sense to McNair’s family and friends, who have launched a number of alternate theories.

According to a nine-part true crime podcast, Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan , Kazemi was arrested for DUI around 2:30 a.m. two days before the shooting.

McNair was with her at the time and he bailed her out of jail.

The next morning, Kazemi texted McNair, asking for $2,000 to help pay her bills, which included rent and car payments.

Kazemi had been hopeful that McNair would divorce his wife for her but according to police, she believed that the NFL star was seeing another woman.

Kazemi reportedly told a co-worker on July 3: “My life is just s**t, and I should end it!”

Earlier that day, Kazemi bought the 9mm pistol which was recovered at the murder scene.

McNair was likely asleep when Kazemi shot him in the left side of his head from a distance of a few feet, according to investigators.

She then shot him two more times in the chest, and once more on his head from close range.

My life is just s**t, and I should end it!

Jenni Kazemi

Police said Kazemi subsequently sat next to McNair and shot herself in her head before collapsing to the ground.

But the police’s theory of the murder-suicide has been questioned by a number of people close to McNair.

There are doubts about whether the 20-year-old who had never owned a gun before was able to pull the trigger on McNair – or on herself.

“I talked to family and friends of Jenni who knew her, who talked to her in the final weeks of her life, and they told me she wasn’t upset by these things,” SI podcast narrator Tim Rohan told People .

“They told me that she wasn’t upset about Steve sleeping around, she wasn’t upset about the DUI, she wasn’t strapped for cash.

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“They kind of debunk this idea that she was suicidal and spiraling out of control.”

“These are people who were close to Jenni, who talked to her regularly, who talked to her on the final day of her life, who just don’t believe that she did it.”

According to Netflix, the upcoming McNair film will dive deep into the “unanswered questions surrounding his 2009 murder”.

It will also focus on McNair’s illustrious career, including the Titans’ Super Bowl XXXIV run in 2000.