Steve McNair Crime Scene: Wounds, Forensics, and Grand Jury Review

The Steve McNair crime scene was a rented condominium in downtown Nashville, where on July 4, 2009, the former NFL MVP was found shot four times on a living-room couch next to his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, who had a single gunshot wound to the head and a 9mm pistol beneath her body. Police concluded it was a murder-suicide: Kazemi shot McNair while he slept, then sat down beside him and shot herself.

Where the Bodies Were Found

The condominium sat near the intersection of Second Avenue South and Lea Avenue in downtown Nashville.¹²³

Neeley entered the condo on the afternoon of July 4 and discovered the two bodies. He was too shaken to call 911 himself. Instead he phoned Robert Gaddy, a friend and former teammate of McNair’s, who came to the condo and placed the emergency call.² Police later estimated the shootings occurred around 2 a.m. that morning.

What Investigators Documented Inside the Condo

McNair was on a couch. Police believe he was asleep when the first shots were fired.⁴ Kazemi lay on the blood-soaked carpet in front of the couch, and officers recovered a 9mm semiautomatic pistol beneath her body.⁵

Investigators photographed deep red stains on the couch, bloodstained carpet, and roughly a dozen liquor bottles on the kitchen counter. They cut chunks of drywall out of the wall behind the couch and marked bullet strikes and stains with evidence labels. Fingerprint dust coated surfaces throughout the apartment.³

Police reconstructed the sequence as follows: Kazemi fired at McNair from a short distance, then sat down next to him on the couch and placed the gun against her own temple.⁴

The Wounds

Tennessee Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Feng Li performed the autopsy on McNair and ruled the death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.⁶ McNair had been shot four times:

A close-range wound to the right temple. The bullet traveled leftward, backward, and downward through the brain and lodged in the left ear canal.
A distant wound to the left temple. The bullet passed through the left eye and brain and exited the right temple.
A distant wound to the right chest, through the right lung and liver, exiting through the right side of the back.
A distant wound to the left chest, through the liver, stomach, pancreas, and left kidney, exiting the left side of the back.

Medical examiner Bruce Levy said three of the shots were fired from a distance, while the wound to McNair’s right temple was inflicted from just inches away.⁵ Kazemi had a single gunshot wound to the head, and the medical examiner determined the gun was in contact with her skin when it discharged.⁷

Forensic Findings From the Scene

Toxicology showed that McNair’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit at the time of his death, although the medical examiner said it was not possible to determine how long before the shooting he had been drinking. Kazemi had a trace amount of marijuana in her system.⁸

The gunshot residue test on Kazemi’s hands came back inconclusive because of blood contamination. Nashville police said trace elements indicative of gunshot residue were found on her left hand, and based on that, investigators concluded she had likely fired the weapon with both hands.⁹ No gunshot residue was found on McNair’s hands.

The pistol itself was a 9mm Bryco/Jennings semiautomatic. Adrian J. Gilliam Jr., a convicted felon, later admitted selling it to Kazemi for $100 in a parking lot in the days before the shooting.¹⁰ Gilliam pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.¹¹

How Police Read the Scene

Nashville Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas announced the deaths as a murder-suicide. In the official account, Kazemi shot McNair while he was asleep on the couch, then sat down beside him and shot herself. Serpas said Kazemi had told friends she was overwhelmed by financial problems and wanted to “end it all,” and that she had recently discovered McNair was seeing another woman.⁴

Dr. Li said the ballistics tests and gunshot residue evidence supported the classification. Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, commenting on the scene, said the “overkill” of four gunshot wounds suggested rage and revenge, and that Kazemi’s positioning near McNair’s body indicated a “symbolic kind of possession.”¹²

Challenges to How the Scene Was Interpreted

Not everyone accepted the murder-suicide ruling. Vincent Hill, a former Nashville police officer, became the most vocal critic. He wrote a book titled Playbook to a Murder and filed a 32-page complaint asking a Davidson County grand jury to reopen the case.¹³

Hill’s objections centered on physical evidence at the scene. He argued that the close-range shot to McNair’s right temple was “more consistent with an execution than a crime of passion.” He questioned why Kazemi would have needed to buy a gun on the black market when McNair kept a Glock in the condo as an auxiliary police officer in Mississippi. He also noted that McNair was known for carrying large amounts of cash, yet only $7 was recovered on him at the scene, and he alleged that Nashville police moved too quickly to close a high-profile case.¹⁴

A CBS News investigation raised its own questions, reporting that phone records showed 49 contacts between Kazemi and Gilliam on July 3 alone and more than 200 texts and calls in the three weeks before the shooting, contradicting Gilliam’s initial claim that he barely knew her. The same report characterized the evidence that Gilliam sold Kazemi the gun as thin and pointed to the inconclusive residue test on her hands.¹⁵

In the 2024 Netflix documentary Untold: The Murder of Air McNair, Hill added that Gilliam had been dishonest about his contact with Kazemi and pointed to a $13,000 business dispute between McNair and Robert Gaddy. Gaddy dismissed the claims as “conspiracy theories,” and Nashville detective Charles Robinson called Hill’s efforts “disgusting,” noting Hill had never worked murder cases during his time on the force.¹⁶

The Grand Jury Review and Where the Case Stands

In June 2010, a three-member panel of the Davidson County grand jury reviewed Hill’s complaint and declined to reopen the case, finding that he “lacked evidence to support his views.”¹⁷ Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said the department “stands by its investigation.” Davidson County District Attorney Torry Johnson said the theories challenging the findings were “not backed up by facts,” adding that “nothing we have seen can refute the fact that anyone other than Sahel Kazemi fired those shots.”¹⁸

Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson, who succeeded Serpas, gave a similar defense of the work at the scene: “Detectives with decades of cumulative homicide investigative experience worked hundreds of hours to develop the facts surrounding the circumstances of these deaths. Without any doubt, I remain confident in the murder-suicide conclusion.”¹⁴ The case remains officially closed.

1
The Tennessean. Steve McNair Tragic Death
2
CBS News. McNair 911 Call
3
New York Daily News. Steve McNair Sahel Kazemi Love Nest Became Blood Soaked Crime Scene
4
Baltimore Ravens. Details on McNair Murder Come to Light
5
CBS News. Gruesome Details of NFL Star’s Murder Scene
6
Autopsy Files. Steve McNair Autopsy Report
7
Savannah Morning News. Lack Motive Slows McNair Case
8
CBS News. McNair Was Drunk Before Murdered
9
Baltimore Sun. News Release From Nashville Police: McNair’s Death a Murder-Suicide
10
NFL.com. Feds Charge Convicted Felon Who Sold Gun Later Used to Kill Ex-QB
11
NFL.com. Man Sentenced to Prison in Sale of Gun That Shot McNair
12
The Tennessean. Steve McNair Death Anniversary
13
The Tennessean. Steve McNair Murder Vincent Hill Podcast
14
NBC Bay Area. Murder-Suicide Finding Questioned in McNair Case
15
CBS News. Phone Records: Steve McNair’s Lover Sahel Kazemi and Gun Seller Were in Constant Contact
16
Today. Steve ‘Air’ McNair Murder True Story
17
Tennessee Titans. Grand Jury Decides Against Reopening McNair Case
18
NFL.com. Jury Team Declines Investigator’s Request to Re-open McNair Case