Steve McNair’s Girlfriend: Sahel Kazemi, the Shooting, and the Ruling

Steve McNair’s girlfriend was Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi, a 20-year-old Nashville waitress who had been involved with the married former NFL MVP for about six months when, in the early hours of July 4, 2009, she shot him four times as he slept on the sofa of his downtown condominium and then killed herself. Nashville police ruled the deaths a murder-suicide within days, and the case has remained classified that way ever since, despite periodic challenges from a private investigator hired by McNair’s mother.

Who Sahel Kazemi Was

Kazemi was born in Tehran, Iran, to a family that practiced the Baha’i faith and faced persecution. Her mother was murdered in a home invasion when Kazemi was nine. The family fled to Turkey and then to the United States, where Kazemi arrived in August 2002 at age 13 as an Iranian refugee and settled in Jacksonville, Florida, with her older sister Soheyla, who became her guardian.¹ She attended Orange Park High School, dropped out, and moved to Nashville at 16 with a boyfriend.²

By 2008 she was waitressing at the Dave & Buster’s inside Opry Mills. McNair walked into her section in December 2008, and the relationship began from there.³ McNair was 36, retired from the NFL since April 2008 after 13 seasons with the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens, co-winner of the 2003 Associated Press MVP, and the first Black quarterback to lead an AFC team to a Super Bowl.⁴

The Affair, the Marriage, and the Other Women

McNair had been married to his wife, Mechelle, since 1997, and the couple had two sons. He told Kazemi he was getting divorced and that it would be finalized soon. No divorce proceedings were ever filed.⁵⁶

McNair rented a downtown Nashville condominium where he spent time with Kazemi, took her on trips to Florida, California, Hawaii, and his farm in Mississippi, and for her 20th birthday in May 2009 co-signed a black Cadillac Escalade for her.⁵

He was also involved with at least one other woman, 25-year-old Nashville resident Leah Ignagni,⁷ and was paying rent on a separate Nashville apartment connected to another woman, Adrianne Hobbs.⁸

Kazemi figured out she wasn’t the only one. Her former roommate, Emily Andrews, told police Kazemi had found a tampon in the bathroom of McNair’s condo and had seen a woman leaving the unit on another occasion. In June 2009, Ignagni reported to police that she had been followed by a woman driving a black Cadillac Escalade after leaving McNair’s condo.⁷ On July 1, Kazemi discovered used condoms in the condo.³

The Last Three Days

Kazemi was coming apart under more than jealousy. She was carrying payments on both the Escalade and a Kia, and her roommate was moving out, which would effectively double her rent.⁹ On July 2 she listed her furniture for sale on Craigslist from a friend’s computer.³

Early that same morning, she was pulled over while driving the Escalade and arrested for DUI. She had bloodshot eyes and alcohol on her breath, refused a Breathalyzer, and told officers she was “not drunk, she was high.” McNair was in the passenger seat. He was not charged, left the scene in a taxi, and later bailed her out.¹⁰ Dashcam video from the stop later showed Kazemi repeatedly asking McNair to come to the police cruiser, and an officer noted that McNair appeared “not happy.”¹¹

Around the same stretch of days, Kazemi first approached Adrian Gilliam Jr. about buying a gun. Gilliam was a 33-year-old convicted felon and car salesman from La Vergne, Tennessee, whom Kazemi had met while trying to sell her Kia. After persistent texts and calls, she bought a loaded 9mm Bryco/Jennings semiautomatic pistol from him for $100 on July 3, in the parking lot of the mall where she worked. Gilliam gave her basic instructions on how to use it.¹²

Her texts to McNair that day were strained. “Baby I might have a break down Im so stressed,” she wrote at 10:05 a.m., and sent other messages complaining of chest pains and difficulty breathing. Earlier she had sent him the cryptic line, “Im gonna have all of u soon.”¹³¹³

McNair spent the night of July 2 at Leah Ignagni’s apartment. On July 3 he told Kazemi by text that he was “at the pool with the kids” and would not leave his house until “the kids fall asleep.” He arrived at his downtown condo between 1:15 and 1:30 a.m. on July 4 to meet Kazemi. Her final text, sent at 1:14 a.m., confirmed she had left the door open for him.¹⁴

The Shooting

According to the investigation, Kazemi shot McNair while he slept on the sofa. She fired first into his right temple, then twice into his chest, then once into his left temple. She sat beside him and shot herself once in the right temple. Police Chief Ronal Serpas said investigators believed she had positioned herself so she would fall into his lap when she died.¹³

Nearly 12 hours passed before anyone found them. Wayne Neeley, a friend of McNair’s who held the lease on the condo, arrived shortly before 1:00 p.m. and told police he initially thought McNair was sleeping. Instead of calling 911, he contacted Robert “Big Daddy” Gaddy, a longtime friend and business associate of McNair’s. Gaddy went to the condo and placed a 911 call at approximately 1:35 p.m.¹⁵ Police later said they were “no longer concerned” about the roughly 40-minute delay.¹⁶

What Police Concluded

Serpas announced within days that the deaths were a murder-suicide. All five bullets and shell casings recovered at the scene matched the 9mm pistol Kazemi had bought from Gilliam. Trace gunshot residue was found on Kazemi’s left hand, suggesting she had used both hands to fire. McNair had no defensive wounds, there were no signs of a struggle, and investigators found no evidence anyone else had been in the condo.¹⁵ Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Feng Li said the evidence that Kazemi had killed McNair and then herself was “almost an assured thing.”¹³

Serpas described Kazemi as “spinning out of control” in the days before the killings, pointing to her financial distress, the DUI arrest, her discovery that McNair was seeing another woman, and her repeated statements about wanting to “end it all.”⁹ Gilliam, who sold Kazemi the gun, was charged federally with being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced on December 18, 2009, to two and a half years in federal prison.¹⁷

Why Some People Still Question the Ruling

The murder-suicide finding has been challenged for years, most prominently by former Nashville police officer Vincent Hill, whom McNair’s mother hired in 2012 to look into the case. Hill has written two books on the killings, including Playbook to a Murder.⁵¹⁸¹⁹

Hill brought his theories to a three-member panel of the Davidson County grand jury in 2010 with a 32-page complaint. The panel found “insufficient evidence” to send it to a full grand jury.²⁰ He tried again in October 2018, presenting Kazemi’s text messages from the night of July 3 as evidence that she had other plans and had not intended to go to the condo. The grand jury again declined to reopen the case.²¹

Nashville detectives who worked the case have rejected Hill’s claims. Detective Charles Robinson called them “disgusting” and questioned Hill’s credentials, noting he had never worked a homicide as an officer. Retired detective Pat Postiglione called the investigation “airtight.”¹⁸ Former Titans head coach Jeff Fisher has said publicly that he believes “things don’t add up,” but added, “I don’t want to speculate. Just let it go.”¹⁹

The case has been revisited in a 2018 nine-part Sports Illustrated podcast, Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan,²² and in the 2024 Netflix documentary Untold: The Murder of Air McNair, which included police interview footage, crime scene photos, and an interview with Fisher.²³ The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has not reopened the investigation, and the case remains officially classified as a murder-suicide.⁵

1
ESPN. Outside the Lines – Steve McNair
2
Jacksonville.com. Details on Sahel Kazemi
3
The Tennessean. Steve McNair Death: Sahel Jenni Kazemi Anniversary
4
Tennessee Titans. A Look Back at the Career of Steve McNair
5
People. Who Killed Steve McNair
6
NFL.com. Details About McNair’s Relationship With Kazemi Emerge
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CBS News. Leah Ignagni Identified as Steve McNair’s Other Lover in Police Report
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CBS News. Murdered Football Star Steve McNair Paid for Another Woman’s Apartment, Records Show
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WLBT. McNair Death Ruled Murder-Suicide
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ESPN. McNair Girlfriend Arrested for DUI
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KAIT8. Officer: McNair Unhappy in Girlfriend’s DUI Stop
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CBS News. The Strange Story of the Gun That Murdered McNair
13
CNN. McNair Shooting Investigation
14
CNN. QB Killed Investigation
15
Baltimore Sun. News Release From Nashville Police: McNair’s Death a Murder-Suicide
16
WPLN. MNPD Determines Murder-Suicide in McNair Death
17
CBS News. Adrian Gilliam, Man Who Sold Gun That Killed McNair, Sentenced
18
NBC Bay Area. Murder-Suicide Finding Questioned in McNair Case
19
Today. Steve Air McNair Murder True Story
20
Tennessee Titans. Grand Jury Decides Against Reopening McNair Case
21
The Tennessean. Steve McNair Murder: Grand Jury Declines to Reopen Case
22
Sports Illustrated. Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan Podcast
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The Guardian. Untold: The Murder of Air McNair Review