Former NFL star Steve McNair was shot dead in his sleep last week by a 20-year-old girlfriend distraught about mounting financial problems and her belief that he was seeing someone else, police said Wednesday.
Investigators may never know why Sahel Kazemi shot McNair four times as he dozed on a sofa early Saturday before turning the gun on herself, Police Chief Ronal Serpas said.
But interviews with friends revealed that she was making payments on two cars, her rent was doubling and she suspected the married McNair was having a second affair with another young woman.
She told a friend on Friday that "My life is a ball of s--t and I should end it," Serpas said.
Police earlier had labeled McNair's death a homicide, but waited for further tests and the revelations about Kazemi's personal problems before concluding that she pulled the trigger in a condominium McNair rented with a friend.
McNair was asleep when he was killed because there were no defensive wounds. After shooting McNair in the head, Kazemi apparently shot him twice in the chest before shooting him again in the head and then shooting herself. The gun was found underneath her.
She sat next to his body and tried to position herself to fall into his lap when she died. She did, but her body slid to the floor and ended up at McNair's feet, Serpas said. The gun was found underneath her.
Kazemi's family told reporters that the woman was so confident McNair was divorcing his wife of 12 years that she was preparing to sell her furniture and move in with him.
But associate Mike Mu, who has worked with McNair's charitable association for years, said McNair's wife, Mechelle McNair, "didn't know who this girl is." No records of divorce proceedings have surfaced.
Two days before the shooting, police stopped Kazemi driving the Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle that McNair had given her for her birthday in May.
According to an arrest affidavit, Kazemi had bloodshot eyes and alcohol on her breath. She refused a breath test and told an officer "she was not drunk, she was high." She was charged with DUI. McNair was with her but not charged. He later made her bail.
Source: NPR