The next time you hear somebody make a male-bashing comment about how women are always the victims of domestic violence at the hands of men, point out the case of 36-year-old Steve McNair. On July 4, 2009, the NFL football star who formerly played for the Houston Oilers, Baltimore Ravens, and Tennessee Titans teams was allegedly murdered while asleep by his 20-year-old girlfriend/lover Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi by four gunshots, two to the head and two to the chest. It appears Kazemi then turned the gun on herself in direct contact to her head.
McNair’s friend Wayne Neely first found the bodies in McNair’s Nashville condominium when he arrived there around 1pm, several hours after the deaths. He called friend Robert Gaddy to the scene. Gaddy then placed a 911 call to alert police of the dead bodies.
Kazemi apparently had substance abuse problems judging from her recent DUI arrest on July 2. In the arrest report, police stated that Kazemi had bloodshot eyes and alcohol on her breath when she was pulled over. She refused a breathalyzer test, saying “she was not drunk, she was high.” She reportedly bought the semi-automatic handgun used to kill McNair later the day of her DUI arrest for $100 in a mall parking lot.
McNair’s wife Mechelle McNair reportedly didn’t know of the affair, learning of it only because of her husband’s murder. Some commentators speculate that wife Mechelle did know of the affair and hired a killer to murder both her husband and his lover. However, the police consider it more likely that Kazemi become suicidal and homicidal over relationship problems with McNair. She reportedly suspected McNair was having an affair with another woman. She was also having financial problems.
(from Kazemi bought gun for $100 in mall lot [1])
Nashville police say in the days leading up to the murder-suicide, Kazemi saw another young woman leaving the condominium where she and McNair would soon be found dead. Kazemi also was worried about money.
On Thursday, July 2, the same day she was arrested for DUI, Kazemi purchased a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol for $100 from a man in the parking lot of the mall where she worked.
About two weeks before Kazemi killed McNair and herself, police say, she poured out her troubles in a chance meeting with Vera Mosley Buckner, a customer at the Dave and Buster’s restaurant where Kazemi worked. The young waitress asked Buckner, a stranger, if she could talk to her.
“She sat down in the booth in front of me and the first thing she said was, ‘Have you ever been in love?’ ” said Buckner, of Decatur, Ala.
Kazemi then opened her heart.
“She said, ‘I date Steve McNair.’ … And she said, ‘We’ve been dating for eight months and we’ve been on all kinds of vacations, but lately he acts like he doesn’t want to spend time with me and I don’t know what to do.’ ”
By sometime in the early hours of the Fourth of July, she had made up her mind.
Police say when McNair went to his downtown condo sometime between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Saturday, Kazemi’s car was already there. He was sitting on the sofa, likely asleep, when she shot him twice in the head and twice in the chest. Then she sat down next to him, positioning herself so that she would fall into his lap, and shot herself.
If either of those scenarios is true, Steve McNair was killed directly or indirectly by a troubled woman. It goes to show that guys, even famous rich guys, have to learn to watch out for signs of women with mental illness and try to avoid triggering such women with their own poor choices and promiscuous ways.
Kazemi reportedly was a drug user and into partying. Her childhood was troubled as her family was religiously persecuted in Iran and her mother was reportedly murdered when she was 9 years old. Her family then fled from Iran to Turkey before settling in Florida. It’s sounds like a recipe for causing mental illness in a child, and a sad ending for two flawed people who despite their problems didn’t deserve to die. Perhaps if mental illness was better understood and taken more seriously by the general public, this tragedy could have been averted.
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Further Reading
Breaking Mental Illness, Violence, Divorce, and Murder Cycles [4]
Women Get Off Easy for DV Crimes Due to Sexism [5]
False Feminists and Abusive and Murderous Women [6]
Fathers and Families’ Holstein Discusses McNair Murder on Radio (Audio Available) [7]
‘Victim-Blaming’ in the McNair Domestic Violence Murder [8]
Kazemi bought gun for $100 in mall lot [1]
Murder-suicide likely in McNair case, official says [9]
McNair killer’s dark last days come to light [10]
UNITED STATES: Cops wait for tests in McNair homocide [11]
Audio: Steve McNair Murder 911 Call Released