Speaker 1:
Oh my God, hello, hello, hello, yeah, what's going on, man? This is 911. Oh my God, sorry, what's going on? Police in Nashville confirm ex-NFL quarterback Steve McNair was murdered by his girlfriend, who then shot and killed herself. Yesterday police released video of the girlfriend, who was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving two days before the couple died in the murder-suicide. I mean, I hate that I got to be the one to make this call. It's so messed up. Okay, all right, rob, I got some help coming to you. Now Tell me what happened. I have no idea, sir. Okay, but I mean how did you?
Speaker 1:
I received a phone call. Uh-huh that, uh, there was an injured party inside this apartment, and is it male or female? Two, there's two people. Two people, yeah, and they both appear to be deceased. I think so, sir. I am not trying to freak you out.
Speaker 2:
Do you like documentaries, true crime, crime or unsolved mysteries? This is the episode for you. You love, you miss. You buy True Crime Edition. I'm Christy Chanel. You might want to turn the lights up.
Speaker 2:
I was flipping through Netflix a couple of days ago and I came across the documentary Untold the Murder of Steve McNair. Now I am a self-proclaimed football junkie. I love my Dallas Cowboys, I love football. It's a big part of my life. I am aware of who Steve McNair is and was, but I never really knew his story. I didn't want to just discuss the case it's pretty much everywhere. I wanted to also discuss the aftermath, what it was like finding out your husband was cheating on you, which is well documented all over social media and on Netflix. Imagine being his wife. Yeah, he was married and he had kids. Imagine hearing that story as his wife. I want to talk about it, but first let me introduce you to Michelle.
Speaker 2:
Michelle and Steve met at Alcorn State in Claiborne County, mississippi. Michelle didn't particularly want to go to a tiny school. She had hoped to go to Southern Miss, but she put off doing the paperwork and Alcorn was the first school to offer her a scholarship. Freshman year she had a human anatomy class with McNair and he spent most of it staring at her. She made faces at him to try to get him to stop. He was quiet until you knew him and he waited a while to talk to her. The fact that he was a quarterback everyone on campus was talking about held no currency with Michelle. She wasn't into sports and she already had a boyfriend. But McNair was persistent. He sat behind her in class and constantly flirted. He did annoying things, peeking at her test answers, sticking his giant feet on her book bag. Eventually he grew on her. He was sort of a gentle giant, romantic enough to hide an engagement ring in a piece of strawberry cake and country enough to skin a deer and cook it up for his teammates. Country enough to skin a deer and cook it up for his teammates.
Speaker 2:
Before she met McNair, michelle never thought she would get married. She had plans. She wanted to be a doctor and wanted one child, but didn't think much about a partner. She never imagined she'd leave Mississippi after college to move to Houston with a man who had just been selected at number three in the NFL draft. But plans changed. They got married in Vicksburg, mississippi, in 1997, and a year later Tyler came along, michelle quickly acclimated herself to the life of a football wife. Ex-linemen tell stories about how she used to sit in the stands and yell at them to protect her husband. She had plenty to cheer about by the time the franchise moved to Tennessee in 1997. She had plenty to cheer about by the time the franchise moved to Tennessee in 1997. Mcnair threw for 3,228 yards and 15 touchdowns in 1998. He led the Titans to the Super Bowl a year later.
Speaker 2:
He was known as one of the toughest men in football, playing through a myriad of injuries. He would just come home and be like dead. Tyler says he didn't want to do anything. He didn't want to watch TV, didn't want to eat anything. He'd say I just need some rest. There were good times too. Times when the family would pair up in teams and wrestle Michelle and Tyler on one side, trent and Steve on the other. Times when McNair would take the boys out on his motorcycle and they didn't even need to talk. Steve was a good person. Michelle's mother says he was a good dad. There wasn't anything those children wanted that he didn't get for them. He had just opened Gridiron 9, a catfish and burger joint in North Nashville.
Speaker 2:
In the last days McNair seemed overwhelmed at times, almost as if he was at crossroads. Michelle said he was still trying to figure out his world outside of football. He split time between his home in Nashville and his farms in Collins, mississippi. He felt comfortable in the country, near his siblings and his mother. Lucille McNair also had two other sons from two previous relationships. The transition from football player to businessman was not smooth. The last full conversation he had with Michelle centered on the restaurant's nightly receipts constantly being off and her desire to help. She was so happy at the end of their talk when he said she could attend the next employee meeting. Mcnair had dreams of his restaurant becoming a chain. A few months after his death, the restaurant was sold. He did not have a will, creating a painful mess that dragged on for years. In 2011, a legal spat between Michelle and Lucille over property in Mississippi played out in the local news.
Speaker 2:
Michelle had always considered herself a private person, but after Steve's death, the most intimate details of her life were fodder for the public consumption. Aside from the kid functions and dinners out, she lived the life of a homebody. She had one job to raise her sons. On the morning of July 4th 2009, michelle McNair woke up with a crushing headache. She stood up. The pain radiated from the right side of her skull and she had to lie back down. The pain radiated from the right side of her skull and she had to lie back down. She noticed her husband wasn't home and made a number of phone calls trying to find him. Nobody knew where he was. She got on the elliptical machine hoping some exercise would get rid of her headache. It would not go away. She would wonder later about the signs.
Speaker 2:
Just 24 hours earlier, mcnair had taken his son's fishing. It was a good day for two little boys who saw their dad as a superhero. He cleaned the fish when they got home that night, washed his truck and began to doze off on the couch. But his phone kept ringing. He told Michelle that the alarm was going off at the restaurant, but she knows now that Kazumi was probably the one who called. He said he had to go and kiss the boys. Goodbye, don't go. Tyler and Trent told him. Mcnair said he loved them. He kissed Michelle and told her he loved her too. I'll be back in a little while, he said. By all accounts, it was a whirlwind romance. It started about six months prior to his death.
Speaker 2:
When former Titans quarterback Steve McNair exchanged phone numbers with Sahel Kazemi, a then 19-year-old waitress working at Dave Buster's restaurant, according to friends, she was smitten and so was McNair. For her 20th birthday in late May, mcnair got her a black Cadillac Escalade. Her family met him over sushi dinner that night. Before that, kazumi, also known as Jenny, zipped around in the Bentley telling friends and family about the generosity of her new beau, a former professional athlete. There were trips, dinners, a promise of living together and, ultimately, marriage. According to her nephew, mcnair took Kazemi, known as Jenny, to friends on trips to Key West in Florida, las Vegas, california, hawaii and McNair's farm in Mississippi. Pictures of the smiling couple parasailing were posted on the TMZ site. Jenny told her nephew they would take a break when McNair would go away on his own with the children. I was under the impression that the family knew about her. Her nephew said that Annie took the children alone with him on vacation is a sign that they were separated. Kazumi told her sister that McNair was in the process of divorcing, although a check of Davidson County court records shows there was no divorce pending In the days before their death. Cosme asked Steve McNair for $2,000 to cover bills and assurances that they would be together.
Speaker 2:
Metro Police released a summary report of the investigation into the former Tennessee Titans quarterback's murder that includes text messages and other details about the final hours of Cosme, 20, and McNair. In the early morning of July 3rd, kazumi sent a text message to McNair asking if he loved her. I'm gonna have all of you soon. She said. Yes, you will. Mcnair replied. The deaths were ruled a murder-suicide. Within a week, mcnair was shot four times and Kazemi died from a single gunshot to the head. Neither had any defense wounds and police believe McNair was asleep.
Speaker 2:
Investigators concluded that Kazemi, 20, was drowning in debt and despondent over realizations that McNair was dating other women and wasn't going to leave his wife for her. Early in the morning of July 3rd she texted McNair saying she might have a breakdown because she was so stressed. He responded, telling her everything was going to be okay. Baby, I need to pay the cell phone bills in the hospital. Can you transfer me $2,000 to my account? The text message said. Then, nine minutes later, she said she might need to go to the hospital because she could hardly breathe. A few hours later, she told McNair she needed to pay some bills because they were stressing her out. He assured her he had a guy transferring the money.
Speaker 2:
A Nashville woman named Leigh Ignagny not sure if I'm saying that right told police she had been dating McNair and in the weeks before his death she had left the Leigh Avenue condo and was followed home by a woman in a black Escalade. Lee, who is listed on the LinkedIn profile as the senior editor of a startup magazine called 61.5, also told police she saw the same Escalade parked outside her apartment building and circling the block. On a couple of occasions. Chris Wall, who provided security for McNair's family, told investigators that McNair had got increasingly annoyed over his relationship with Kazumi. She often called him when he was with his wife and children, according to Wall, and he was getting tired of it. He had slowed down the relationship and was seeing her less often. Wall said the following texts were received by McNair's phone on July 3rd. Following texts were received by McNair's phone on July 3rd. Interviews with friends of McNair's confirmed that he was actually out at several Nashville bars the evening hours during this conversation Kazumi, 4.04 pm.
Speaker 2:
Baby, I have to be with you tonight, I don't care where. Kazumi, 4.16 pm. Tell me you're going to be with me? Kazumi, 8.34 pm. Baby, where are you gonna be at when I get off? 850. I'm at home, baby, what time you get off? 851 pm, around 11. 910 pm. Where are you gonna be, my baby? 915 pm, at home, till the kids fall asleep? Kazumi, 9.19 pm. Can I call you when I get off? Kazumi, 10.23 pm. Do you want to get out and drink? Mcnair 10.35 pm. Probably not.
Speaker 2:
Baby, having trouble with the kids getting to sleep? Kazumi, 10.45 pm. Okay, I'm going to go to the condo in a minute. K. I'm going to go to the condo in a minute. Mcnair, 10.50pm. Okay, kazumi, 11.28pm. Day of sleep. Baby. Mcnair, 11.34pm. They are on their way.
Speaker 2:
Mcnair, 12.38am. On my way. Kazumi 12.38am. K. Kazumi 12.48am. You want me to open the gate? Mcnair, 12. Am. You want me to open the gate? Mcnair 1252 AM. Sent twice no, open the front door. Kazumi, 1114 AM. It's open. Kazumi 223 AM. I'm going to the store.
Speaker 2:
Investigators say the last message appears out of sequence and it was received by McNair's phone at 1223 AM, but Kazumi's phone. There was no timestamp on the message. Mcnair was found dead by police on July 4th 2009, at a condominium rented in his name in Nashville. His body had four bullet wounds and was found next to the body of Sahil Jenny Kazumi. The 911 phone call that you heard in the beginning of the episode was made by Steve McNair's friend, former Alcorn State teammate and business associate, robert Gaddy. Mcnair had been married to his wife, michelle, for 12 years and had three children. At the time of his death, nashville authorities checked McNair's phone records and discovered he was involved with multiple women. People close to Jenny interviewed by police said she had realized McNair was seeing other women. Police concluded Jenny purchased a gun only hours after getting cited for driving under the influence two days before McNair's murder. They said she bought it off a Tennessee man named Adrian Gilliam, a convicted felon who was on parole after serving time for a second degree murder and attempted robbery.
Speaker 2:
So, as you can tell, the story looks like and seems to be a murder of, maybe jealousy. The way that the movie comes off, it's showing Kazuma as a jilted mistress. I don't know if that was the case. It seems to me like in the text messages he was responding he was still going to go see her. Why, what would make her turn like that? To me there's a couple of things that don't add up. I don't know. He just didn't come across in the text messages right before it happened Like he was done. If he was sleeping, he wasn't breaking up with her, unless they had a conversation which we'll never know, before the murder there was some bad dealings going on with his finances. His best friend, who people suspect one way or another. I don't. I don't because I I watched him in this episode and he comes across as someone who truly, truly loved him and wanted to be there and wish he was to protect him. Again, I don't know him. Again, I don't know. I don't know. But can you imagine being his wife seeing that, hearing that? Well, I was able to pull up an article from ESPN and this is what she says happens.
Speaker 2:
Michelle's mother, melzina Cartwright, moved in with Michelle and Steve McNair a few years before. So her mother was living with Michelle at the time of Steve McNair's death. When the news of his death flashed on the TV screen, cartwright rushed through the house to Michelle's room. Michelle had just found out. Mama Michelle said do you think it's true? Steve McNair was born on Valentine's Day and he died on the 4th of July. The enormity of his death cannot be overstated. He was an NFL quarterback one season into retirement, a former co-NVP and a Super Bowl participant murdered.
Speaker 2:
Twitter wasn't a factor yet, but there were plenty of media outlets to feed off the stunning story of a Tennessee football hero killed by 20-year-old Sahil Kuzme, a woman with whom he'd been having an affair. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department ruled it a murder-suicide, concluding that Kuzme shot McNair twice in the head in the early morning hours of July 4th, most likely while he was sleeping on the couch of his rented condo. Kuzmi then laid down beside him and fired a bullet into her head. The tabloids fed off the story and ran photos of McNair vacationing with the young waitress and texts they sent each other in their final hours. Everyone wanted to know what Michelle was feeling. How do you think she's feeling? I don't know about her at all, says Michelle. You're going to have people who say, oh, she knew. Did I know about some other people and some other things? Yes, but did I know about her? No, I did not.
Speaker 2:
When it hit her, she fell to the floor screaming. Her children had never seen her like that. Tyler, who was 10, started crying. He ran to the kitchen and got a knife. He said he couldn't live without his daddy and wanted to kill himself. Michelle grabbed him and told him to stop. She said she couldn't bear to lose both of them. The vision of a 10-year-old boy holding a knife was like a cold bucket of water in her face. From that moment on, she could not let her children see her break down. She would not go to her room door closed and sob. She would lean on her friends who dropped everything to be with her in Nashville or cry to her aunts and uncles. But her sons were terrified and confused. She would not lose it in front of them.
Speaker 2:
Steve McNair was buried on a Saturday in his home state of Mississippi. Brett Favre and Ray Lewis and Jay Cutler showed up for the funeral. Trent, who was five, rested his head on his mother's lap during the service. She is thankful for the last day McNair had with the boys and for that night when they argued and made up. At the end of the day, that's my husband. She says I loved him. I still love him. He was human. He made a mistake. Nothing's going to change how I feel about my husband. He took care of us. He loved us. I do know that, regardless of how he left here, I know he loved us.
Speaker 2:
I can't say that I didn't have my bitter moments and that I still don't sometimes. But I'm not going to hell blaming somebody or having the hate and animosity in my heart. I'm not going to do it and I really think that that says it all In that interview. She had had time to heal, she had gone through the pain, she had dealt with the pain and the anger and the bitterness. But it still takes me back to the day that she saw that she had known about his affairs and other women in the NFL know about their affairs and they don't end up in this tragedy. But it got me thinking. I've seen interviews. I've seen people speak out about how the wives are in the same room, in a different area than the wives, but they're in the same room and it's a known thing and I just find that different because I can't say I find it crazy, I don't understand it. But each relationship is very individual and very different from another, just like there's poly and all these other things and open relationships. It seems like it's just an open relationship that's accepted and the wives are okay with it and it's acknowledged.
Speaker 2:
I was curious and I pulled up an article, my NFL Story an exploration of love, marriage and football infidelity, written by Rachel Terrell. The first time I heard of a specific instance of infidelity in the NFL was when one of my husband's teammates left his wife after she uncovered a love letter that he wrote another woman. She went home for a couple of weeks to be with her family, but when she returned the locks had been changed and the other woman was living in the house. The fear of infidelity is ever-present among NFL wives, but they downplay the risks inherent in NFL relationships and in their own relationships through group talk. The players don't have time to cheat Other NFL wives and, I reasoned, they're not like baseball or basketball players. They're out of town, their time is accounted for and the rest of the time they're at practice or in meetings when they're not at home. One wife told me we are so lucky to be married to such great men and we're lucky they are NFL players and not baseball players. Other players cheat on their wives, but NFL marriages are safer than those. I think it's because the players are not away from home for long periods of time. But as more and more stories of infidelity surfaced, I realized that if an NFL player wants to cheat, he can always find a way.
Speaker 2:
The stories of infidelity seemed like stories that happened to others until one of my close friends came to me with a story of her own. Her husband cheated on her while he was playing in another city. They had two young children and his position on the team was insecure, so she decided to stay in their hometown rather than follow him. Cure. So she decided to stay in their hometown rather than follow him. No NFL wife should ever live apart from her husband, she told me later. I don't think I will ever get over what he did. It's awful, she said.
Speaker 2:
Some NFL girlfriends put up with infidelity before marriage with the expectation that the player will be faithful after they wed. An NFL wife who dated her husband since middle school recalled the rules of her relationship changing in college. When he became a collegiate football star, women started going crazy for him and his teammates, and he was spending more and more time out at the bars and parties with his teammates. Soon after, I started hearing rumors that he was cheating on me. When I confronted him, he admitted that it was true. His excuse was that he wasn't ready to get married. I had to make a choice put up with his cheating or get out of the relationship. I knew I wanted to marry him someday, so I waited. When he finally proposed after being in the NFL for three years, he promised he would always be faithful. I believed him. Things are different in football. It's not their fault that women throw themselves at them, but when they're married then they should be faithful. And he is, she said.
Speaker 2:
Despite spending seven years as an NFL wife, I don't know how many marriages in the NFL, or even among our friends, suffered from infidelity. I believe that most NFL players are good men with good morals who love their wives and children, but marital infidelity is not typically discussed among acquaintances, and even close friends sometimes hide such details to protect their marriages. From my time on the field, I have seen that NFL players are under increased temptations as their celebrity status attracts women who might not have otherwise been attracted to them. Beyond that, sex is closely linked with football. At all stages of the game, cheerleaders dance on the sidelines, and some colleges have even been known to hire hookers. What To lure in high school prospects? That is f*cking what I have to take a moment of silence for that Wasn't quite prepared for that. What the hell is going on in America, jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:
Nfl wives feel increased pressure to look sexy for their husbands, particularly in public, and to make sure their husbands are sexually satisfied at home. Fans weigh in, even on draft day, about the appearances of the players' wives, good and bad, as if they know what an NFL wife should be. As a feminist, the idea of submission of any kind repulses me, but I learned to be a good NFL wife. You have to give 100% of who you are to your husband. You cannot depend on him, particularly during the NFL season, but he should be able to depend on you for everything. A veteran NFL wife told me that it was my job as Craig's wife to give him sex anytime he wanted it. If you are saying no, there will be someone else saying yes, she explained. She and her husband later divorced.
Speaker 2:
Another NFL wife told me I know that as his wife, it is my job to submit to him sexually, but he asks for sex at least three times a day. My body is tired and I can't perform that often. Besides, it seems like the more I have sex with him, the more he wants sex. It just never ends. An NFL wife explained I'm especially careful not to bother him the day or two before games. If I am really upset about something or if he really messed up, then I'll save it for Monday or even Sunday night after the game. We don't talk before the game, after he leaves on Sunday, so that helps me keep it to myself. Then, when I finally can get things off my chest, he has time to process what I've said and we can work through it before the following game.
Speaker 2:
Before I moved to Seattle with Craig, I sat down to interview the only NFL wife I knew. She disclosed the intricacies and hardships of her marriage with a formal NFL player, which ended in divorce. Her story was frightening, disheartening and sad. Our conversation reiterated what I had learned about professional sports wives from the research literature. These women struggle to maintain an individual identity in the hyper-masculine culture of male professional sports, fearing infidelity and feeling trapped in a socially isolating and restricted world. In my relationship with Craig I had never consciously feared adultery social isolation.
Speaker 2:
Part of my impetus for my studies was to find out myself firsthand whether the previous researchers' conclusions matched the live realities of current NFL wives. Was Craig destined to turn out like Ann's ex-husband, who was a drug addict and stole money from his family that he used on drugs and failed businesses. Would my story someday read like Ann's? I wanted to get inside NFL relationships, including my own. Frankly, I realize now that I wanted to prove the others wrong, but I had to remain open to the possibility that they could be right. Over a decade later, I'm happy to say that my marriage never took that dark turn that I feared. But at the same time I've seen clearly that the horror stories of the past are not far fetching fables either.
Speaker 2:
And just to give you a stat on how many NFL athletes cheat on their wives and have mistresses, I pulled up an article from Kind Bridge Behavioral Health. Here's the stats According to the New York Times, the divorce rate is 60 to 80% for NFL players and other professional athletes, compared to about 50% for the general population, with infidelity named as a causation factor. Further, men's health recently reported on one dating website for married people looking to have an affair. That revealed athletes are in the top 50th percentile of vocations that are most likely to commit adultery through their service, time away on the road for games and training camps, etc. Create more opportunity for those who are not emotionally mature enough to avoid caving to temptations. There you have it.
Speaker 2:
The world lost a great football player in Steve McNair, and although there may be a few shadows of doubt on whether his 20 year old girlfriend had anything to do with it, I don't know. They feel, and they have said that she did it, so I don't know more than they know. I just feel like there's some unanswered questions in the whole thing. I didn't even begin to get into all the other factors that were brought up by other witnesses. There are a lot, but in the end we lost a awesome football player. Even though he retired, he was still a father, a husband and a legend in our football world. So with that, I guess all I have left to say is don't marry an NFL player. Love you, miss you next time.
