Former NFL star Steve McNair’s life came to a tragic end when he was murdered by one of his mistresses in 2009.
The acclaimed quarterback spent the majority of his football career playing for the Tennessee Titans, where he was named a Most Valuable Player, but only a year after retiring, his life was cut short. McNair was killed at the hands of his girlfriend Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi in a murder-suicide.
McNair, who had been married to his wife, Mechelle, since 1997, began an affair with Kazemi in early 2009. At the time, Kazemi was a 19-year-old waitress working at the local Dave and Buster’s restaurant where many Titans players frequented. Shortly after meeting, McNair and Kazemi started spending time together, going on trips around the country and even meeting each other’s family, according to The Tennessean.
But as time went on, things began to weigh on Kazemi. While McNair told her he was getting a divorce, he still lived at home with his wife and kids. She also had suspicions that McNair was secretly seeing another woman. On top of that, Kazemi had mounting financial concerns.
Things came to a head on July 3, 2009, when she purchased a gun and asked to meet McNair at his Nashville condo. The following morning, both McNair and Kazemi were found dead.
So what happened to Steve McNair? Here’s everything to know about the professional football player’s life and death as seen in Netflix’s documentary Untold: The Murder of Air McNair.
Who was Steve McNair?
Steve McNair runs the ball during the American Football Conference Central game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on November 5, 2000.
Andy Lyons/Getty
McNair was born in Mississippi to a single mother and raised alongside four brothers. As a teen, he displayed athletic talent, taking part in baseball, basketball and track. McNair also excelled on the football field, and when he graduated high school, he headed off to Alcorn State University to be the team’s quarterback.
After a successful college career, McNair was the third overall pick in the 1995 NFL draft, signing a seven-year contract with the Houston Oilers. Two years later, the team moved to Tennessee and became known as the Titans.
McNair spent most of his NFL career with the team, appearing in the playoffs on four occasions and playing in the 2000 Super Bowl. The following year, he signed a six-year extension with the Titans for $47 million. In 2003, he had the best season of his career and was named one of the NFL’s MVPs.
After several injuries and contract negotiations, McNair was traded to the Baltimore Ravens as their new starting quarterback. He played his final two seasons in the NFL with them, officially announcing his retirement in April 2008.
Along the way, McNair welcomed two children with two different women, his sons Steve LaTreal McNair Jr. and Steven O’Brian McNair. Then, in 1997, he tied the knot with his wife, Mechelle, whom he met at Alcorn State. They went on to have two more children together: Trenton Jon McNair and Tyler James McNair.
After his retirement, McNair focused on other business ventures as well as charity work. He split his time between Nashville and McNair Farms in Mississippi, where he was president of a ranching and farming business, according to CBS News. He also reopened the Nashville restaurant Gridiron9 to help students have affordable meals, per The Tennessean.
In addition, McNair created The Steve McNair Foundation to help serve underprivileged children through educational and athletic programs. The nonprofit helped raise money for other local charitable organizations through events like the Steve McNair Celebrity Golf Classic. McNair also hosted three youth football camps each year, attended by aspiring young athletes.
Was Steve McNair having an affair with Jenni Kazemi?
Steve McNair; Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi. Davidson County Sheriff/The Tennessean/AP (2)
Around the time of his NFL retirement, McNair began an affair with then-19-year-old waitress Jenni Kazemi, a woman he met while she was working at a local Dave & Buster’s restaurant.
Kazemi immigrated to the United States as a teenager after her mother was murdered in their native Iran, per The Tennessean. She moved from Florida to Tennessee with a boyfriend when she was 16, but by December 2008, they had split and fallen out of touch. Later that same month, she met McNair.
The couple began seeing each other often, spending time at a condo in Nashville that McNair rented with a friend for times he wanted to spend away from his family. Kazemi’s nephew Farzin Abdi recalled the pair going on trips to Florida, California, Hawaii and even to McNair’s farm in Mississippi, he told The Tennessean.
For Kazemi’s 20th birthday in May 2009, McNair cosigned the purchase of a black Cadillac Escalade for her. When her family came to Nashville to celebrate the special occasion, they met McNair over a sushi dinner and then partied at clubs around town.
Despite McNair being married, his relationship with Kazemi seemed to grow more serious over time. According to Kazemi’s family, she told them McNair was planning on leaving his wife and subsequently marry her. Kazemi’s sister Sepideh Salmani recalled that in the weeks before her death, McNair told Kazemi that the divorce was being finalized.
Mechelle later revealed that she had no plans to divorce her husband and had no idea about his affair with Kazemi.
“I didn’t know about her at all,” she told ESPN. “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.”
What happened in the time before Steve McNair was killed?
Steve McNair on September 25, 2005.
Michael Mcnamara/Sporting News/Getty
By July 2009, McNair and Kazemi had been secretly dating for about six months. Around this time, Kazemi discovered that McNair was likely also seeing another woman after she found used condoms in the bathroom of his condo, per law enforcement documents acquired by The Tennessean.
McNair, in fact, was having an affair with another woman named Leah Ignagni, whom he had met several months prior. Ignagni later told police that she had noticed a Cadillac Escalade following her on several occasions — suggesting that Kazemi knew who McNair was having an affair with.
According to a member of McNair’s security team, Chris Wall, the football star had become “increasingly annoyed” by his relationship with Kazemi, per The Tennessean. He told investigators that she called him at inopportune times when he was with his wife and children. As a result, the retired pro athlete decided to slow down their relationship and see her less often.
On the night of July 1, McNair met up with Kazemi at a sports bar after Ignagni told him she couldn’t spend time with him. McNair and Kazemi were later joined by McNair’s friend, Vent “Casper” Gordon. When the trio departed the bar in Kazemi’s Cadillac Escalade in the early hours of July 2, they got pulled over by police.
Kazemi was arrested on DUI charges, but McNair and Gordon were permitted to leave the scene in a cab, the outlet reported. Hours later, McNair bailed Kazemi out of jail, and the couple allegedly argued. After parting ways, McNair went to see Ignagni before opening his restaurant for the morning. That night, he returned to Ignagni’s home to sleep over.
On July 3, Kazemi had a lengthy text message conversation with McNair, who was fishing with his sons. While texting, she expressed concern over finances, telling him she had cell phone and hospital bills to pay. Her roommate also moved out, which doubled her rent, in addition to car payments on the Escalade and an older vehicle she owned.
Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi.
Vera Mosley Buckner/The Decatur Daily/AP
During the exchange, McNair agreed to transfer her $2,000 but Kazemi continued to be upset and floated the idea of going to the hospital to get checked out.
After asking McNair to meet with her that night, Kazemi headed to her shift at Dave and Buster’s. Before clocking in, though, she met up with Adrian Gilliam, a convicted felon she first encountered while trying to sell her old car, according to CBS News. In the restaurant’s parking lot, Gilliam sold Kazemi a 9mm handgun.
After starting her shift, Kazemi’s manager, Sonya New, noticed the waitress wasn’t acting like her usual upbeat self. Kazemi then told New about her relationship with McNair and the DUI. Looking back, New said that Kazemi didn’t seem angry but ended the conversation by saying, “My life is just s— and I should end it.”
When she finished work, Kazemi texted McNair to ask him if he wanted to go out drinking. He declined, saying he was busy putting the kids to bed — although he told his friend Doug Crowe he would meet up with him. Instead of going out, Kazemi decided to go to McNair’s condo, according to The Tennessean.
Meanwhile, McNair was out with Crowe but only stayed at the bar briefly before texting Kazemi at 12:38 a.m. to tell her he was on the way to the condo. McNair’s driver dropped him off sometime between 1:15 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. He would be the last known person to see McNair alive.
A short time later, both McNair and Kazemi were dead.
Who found Steve McNair and Jenni Kazemi’s bodies?
At around 12:40 p.m. on July 4, Wayne Neely, McNair’s friend whom he rented the condo with, stopped by, per The Tennessean.
When he walked inside, he discovered the two bodies — although he claims to have not recognized who it was, according to the outlet.
Within minutes, Neely left the apartment and called McNair’s longtime friend and business partner Robert Gaddy around 12:50 p.m. to tell him what he had found.
Once Gaddy arrived, they entered the condo together, and he immediately knew one of the bodies was McNair. At 1:35 p.m., Gaddy stepped outside to call 911.
What do authorities believe happened to Steve McNair?
Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas speaks to reporters during a press conference to release information regarding Steve McNair’s death on July 8, 2009.
Josh Anderson/AP
Authorities ruled the death of McNair and Kazemi a murder-suicide.
Based on evidence, investigators concluded that at some point in the early hours of July 4, McNair fell asleep on the couch and Kazemi shot him multiple times while he was unconscious. She shot him on the left side of his head from a few feet away, then twice in the chest and another on the right side of his head at a closer range.
Then, Kazemi sat down next to McNair, shot herself in the right side of her head and collapsed onto his lap, per the police. She eventually fell to the floor on top of the gun, where she was found the following morning.
Investigators deduced Kazemi had become overwhelmed by her mounting financial struggles and the state of her relationship with McNair after discovering he was having an affair with another woman.
What questions remain surrounding Steve McNair’s death?
The funeral of Steve McNair on July 11, 2009.
George Clark/Pool/AP
While authorities were confident in ruling McNair and Kazemi’s deaths a murder-suicide, others believe there may be more to the story.
Kazemi’s family and friends have raised questions about the manner of McNair’s death, doubting that Kazemi would have been capable of such a brutal killing, considering she had never used a gun before.
On the Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan podcast, people close to Kazemi shared that they didn’t get the sense that she was struggling — emotionally or financially — and there was nothing to lead them to believe she wanted to take her own life.
“I talked to family and friends of Jenni who knew her, who talked to her in the final weeks of her life, and they told me she wasn’t upset by … Steve sleeping around … about the DUI, she wasn’t strapped for cash,” podcast host Tim Rohan told PEOPLE. “They kind of debunk this idea that she was suicidal and spiraling out of control.”
The podcast explores other pieces of evidence in the case, including McNair’s rocky relationship with his wife and why his friends waited about an hour to call 911 after finding his body.
In particular, Gilliam’s version of events revealed that he lied about how he met Kazemi, per The Tennessean. Authorities also believed that Gilliam attempted to pursue Kazemi romantically.
Although he wasn’t named a suspect in the case, Gilliam was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for possessing a firearm as a felon in December 2009, per CBS News.
Will the case surrounding Steve McNair’s death be reopened?
There have been attempts to reopen the case surrounding the death of McNair.
Former Nashville police officer Vincent Hill, who was not working at the time of McNair’s murder, has published two books about the case, casting doubt on the ruling of investigators. In response, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has questioned Hill’s credibility, per The Tennessean.
Hill presented his findings, described in his first work, Playbook to a Murder, to a grand jury for consideration. Still, authorities have made no move toward reopening the investigation so far.
