Tennessee’s state medical examiner said on Tuesday that investigators have been hesitant to conclude that Steve McNair’s girlfriend killed the NFL star and herself because she didn’t appear to have a motive, but that murder-suicide is the most likely scenario.
After the couple was discovered shot to death on Saturday, police were quick to label McNair’s death a homicide. He had been shot twice in the head and twice in the chest, while 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi was dead from a single gunshot to the head. Under her body was a gun she had purchased less than two days before the killings.
Investigators were waiting for results of ballistics tests on the weapon before issuing a ruling on Kazemi’s death, which medical examiner Bruce Levy said could come in the next few days. Kazemi’s gun purchase, which was revealed on Monday, is a strong indication that she was responsible, he said.
“If we had known on Sunday about the gun I think we would have been very comfortable in ruling murder-suicide,” he said. “I’ll be very surprised now if they rule it isn’t.”
Levy said an apparent lack of motive by Kazemi has made investigators careful about exploring every possibility, including the unlikely scenario that a third party could have staged the scene. Their relationship lacked typical indicators of trouble — such as concerned family members or police reports and protection orders.
“The thing we always hear is, ‘We should have seen this coming,”’ he said. But Kazemi’s family has said she was very happy. “She just had it made, you know, (with) this guy taking care of everything,” Kazemi’s nephew Farzin Abdi said on Monday.
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