Update: His death has been ruled a murder, hers is still unclassified, but most outlets in Nashville are tentatively calling it murder-suicide, based in part on a police statement yesterday that they were not looking at any other suspects:
Oh man, it just gets worse. So he’s apparently cheating on his wife with a 20 year old, and she decides at some point it’s not going as it should, shoots him several times and then shoots herself?
Maybe there’s more to this. But I can imagine this woman was less than stable, he has a fling, promises to leave his wife for her… but of course this doesn’t happen. One empty promise too many… and bang.
I also just heard that he has a 17 year old child.
Don’t cheat on your wife, apparently.
Now there’s some buzz that the ex-BF has some crazy shit on his myspace page about “never give up something you love, or you’ve lost everything.” That’s on Deadspin. TMZ has pictures of McNair and the 20 year-old parasailing… raising the idea that maybe McNair and his wife had an “open” marriage. It’s doubtful that a celeb like McNair could creep in Nashville and not get noticed.
Nobody deserves to die over an affair… but if it is what it looks like, I’d recommend a couple of character references and psychoanalysis before taking that dip. It’s terribly tragic, but my mind boggles as to why McNair thought dipping with a girl one year out of her teens would be a good idea. Especially given the fact that he’s a rich celebrity.
RIP to both of them; as incriminating as it looks I suppose we should reserve judgment until the facts are out…
Some interesting internet superhero detective action is going on. All speculation at this point, of course.
Edit: Mega ninjaed.
I kinda doubt that, considering McNair’s roots. Unfortunately it’s not unheard of for a man to have an ‘outside’ relationship, even a guy of his character. Not necessarily an ‘open’ marriage, but he might be able to kick the boundaries a little bit.
I think a more reasonable speculation is that the DUI arrest on Thursday and subsequent reporting/investigation revealed the relationship to the wife who demanded that he end it. He complied and was having the talk on Saturday. The GF decided that if she couldn’t have him no one could.
That of course presumes that he and the wife didn’t have an open relationship. The reports that have surfaced about the apparent lack of secrecy of the relationship and the fact that McNair and the GF co-leased the SUV in the DUI charge make it being a big secret somewhat doubtful.
The police PR guy seemed to imply that she might have been a stripper with a fairly checkered past already, so who knows what kind of shit she was in and what type of emotional state. Perhaps the DUI and the expected fallout were too catastrophic or perhaps McNair simply decided the amount of drama she caused wasn’t worth the perks.
Whatever the case, my money is on McNair trying to end the relationship and the GF losing her shit and whacking him and herself. If it turns out to be a CSI-like staged suicide the news story will get some serious legs.
Not sure I buy that. If I read you right regarding his “roots”, meaning his religious, conservative southern upbringing I’ll call bullshit. In my experience the concept of a mistress that is an open secret is MOST common in the traditional, conservative culture of the south. I’m guessing they weren’t swingers, but the idea of a wealthy southern gentleman having a piece on the side and the wife keeping a stiff upper lip while she lives the life of leisure has a long established history.
I hadn’t seen anything like that. The only info I’ve seen about her is from relatives saying what a nice girl she was and her job at Dave and Busters. The nice girl bit seems a lot like normal grieving / unaware family speak, but hadn’t seen anything about her being a stripper. I did find it sort of curious that her boss at D&Bs referred to her as “reliable 90% of the time”.
That is a very demeaning stereotype. To begin with, no Southern gentleman would consider his mistress to be “a piece on the side.” Further, the women in wealthy Southern families do not live lives of leisure. That would not be in keeping with tradition at all. Finally, stiff upper lips are an English stereotype. Southern women are more often Irish, Scottish, and Scot-Irish.
There was no “open secret” where Steve McNair was involved. He was well-regarded by the Nashville community, which has voted liberal for some time now, and he continued to keep his home here even after he began playing for Baltimore.
Only his close friends knew about the young woman from Iran. She was a waitress at a local restaurant. He had known her for only two or three months. There had been no rumors circulating about him here beyond his own crowd.
In the photographs that I saw of her, she did not strike me as being an outstanding beauty. She even looked a little vulnerable. It was hard to imagine this girl-woman shooting Steve twice in the chest and twice in the head and then turning the gun on herself. But I know I shouldn’t be judging by looks alone.
Strangely, the gun was under her body.
The photographs of Steve show him looking really beefed up. His presence was much softer. He was very calm and pleasant with a quick smile. He was soft-spoken. I was with him only once briefly about ten years ago.
He had just opened a restaurant close to the TSU campus.
I surely wish he had grown old with us.
The police press conference that I saw said there was no evidence that she had been a stripper. I have it on TIVO. There was also no evidence of prior arrests outside of Nashville.
I confess I was watching it from a bar at a restaurant while waiting for a table and was relying on the closed captioning. That’s what I get for trusting a transcriber.
I’ve never seen someone shoot themselves, but I imagine it’s not totally unreasonable for them to drop the gun after they shoot and then for their body to fall atop of it. I’m interested to see what comes up in their initial forensics report.
Sorry for your loss, Zoe, this seems like it was personal for you.
This reminded me of jumblejim’s report on George Reeves’ (Superman) death by gunshot. (It seemed to be missing from the SDSAB report, but I found the post.) He noted that a forensic pathologist that he spoke with (who had re-autopsied Lee Harvey Oswald) said that a seated suicide victim might drop the gun between their feet like Reeves did - and that guns from suicides tend to end up all over the place - so I (extrapolating from this in my totally unprofessional opinion) wouldn’t be surprised if a standing person who shoots him or herself might drop the gun and fall on top of it.
I have (that Pennsylvania politician who shot himself on camera twenty-odd years ago). He shot himself in the mouth and was instantly dead and fell straight down like a sack of dust.
What I meant was that the concept of a true “open” marriage, where extra-marital partners are discussed openly by the partners ,was probaly not the case with the McNairs. I agree that it is not unheard of here for a married man to have a girlfriend on the side, including having ‘outside’ children. That was kinda my point actually.
Now that we learn Sahel Kazemi bought the handgun found under her body less than two days before the shooting, it’s difficult to imagine this was anything other than a murder suicide.
The police stopped looking for suspects on Sunday, so apparently they’ve had trouble imagining anything else for a while.
I’m kind of surprised the police kept saying she had no motive. I’ve seen new items saying McNair’s wife had no idea about the affair. Motivation is he lied to her about leaving his wife (or at least she thinks he did) and then kills him in a fit of rage maybe when he tells her it’s over. After she realizes what shes done and kills herself. Can’t be the first time that’s ever happened.