Sixteen years ago today, a quiet Fourth of July afternoon was interrupted with the stunning news that former NFL quarterback Steve McNair had been shot and killed.
McNair was only 36 at the time.
The official explanation never made complete sense. Quickly solved as a murder-suicide, with McNair shot by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, who then supposedly shot herself.
The rush to close the case seemed odd. Police concluded that Kazemi shot McNair execution style, twice in the chest and twice in the head.
A subsequent effort to re-open the case ultimately failed. The issue was pressed by Vincent Hill, a former Nashville police officer who aggressively pursued the theory that it was not a murder-suicide.
In 2018, SI.com took a closer look at the unanswered questions in Fall of a Titan, a podcast series.
“I could make a case that things don’t add up,” former Titans coach Jeff Fisher said in a 2024 Netflix documentary on the McNair murder. “I don’t want to speculate. Just let it go.”
Even now, it’s hard to let it go. It’s hard not to wonder whether someone got away with double murder. And while that won’t change the fact that McNair was killed on this day in 2009, there’s a nagging sense that justice may not have been done.
McNair was the NFL’s co-MVP in 2003, and he led the team to the Super Bowl in 1999.
The third overall pick in 1995 out of Alcorn State, McNair spent 13 seasons in the NFL — 11 with the Oilers/Titans and two with the Ravens. The Titans retired his number (9) in 2019.
