Steve McNair Update: Robert Gaddy, Wayne Neely Time Gap a Problem for Police

Steve McNair never spoke of divorcing his wife, Mechelle, longtime friend Robert Gaddy said about the former Pro Bowl quarterback who was found dead Saturday in a downtown Nashville condominium along with 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi. It was later found that Sahel Kazemi was Steve McNair's girlfriend, who told family and friends that Steve McNair was divorcing his wife to be with her. It was also later discovered that Steve McNair's house in Nashville was up for sale and some tied the girlfriend and the sale of the house into a speculative divorce.

"People need to quit talking about what they don't know," Robert Gaddy told The Tennessean.

But people won't stop talking. And they haven't, not since the two bodies were discovered. And Robert Gaddy is a good example of why people have offered countless theories on the deaths.

After Wayne Neely, another friend of Steve McNair's and a co-renter of the Nashville condominium, found the bodies of his friend and Sahel Kazemi, he called Robert Gaddy. Not the Nashville Police. Not the Tennessee State Police. Not the Tennessee Bureau of Infestation. Wayne Neely called Robert Gaddy.

Wayne Neely told the police that he found the bodies after letting himself into the condominium at about 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon. At first, he said, he saw them but had paid them little attention. It wasn't until he returned from the kitchen that he noticed blood. He then called Robert Gaddy.

Robert Gaddy showed up and, after assessing the situation, called 911.

At first, the identity of the young woman's body was said to be unknown. It was also said that her relationship to Steve McNair was unknown. But once Sahel Kazemi was identified, neighbors were canvassed, friends and family interviewed, and Sahel Kazemi's ex-boyfriend talked with Nashville Police, a clearer picture began to form.

Sahel Kazemi turned out to be Steve McNair's girlfriend, a young woman he had been dating for roughly five or six months, just after she had apparently broken up with her boyfriend of four years, Keith Norfleet. It also turned out that Sahel Kazemi had been arrested for a DUI on Thursday, July 2, and had subsequently purchased a handgun. This handgun would be found underneath her body on Saturday, July 4, and later be determined as the weapon that killed Steve McNair and the young woman.

Although state medical examiner Bruce Levy was able to make the determination that Steve McNair's death was a homicide (he was shot four times: twice to the body, twice to the head), he and investigating authorities felt it better to await results of further forensics tests to make a final classification on the death of Sahel Kazemi. She had died of a single gunshot to the head, making the incident appear to be a homicide-suicide. But officials didn't want to make that assessment only to find out that evidence later might point to an outside actor.

But people are curious. People love a good mystery. Throw in a famous person, an affair, scandalous behavior, and several stories that don't completely add up and people are going to talk.

Robert Gaddy should know that.

And when the divorce speculation surfaced after it was found that Steve McNair's Nashville home was on the market, a comment to the contrary from Robert Gaddy might have stopped most of it, if not all.

Because controversy loves a vacuum.

And part of the reason authorities still refuse to classify Sahel Kazemi's death involves Robert Gaddy as well. He was the person that Wayne Neely called after he found the bodies. Nashville Police are concerned over the time discrepancy between the time Neely discovered Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi and the time that 911 was actually called, a period of at least 35 minutes.

Robert Gaddy said that his friend, Wayne Neely, just panicked. "Maybe he should have called 911 first, and I wish he had, because then I wouldn't have seen what I saw. Because that is not how I want to remember my best friend.

"Wayne thought he was doing the best thing. A lot of people don't think so, but at the time and the moment, who can question what anyone would have done in that circumstance?''

Most people can and do, including the Nashville Police.

Authorities have not released the recording of the 911 call that Gaddy made, citing that it is still integral to their investigation. Robert Gaddy was questioned by police on Saturday and told The Tennessean Tuesday he did not know what was going on with regard to the investigation.

And Gaddy refused to talk about Sahel Kazemi. So it is unknown, at least to the public, what he knows about the relationship between Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi, or if he knew anything at all -- other than he was acquainted with her. He said, "I told (detectives) what I knew about the young lady, which wasn't much. I just want to know the truth. I just can't fathom what went through that young lady's head.''

And so, until the rest of the forensics and toxicology results are obtained, studied, and a determination is made on the death of Sahel Kazemi, people are talking. They are talking about things of which they do not know.

But what they do know is: Steve McNair was killed. He was shot with the handgun found beneath the lifeless body of Sahel Kazemi. Sahel Kazemi was McNair's girlfriend. They had been dating for at least five months. Sahel Kazemi bought the gun that was used to kill Steve McNair and herself. Steve McNair was last seen at a nightclub around 1:30 a.m. Wayne Neely claims to have discovered the bodies at around 1:00 p.m. He called his friend, Robert Gaddy, who then called 911 at 1:35 p.m.

It is not known whether Sahel Kazemi shot and killed Steve McNair, then turned the gun on herself, although that is what the crime scene would indicate.

A motive has yet to be determined.

Police do not know if anything in the condo was removed or moved, although the bodies did not appear to be disturbed.

So people talk. A famous professional football player is killed in a rented condominium with a 20-year-old woman -- also killed --who turns out to be his girlfriend, his mistress, a person that not too many knew about, and people are going to talk.

Robert Gaddy said that people shouldn't talk "about what they don't know." Robert Gaddy could have helped with some of the unknown information himself. Because curiosity fuels speculation and having the need to fill the vacuum of what is not known solves mysteries.

And when given a mystery, that's what people do. They talk about what they don't know.

Robert Gaddy should know that.

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Source:

Tennessean.com