The gun that was found at the Steve McNair homicide scene had been purchased by Sahel Kazemi, the woman with whom he was having an affair and who was found dead with him in his condo, Nashville police just confirmed. Although other theories are still on the table, according to police, the possibility of a murder-suicide is emerging as the more likely scenario. At this point, however, is it wise to assume anything in the case that blurs the line between real life and film noir?
Kazemi’s nephew, Farzin Abdi, has said earlier that police are “almost certain” that Kazemi was the shooter, and that she had purchased the handgun that was found beneath her body at the scene. Police would not say that publicly until just moments ago, however. And that gives credence to the most likely scenario of all — jilted lover, who had expected her boyfriend to divorce his wife and marry her, snaps when he gets cold feet and tells her it’s over. Crime fiction wouldn’t exist without this staple; Greek Tragedy, indeed.
But whatever the truth is, McNair was most certainly playing the woman, and paid the ultimate price. Police aren’t taking anything for granted, however; which is why it’s kind of curious that they’ve released the information about the gun. More not-seen-before photos above, and below.
From THE TENNESSEAN:
“We believe the pistol recovered from the apartment was purchased by Kazemi,” Metro spokesman Don Aaron said.
Police also said that they questioned Kazemi’s ex-boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, for several hours on Sunday, and that he is not a suspect. In fact, there are still no suspects being actively pursued.
“He was cooperative during questioning, then he went on his way,” Aaron said.
Norfleet told The Tennessean on Saturday that he went to police headquarters on his own Saturday, looking for answers on whether the woman he broke up with five months prior was the one who died alongside McNair. He was not questioned that night, but asked to leave his contact information, Aaron said.
“We know Norfleet was a former boyfriend of Kazemi’s, and he obviously had his opinion of the relationship between she and McNair,” Aaron said. “He was a person who needed to be interviewed in detail.”
Aaron said the testing to see if gunshot residue was present on Kazemi’s hands has not yet been completed.
(Keith Norfleet, and blurry pal)
The fact that the gun was Kazemi’s, and that her ex-boyfriend, Norfleet, came to police immediately of his own accord, gives further weight to the murder-suicide scenario. But don’t be shocked if we’re hit with a bombshell somewhere down the line that provides deatils no one was expecting.
3:45 pm on July 6th, 2009
Wow, well that just about does it for all the CSI theories. What could she possibly need a gun for; protection? DOUBT IT
3:50 pm on July 6th, 2009
Knew it was murder suicide. Brooks you need to watch more csi pal or simply follow the principle of occam’s razor.
4:02 pm on July 6th, 2009
Wait, has no one seen “Fracture” with Anthony Hopkins?
4:58 pm on July 6th, 2009
I have….good movie…
4:59 pm on July 6th, 2009
this is real life, not a movie
4:59 pm on July 6th, 2009
and that movie blowed
5:16 pm on July 6th, 2009
Where is this girls parents?
(wow I sound old), this should be a lesson to all the skanks wanna be skanks and closet skanks….when you die all of your skank photos will surface all at once for all the world to see and judge you.
Am I the only one sympathetic to poor ole Keith Norfleet ?
he gets his skank girlfriend taken and deep dicked by the quarterback of his favorite team, a 6ft 4 240 pound black guy with the cardio regiment of a jack rabbit is doing the love of your life….that would suck.
I could not imagine wearing the jersey of the guy thats doing my chick.
6:55 pm on July 6th, 2009
Skunk boy,
The girl was orphaned when her mother died when she was 12-13 in Iran. Her (much older) sister brought her to Jacksonville and tried to raise her as her own. The rest of the story reads like a kid who just couldn’t adjust: 3 years in high school in the US straight from Iran before dropping out. Ran off with her ex to Nashville at 16, where they lived for 3-4 years before breaking up. Then she started dating McNair. Sister didn’t like the idea of her moving, but I guess couldn’t convince her to stay in Florida. By all accounts she had a difficult childhood/adolesence. You just don’t date people in that situation unless they’ve figured out a way to get their stuff together. Don’t know her or her family, but I’m thinking a HS dropout work at Dave and Busters who likes to party all the time and dress like a bit of a tramp probably doesn’t have her stuff together.
8:43 pm on July 6th, 2009
What day was these pictures taken on? Did the ex-boyfriend go to Titan Stadium peeping McNair out, prior to the murder?
Metro police should review the camera at the gunshop to see who was with Sahel when she purchased the gun. Sometimes criminals have family and friends purchase guns to then have them report them stolen later on. This would be the perfect set-up to have her purchase the gun they will be used to shot McNair. But just so happened Sahel may have been inside at the time McNair was followed in the condo (she was a witness).
9:15 pm on July 6th, 2009
This is such a shame..Marraige in America is such a joke!!
10:50 pm on July 6th, 2009
While I cogitate the detaills of how the Wife might have done it to get bigger share of Insurance and eventual divorce settlement, now that all y’all have gotten me into the Spirit of this Circus:
Didja know that OJ was really innocent ????
Bryant Gumbel did it……
Ya see, Bryant was sleeping with The Waiter, Ron Goldman…..
He sees this blond bitch with his dearly beloved Ronnie, and shouts, “Deborah Norville, you
Bitch !!!”, flies into a rage, and stabs the crap out of both of them. Finally he flips over Nicole, and realizes, “Oh no, it’s OJ’s ole lady…..Hey, I’ve got an idea; my brother Greg has always coveted OJ’s sportcasting slots; I can get him to help me frame OJ !!”
Conveniently, Greg has been having an affair with Kato, the Houseguest, who lets them into the house to plant bloody gloves (they forgot to check the size), and drop about 500 micrograms of LSD into OJ’s coffee before he flies to Chicago…..
That’s why he doesn’t remember much of Chicago trip, and why the wild Bronco chase on the LA Freeway. OJ even thought he was speeding; he was actually crashing from a bad Acid Trip.
Now, enter Detective Fuhrman (a regular user of “The N-word”) who figures this all out, and blackmails the Gumbel brothers into covering it up and framing OJ…..But then, Fuhrman gets smart, and figures that if he gives weak testimony, and OJ gets off, he can continue to blackmail the Gumbels….forever….
He takes their initial money, makes down payment on a great ranch in the White Supremacist community of Hayden Lake, ID, retires, and has the Gumbels making his Mortgage Payments.
Know what was in “the missing evidence envelope” ??
It was a Jeweled Cock Ring with the inscription: “To my beloved Ronnie, Love Bryant”.
Kato is now wearing it as a sex slave at a Meth Lab in Redding, CA.
And that ain’t no Sh*t !!!!
2:09 am on July 7th, 2009
people stop playing games, when your azz is very married with kids and shit. Stop running around as if you’ll married azzes are single……shame shame shame.. ! It goes back to the sayin the other side may be greener but its not what it appears to be……
5:33 am on July 7th, 2009
@ Jay 8:43PM 7/6
I nominate you for dumbest post on this entire subject.
8:26 am on July 7th, 2009
Rick Chandler:
Occam’s Razor has nothing to do with this situation and can’t be used as a tool for reasoning about human affairs generally. Occam’s Razor says simply that the most likely cause of an event from a list of possible such causes was simplest cause because it requires the least number of variables to be true.
But that principle requires that each variable in the explanation be independent, that is, each variable in no way be related to the others. HEre are some of the variables:
she had the gun..
she had a jealous boyfriend…
he was married…
he had four kids by his wife…
we live in a world where jealous lovers kill..
she was female..
she was 20..
her boyfriend was 20 something…
McNair was a high status male in society
her boyfriend was of ordinary status.
All of these variables are important, but according to your logic, we should just say - she had a gun, this many bullet wounds in each- done.
Wrong.
Each of the above listed variables is not independent when it comes to murder, so they can’t be just thrown out as a bunch, and what’s more, and each of them matters a lot and we know this through empirical evidence, that is, the accumulation of data from innumerable such events in the real world.
How variables interact to cause event sin the real word is a question that can only be answered through investigating that very world. It can’t be answered by applying Occam’s Razor.
For instance, you’re more likely to be a victim of homicide of you’re male and 20 something than if you’re just 20 something. If you’re just 20 something, you might be a female and if we include females in our sample, the murder rate goes down because the murder rate for females is dramatically less than it is for males. The two variables interact.
You can’t apply mathematics, game theory or NON-empirically -derived statistics to human events and
1) predict the future or
2) divine the past.
with anything like consistent accuracy. Being able to do that is a fantasy that has crashed the economy a few times now because it’s wrongly believed you can by banks, hedge funds and economists generally. For the same reason, we still have to do research for science to progress. You have to ask the world what reality is using carefully formulated questions; you can’t just get at it through the use of first principles whether they’re religious (evolution s a lie, man!) or “scientific” (Occam’s Razor)
Cops, people in the military, and other salty types who have to deal with reality when life and death hangs in the balance don’t fall for misapplied mathematical modeling the way academics and economists do. When they get burned in their reasoning, something bad happens that they remember and that matters.
When economists at the Chicago School crash our economy, they go back to their theories , tweak a few parameters to make them fit the new reality, then say thier models predicted the crash all along, or they would have except for crazy thing that just came out of left field , golly!
Don’t be one of those guys.