Most of the CBS investigation into the murder-suicide centered around the gun that was allegedly used to commit the crime. When they first announced a resolution to the case back in July, police said that Sahel Kazemi left work for two hours on Thursday, July 2, and bought a handgun from a man she barely knew. Keteyian reported yesterday that she actually left work on July 1, so that theory could not be correct. Then today, they unveiled phone records that show that Kazemi and Adrian Gilliam, the man who allegedly sold her the gun, were more than just acquaintances. There were over 200 cell phone calls and text messages between the two in the three weeks before the murder, including 49 the day before she died.

So now you're probably thinking—Gilliam did it! He told both the police and CBS News that he barely knew Kazemi and that was clearly a lie. He also told CBS that he sold Kazemi the gun on Friday, July 3, which contradicts the earlier police statements. In fact, the only reason to believe that any gun sale ever took place at all is because Gilliam said it did.

However, late last night the Nashville PD—knowing what CBS was about to report—released a 14-page "case summary" (you can read it here) that basically claims that none of this is news to them. Gilliam had already changed his story weeks ago. Police had already seen the cell phone records, they already knew that Gilliam and Kazemi were friends, and they already knew that the gun was sold on Friday and not Thursday. They just didn't bother to tell anyone else, because Gilliam is on trial for illegal weapons charges and they didn't want any interference with that case.

So the claim that CBS has "blown open the murder case" is a little suspect. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that seems to suggest that the police investigation was not entirely thorough and their explanation of what happened in that week is definitely not airtight. There's probably some evidence and some people that could use another look. But nothing that's been dug up here directly contradicts the larger narrative of the case and there's still no alternate theory for how McNair and Kazemi could have been killed. Furthermore, the police summary also reveals the name of another McNair girlfriend who claims she was being followed by someone driving a car that could have been Kazemi's. They also released a string of text messages sent to McNair just before his death where Kazemi repeatedly complains about "stress."

Kudos to Keteyian for raising these questions—and getting the answers—but when it's all said and done, we're really just right back where we started. We'll probably never be able to see the full picture of what happened to Steve McNair, but unless police are hiding even more from us, it seems very doubtful that anyone else will ever be implicated in his death.

New Evidence in Steve McNair Murder [CBS News]
McNair Case Summary [Nashville Police]
Previous: Armen Keteyian Will Solve This Steve McNair Business Himself [Deadspin]

Jack-of-all reporting trades Armen Keteyian did a little crime scene investigating of his own into the Steve McNair murder case and discovered that the numb3rs don't add up. If you'll recall, the big bang theory was that McNair's girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, distraught over money problems and the fear that McNair would soon leave her, shot him four times while he was sleeping and then took her own life. However, after three months of investigating, Keteyian says the Nashville Police—who only worked this mystery for 48 hours (x2)—may have botched the investigation.

Most of the piece (which you can watch here) is filled with testimony from Kazemi's friends saying that she was never angry and never violent and never owned a gun before, so she couldn't possibly have done this. These are the kinds of things that I hope my friends say to reporters if I ever go off the rails. He also dug up some footage from big brother security cameras that show Kazemi on the night of her DUI arrest—two days before the murder—and she is not acting like a lunatic soon-to-be shooter. On the other hand, lots of murderers seem perfectly normal right up until the moment they accidentally on purpose kill someone, so this is hardly "evidence" of anything.

However, there is one discrepancy he discovered that does need explaining. Police say that on the afternoon after the DUI arrest, Kazemi left work for two hours to buy the gun that was used to kill McNair. Unfortunately for them, her time sheets show that the two-hour absence from work took place the day before. Since the DUI arrest was part of the police theory for why she snapped, that's a big red flag that suggests they didn't do their homework very well. It doesn't prove that she failed to buy the gun, but that's a pretty glaring error in the timeline of events for the police to miss.

Keteyian says there's one more BIG mistake that police made concerning Kazemi and the purchase of the murder weapon ... but you'll have to tune in tomorrow to find out what it is! Aww, man. That's no fair! I hate cliffhangers! If only I had a ghost whisperer to provide me with spoilers.

(Seriously, the police may have done a terrible job on this. Or not. We'll find out tomorrow, I guess.)

Steve McNair Death Probe Questioned [The Early Show - CBS News]

Kings Island in Ohio gave a local news station a sneak preview of their annual Halloween Haunt, and they brought back pictures of a haunted graveyard filled with "celebrity skeletons" like Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy. And that display up there.

Yep, that's a skeleton holding a Titans helmet, with the top blown off. A gun rests at the foot of the couch. The two skeletons assume the positions that Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi were found in after their murder-suicide.

The shitstorm formed early on this one, stoked by Cincinnati area talk radio. Kings Island might have thought they caught this before it went national, but they didn't count on Clay Travis:

When reached by FanHouse, a spokesperson for Kings Island, Don Helbig, said the following, "There will not be a scene at our Halloween event that features Steve McNair or anyone that resembles him."

With video and pictures of the skeletons circulating online, Helbig at first declined to acknowledge that they had ever existed. "There was no reference to Steve McNair at all. No jersey, nothing." Upon being informed that the pictures and video were already online, Helbig again insisted that the skeletons would not be featured on Friday when the event opens. Pressed as to when the skeletons were removed from the park, Helbig stuck to his talking points. "Our event does not open until Friday," he said, "We meant him no disrespect."

I'm not sure how this was supposed to entertain and/or scare children. On the other hand, it might be used to scare athletes straight, alongside a reenactment of Left Eye burning down Andre Rison's house and a loop of Barbara Hershey's scene in The Natural.

Kings Island Pushes Boundaries For Halloween Haunt [WLWT]
Skeletons Depicting Steve McNair, Sahel Kazemi Pulled After Uproar [FanHouse]

•The NCAA is set to admit its first Canadian college, soon-to-be D-II Simon Fraser University. Honestly, we can't open the door to any old school from a third-world country, or next thing you know, NJIT will be Division I.

•The Titans will honor Steve McNair with a stick-on helmet decal, because they're already wearing a jersey patch honoring 50 years of the AFL. NFL regulations prohibit more than one patch. If NFL regulations prohibited more than one significant other, we wouldn't have this conflict.

•The Arena Football League shuts down indefinitely. At least the UFL will now have access to quality players. Well, AFL-quality players.

•It was only a matter of time: odds are being set for the first player to garner a Twitter-related suspension. Someone check to see if Antonio Cromartie laid down a few hundy on himself.

•Hot off the heels of yesterday's Mark-Prior-done-for-the-millennium news, comes word that once and future Reds ace Edinson Volquez is gone for 12 months. The common thread: Dusty Baker. Somebody keep this man away from human arms.

•Bengals TE Reggie Kelly is out for the year after rupturing a tendon in a non-contact drill. HBO's Hard Knocks is going to be a train wreck, of the highly viewable type.

It's Thursday. Today's the last day to tell your boss you need a three-day weekend.

The visualization of the inside of Sarah Palin's mind: "Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory." This is what that looks like.

Matthew Stafford, No. 1 pick extraordinaire, sure is having fun on his summer break.

Hey, more Detroit Lions! Who wants to re-live 16 losses in a row? Someone!

Before we witnessed the letdown of LeBrondunkgate, we were led to believe that the throwdown was "as good as it could've been hyped up to be." Insert Zapruder witticism here.

And then TMZ pays $3,000 for the tape before we put out a $10k bounty. Thanks for saving us some cash.

In a meltdown of epic proportions — even for Mad Dog's standards — Christopher Russo admits he needs to find a staff of little Mad Dogs, not little Bow-Wows: "We are the Washington Nationals. Check that: We are the Washington Generals." If only they knew something about the cast of Gone With The Wind.

How athletes are spending their summer vacations: the gallery version. This, folks, is intrepid journalism.

A woman files a civil suit against Ben Roethlisberger, alleging that he sexually assaulted her. ESPN sits on the story for 36 hours.

On July 4, Steve McNair is found shot to death in a Nashville apartment.

If you're reading this, you already know.

The final toxicology reports, released this week, say that McNair's blood alcohol level was over the legal limit when he died. Of course, he wasn't driving—-he was asleep on his couch, so that fact is mostly irrelevant. (Though I guess it explains why he was sound asleep.) But just to make sure the Fox News audience got the picture, The Shepard, in his best serious voice and sans teleprompter, broke it down thusly:

It is not illegal to be drunk, it is illegal to drink and drive ... and it's certainly not illegal to sit there and do nothing while you wait for your girlfriend to come and shoot you to death.

So true. By the way, Florio was so professional and dignified that there's nothing funny or embarrassing to show you from his segment. Alas....

A blogger in a suit? Now I've seen everything!

Shepard Smith FOX News Report [Fox News]

Unfortunately, The Tennessean newspaper editors deny the claim, but Travis says some agitated reporters tell him a different version:

Nashville's Tennessean has identified several additional women who were also involved in sexual relationships with Steve McNair. They've done even more than that, there is currently an article quoting those women and how they're dealing with McNair's death. (The women are quoted anonymously because they fear revealing their identities. The Tennessean, to their credit, has a policy against using anonymous sources for stories. Even, evidently when there are multiple women telling the same story. As a result none of us have seen this article. Why? Because of a combination of reasons: a. the women are anonymous and b. the Tennessean bigwigs are convinced the city of Nashville can't handle the news.

Now, considering the Tennessean's wall-to-wall coverage wasn't exactly delicate at times, this seems a little strange. The "anonymous source" issue is a legit one (for some publications), but if McNair was as beloved in Nashville as it appears he was, the anonymity of the women is probably crucial for their own well-being. There's a legitimate reason to keep them anonymous. But given how public McNair's dalliances were, shifting gears on the sensitivity issue — as if the paper suddenly was stricken by a conscience after a week of hyper-coverage on Kazemi and McNair — is a little editorially bone-headed. Grave-dancing's a dirty business, y'all.

Nashville's Tennessean Sitting On McNair Mistress Story? [Clay Travs]

Author Lisa DePaulo, who also chronicled the short-skirted hoochiedom of NBA groupies for GQ, reveals that once news of McNair's death-by-mistress story broke she instantly knew that the 20-year-old violated the tramp laws. So she summoned Brenda Thomas, her groupie expert source from the GQ piece, to spell-out where both Kazemi and McNair screwed up. Here's what this person had to say:

On Falling In Love: "You don't fall in love, okay? And you don't let them know you're in love with them. Because then they begin to push back, they know at that point, you're gonna be needy, you're gonna want them to leave the wife… They want something that's stress free. They don't want nobody saying, ‘Where you going?' Cause they can get that at home."

On Buying Trucks For Your Mistress:"You don't buy a truck, with the girl, in both of your names. And you send somebody else to pick up the girl from the police station after she gets arrested for drunk driving. You don't do that all stuff."

Kazemi Should Have Had The Good Sense To Eschew Birth Control:"If she played by the rules, she would have just gotten knocked up. And then she would have had child support payments for life. But she got in too deep. I mean, thank God that other women that she followed, she didn't knock her off too! "

Dummy. Now of course the Jezebel ladies had a field day with this piece, but the Daily Beast had a horrified male commenter who was even more screechy and appalled:

I guess Lisa's telling the truth. Makes me sad though. 80-90% of pro athletes cheat. OMG!? As the father of two daughters, I wonder what makes women think this horrible self-distructive behavior is a good thing. I used to be jealous of men who attracted sexy women. Now I just feel dirty knowing the 'rules' exist.

$100 says that guy's wife is cheating on him with a professional athlete.

The Secret Code Of Sports Mistresses [The Daily Beast]

Yesterday, we brought you the story of an amorous married ballplayer who gave his digits to an unnamed female intern from a media outlet. This was all a very serious business, according to the Houston Chronicle's very serious Jose de Jesus Ortiz, because, as you know, married athletes who hand out their phone numbers to single ladies inevitably wind up with two bullets in their head. (Seriously. That's what he was implying. The headline: "McNair's death not a lesson to one idiot." Which is simply insane.)

Pearlman took his Rolodex for a spin and got a baseball source to spill. He writes:

Jesus was classy enough not to "out" the intern or the ballplayer-and I'll follow his lead. But, as with many things in life, there is a disconcerting aftermath. According to a baseball source, the ballplayer was a member of the Washington Nationals. Furthermore, because of the incident, the Nationals are now considering a permanent, all-encompassing ban of interns from the team's clubhouse.

Well, that last bit will never happen; if it did, among other things, MLB.com would never file another story from Nationals Park. And so, awesomely, the hapless Nationals once again find themselves at the heart of something stupid in baseball. They can't do anything right. Spell. Pitch. Hit. Score. Score runs. These are men who, as the saying goes, could fuck up a wet dream.

Photoshop by Moe Sussman

Foolish intern, meet slime ballplayer [JeffPearlman.com]
EARLIER: Oddly Enough, Married Athletes Are Still Foolin' Around

Ideal Houston Chronicle baseball writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz could not believe his eyes, ears, and other sensory organs when a female intern for a Houston media organization was asked out by a married baseball player to go to a club later that night. Ortiz hoped to stop speculation when he said the intern didn't work for the Chronicle and the player didn't play for the Astros. And it worked. End of blog post.

Whoops, no wait, there appear to be some more words. here. The female in question publicly blurted out her new found digits:

[T]he young lady, who has nearly 700 "friends" on Facebook, decided to post this message on her Facebook account for over four hours: "Was asked out by (team name and player name) last night and I have his cell phone number to prove it."

Not much to go on, but this we know: it was a guy. This is not a LESBIAN LOVE AFFAIR story. Regardless, please put on your thinking caps.

We also can presume that, while it wasn't an Astros player, it was someone on a team who played at Houston since McNair's death on July 4, since Ortiz's point was that these two people "didn't learn" from his death. That narrows it down to someone from the Pirates or the Nationals, which brings us to this conclusion: this woman has extremely low standards.

So I suppose if someone cared enough, they could filter out all those players and get a list of wedding banded hands. I am unsure how to rule Jose Tabata's marital status.

McNair's Death Not A Lesson To One Idiot [Houston Chronicle]

The supplement came thumping onto the doorstep of Nashville Scene's Jack Silverman yesterday; attached to it with a rubber band was a letter from president and publisher Ellen Leifeld:

To our readers,

This edition of Davidson A.M. includes a story about former Titans quarterback Steve McNair.

The story, including an interview with Mr. McNair, was prepared before his death last Saturday. This edition of Davidson A.M. was printed last Friday. It is common practice for newspapers to print some feature sections several days before their distribution.

We apologize for the timing of the story.

The story was a thoroughly disposable interview with Steve McNair, who was opening the first of several "Gridiron9" restaurants. McNair is now, you might have heard, dead. The newspaper thought long and hard about this uncomfortable fact and decided it wasn't worth the trouble to pull all the supplements. Per Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher:

"That had all been done and processed Saturday morning," said Bob Faricy, the Tennessean's vice president/market development. "We really could not find a feasible way to pull all of them back and re-do it in a reasonable time."

Faricy said copies of the Davidson edition that would have been delivered with subscribers' papers were removed and replaced with a new version. But he said the version that goes to non-subscribers was not pulled back, with those copies going out carrying the McNair story.

[...]

Faricy said the key element of the decision involved the ad inserts that had to be distributed and the timing involved in repackaging. He declined to say how much money it would have cost the paper to repackage and distribute the non-subscriber copies. "We made the decision that that did not seem feasible," he added. "We have only gotten feedback from one customer, but we will probably hear more today."

Yes, probably. I'll just note here that the Tennessean is a Gannett paper, and therefore run by greedy, middle-minded nitwits whose idea of a great American newspaper is the Thrifty Nickel, if that wasn't obvious already.

Yesterday's Davidson A.M.: "McNair opens Gridiron9, hopes to add others" [Nasvhille Scene]
Readers Get 'Tennessean' Interview With McNair — After His Death [Editor & Publisher]

The main points are summed up in this video. Kazemi had a motive, she had the means, and all the physical evidence points to exactly what they thought it would. Kazemi shot McNair in the head, presumably in his sleep, then turned the gun on herself.

Serpas also addressed some of the conspiracy-worthy elements of the case, like our friend Mr. Norfleet (not a suspect), the mysterious 45-minute wait to call the cops (happens all the time), and the seeming illogical nature of the whole crime (murders are never rational.) They're convinced, and there's no reason anyone else shouldn't be too.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. Florio's not buying.

Police confirm murder-suicide in Steve McNair case [Tennessean]
Audio of the 911 call [mp3 file; Tennessean]

People need to quit talking about what they don't know. Mac never said anything to me about he was going to get a divorce, and ever since this has all happened everybody is trying to paint a certain picture and they need to talk about what they know,"

Thank you, Robert. What is now known: the state medical examiners are even more confident it was a murder-suicide. Press conference is set for 2:45 CMT. The Tennesseean is live-streaming it, which for a short period of time also had an unmonitored message board. They wisely shut it down, sparing those interested from comments like this while people fiddle around with microphones on the dais:

Steve McNair: I'm chatting from hell

Other various items of McNair Murder Minutiae:

• Bizarre ex-boyfriend Keith Norfleet is not a suspect. His rap song "Closed Casket" is not about Steve McNair. Cops checked. Nope, just your average bravado-filled rap song performed by a white dude about putting bullet holes in people who step to him or something. But he did once throw a phone at Sahel Kazemi. He kept it real.

• Just because he was shot four times by his mistress does not make Steve McNair a Hall Of Famer, football writers say. Here's the overriding sentiment summed up by John McClain of the Houston Chronicle (not the one who thwarted a terrorist attack at Nakatomi Plaza): "He was real good most of the time and great some of the time. But I don't think he was great enough long enough."

• Kazemi was planning on redecorating. She tried to sell her furniture via Craig's List the day of the murder:

Strap in.

PHOTO: TMZ

If this is at all relevant to the McNair case, then I'm Sam Spade. It's not just CBS News, though. Dumbassery is at high tide out there. Yesterday, apropos this post and especially this one (that latter is straight-up libel, no chaser), The Sporting Blog's Spencer Hall loosed some awesome righteousness:

Consider the colossal stupidity of this, the Nancy Grace-style inanity of turning a horrid murder and possible (hey, look! qualifiers based on reported evidence! Go figure!) second murder into a guessing game for your own amusement. Those are real people, with names, and addresses, who you just suggested had a hand in murdering someone. Even if turns out they did, suggesting this is wrong in three planes, an ethical, legal, and intellectual face-plant into a steaming dungpile of braindead irresponsibility. I, a whore who writes for money on the internet, am appalled. That's like making a coroner queasy: It's not easy to do, and when done requires something spectacular.

At least Brooks is just speculating wildly and posting pics of a dead girl in a bikini seven times a day. That's merely being exploitative, which is distasteful but stops shy of betting someone is involved in a murder.

To which I can only add that it's ever so nice of CBS News — Cronkite's old mothership, no less — to jump in the dungpile, too, thus demonstrating once and for all that the blogosphere hasn't cornered the market on hairy-palmed prurience.

*******

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Trash, go pick it up.

The vocabulary of grief is always limited, but don't the tired old martial clichés seem wildly out of place in any memorial to a man who died with two bullets in his head? A sampling:

Eddie George, former Titans running back: "a warrior"

Al Del Greco, former Titans kicker: "a warrior"

Donna Doss, Nashville interior designer and Titans season ticketholder: "a warrior, and he always gave us 110%"

Brad Hopkins, former Titans left tackle: "a warrior and a competitor"

Selma McNair, father: "a good soldier ... a warrior"

Robert Headley, Associated Content: "a warrior and the definition of a field general"

Jason Whitlock, Foxsports.com: "a warrior who fought the wrong war."

Steve Young, Hall of Fame quarterback: "a warrior who battled"

David Ginsburg, Associated Press: "a warrior on the football field"

Fred Faour, Houston Sports Examiner: "a warrior on the field who often took a beating"

Cam Inman, Contra Costa Times: "a warrior in the Coliseum in AFC title game vs. Raiders"

Blaine Bishop, former Titans safety: "an absolute warrior as a player"

Floyd Reese, former Titans GM: "a tremendous leader and an absolute warrior"

Michael Lombardi, National Football Post: "a true warrior"

Jemele Hill, ESPN.com: "the football warrior"

Jay Mariotti, FanHouse: "a Sunday warrior"

Pete Prisco, CBSSports.com: "an NFL warrior," "a warrior"

Allen Wilson, Buffalo News: "Hall of Fame warrior"

Peter Finney, New Orleans Times-Picayune: "like some warrior poet"

Frank Wycheck, former Titans tight end: "what a warrior was all about"

Warren Moon, Hall of Famer and former Oilers quarterback: "one of the great warriors to ever put on a football uniform at any position"

Jerome Solomon, Houston Chronicle: "Most certainly, the word you will see and hear the most over the next few days when players, coaches, media and fans talk about McNair will be 'warrior,' because that he was. A football warrior."

The report comes third-hand, from a relative of Kazemi's who says he learned this info from the police. The information is not confirmed (or denied) by those same police, but would certainly fit with the current hypothesis of murder-suicide. Investigators have not officially ruled her death a suicide, but they also don't appear to be chasing any suspects. That could change, of course, because this whole thing is still hovering in the realm of the insane.

A public memorial will be held for McNair in Whites Creek, Tennessee, on Thursday.

Relative: Police say woman with McNair bought gun [Yahoo]
Relative: Woman with Steve McNair bought gun, cops say [ESPN]