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Burning Questions in the Wake of the 'Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan' Podcast
After talking about the Steve McNair case for more than six hours, over the course of nine episodes of the podcast “Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan”, you’d think we’d be done. Wrong. We put out a call for questions about the case, and this is what you came back with. Plus, a few loose ends we wanted to tie up ourselves.
Have you ever seen the security footage from the nearby law firm showing Robert Gaddy entering Steve McNair’s condo?
I’ve heard a rumor that there may have been footage of Robert Gaddy, Steve McNair’s former bodyguard, entering the condo on the afternoon of July 4, 2009, around the time he found the bodies with Wayne Neeley.
Now this is important because one of the big questions of the podcast was, Why did Gaddy and Neeley wait so long to call the police?
If such a tape does exist, and if we were able to get a hold of it, these are the things I would be interested in trying to discern:
— At what time did Gaddy enter the condo?
— Was he ever alone in the condo?
— How long was he in the condo?
— At what time did he exit the condo to call the police?
The police report does not explicitly say that there was video evidence of Gaddy entering or exiting the condo. The report does say that investigators collected video footage from various businesses in the area, and that most of the footage “was not useful,” with the exception of the video from a nearby law firm. The report says that the law firm video captured a view of the backside of the condo, and that the footage “did not show any suspicious activity.”
I asked the Nashville PD for all of the surveillance footage in the area of Steve McNair’s condo from the night of July 3, into the early hours of July 4. They sent us the video from a nearby radio station, but that’s it. We discussed the radio station video during Episode 6, and you can view it here on our Documents Page.
I also asked specifically for a copy of the surveillance footage from the law firm next to Steve’s condo, and Nashville PD told me they would be sending me the tape — but I never received it. I tried following up on the missing package, and I never got a response.
Perhaps we can provide an update, if we ever get ahold of that video.
How did Jenni do all of that shooting … in the dark?
This question has plagued Vincent Hill for years. Shortly after Wayne Neeley found two bodies inside Steve McNair’s condo on the afternoon of July 4, 2009, he told his friend Charlie Cardwell that it had been dark in the apartment when he entered. Neeley also told the police that he thought Steve and Jenni had been sleeping when he walked in.
When I interviewed Charles Robinson and Pat Postiglione, two detectives who worked the case, I asked them about this. They told me that the lights were off in the living room, but the bathroom light was on. “The door was wide open,” Robinson said, “and [the bathroom light] was illuminating the room.”
I guess you could interpret that as: the living room was dark enough to conceivably think that Steve and Jenni were asleep, and it was light enough that you could see a fair amount. That’s just my interpretation, though. We have no idea how the crime scene looked, because the police have never released the crime scene photos.
What happened with the Nashville judge Casey Moreland?
In Episode 6 we discussed that as Wayne Neeley was leaving the crime scene after finding Steve and Jenni’s bodies, he called his friend Casey Moreland. In that episode we also detailed how well-connected Moreland seemed to be around Nashville … and how corrupt he allegedly was. At the time the episode aired, Moreland was awaiting sentencing for a bevy of crimes he committed when he was a sitting judge.
Since then, Moreland has been sentenced to 44 months in federal prison for obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and stealing. I should note: None of the charges were related to the Steve McNair case.
Did anybody say from which angles the gunshots to Steve McNair’s body came?
This is a good question. We would’ve included this in the podcast, but it would’ve required us to go into the weeds a little bit. Here’s what the autopsy report says about the directions of the four shots to Steve McNair’s body:
1) Right temple: leftward, backward, and downward
2) Left temple: rightward, slightly upward, and slightly backward
3) Right side of the chest: backward, downward, and leftward
4) Left side of the chest: backward, and slightly downward
You should also remember, the police have theorized that McNair was sleeping on his couch when he was shot. I’m no expert, but the two shots to the chest being downward (and slightly downward) would indicate to me that someone might have been standing over him. The shot to Steve’s right temple is also downward.
The one outlier is the shot to Steve’s left temple, which entered at a “slightly upward” angle. If Steve was sleeping on the couch when he was shot, as the police suggest, then, in my opinion, it would seem as though the shooter was crouching or kneeling during that shot. Again: this is all speculation on my part based on what was written in the autopsy report.
What was your favorite Steve McNair story that didn’t make it into the podcast?
I spent a lot of time talking to Steve McNair’s teammates and friends from the Tennessee Titans about who he was as a person, and I wish we could’ve fit more of those stories into the podcast. My favorite story came from Brad Hopkins, who was McNair’s left tackle for the majority of his career.
The story was from McNair’s first training camp as a rookie, back in 1995. The team was gathered at a ranch outside of San Antonio, and Jeff Fisher, the former Titans’ coach, decided to have a greased pig contest for the rookies. He put all of the rookies into a pen, which had a 4-foot tall fence. The game was: catch a pig, and you can leave the pen.
“You see all these silly rookies running around trying to grab these wet pigs,” Hopkins recalls. “Steve walked up, I swear to goodness, he walked up right behind one of them and scooped [the pig] up by both of its back legs, held it in the air, sat it down. Everybody was staring; it was stone quiet. ... And then they said, ‘No, no he’s not getting out of there that easy. Do it again. Do it again.’
“He did it just as fast as he did the first time. He did it right again. Scooped this pig up by the back of his legs, held him up again, set the pig down. He stepped out of the ring in his—I think he had on some white Nike Air Force 1s. Didn’t get a speck of dirt on any of them. The guy was just amazing.”
