Last week, the man who sold a gun to Shahel Kazemi was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Adrian Gilliam’s sentence arose from the fact that, as a convicted felon, the law prohibited him from owning a firearm.
Buried in that development is the fact that, with the sentencing of Gilliam, police officially have closed the investigation regarding the cause of McNair’s death.
The decision comes despite additional evidence of a prior connection between Gilliam and Kazemi, despite a contention by Gilliam that he did not know her prior to selling Kazemi the gun.
Per the Tennessean, new details made public after Gilliam’s sentencing include a suggestion that he was trying to start a relationship with Kazemi. Police, however, insist that the evidence of a murder suicide based on the crime scene is clear.
Police accepted Gilliam’s contention that he lied about not knowing Kazemi because he initially was interviewed in the presence of his fiancee. He later came clean that they had exchanged phone calls and text messages, as Armen Keteyian of CBS discovered earlier this year.
Still, police admit that Gilliam’s alibi for the night in question didn’t check out.
Then there’s the surprising reality that one witness told police that McNair’s good friend, Robert Gaddy, recently had been fired by McNair for allegedly stealing $13,000 from him. It was Gaddy who inexplicably delayed calling police after the bodies of McNair and Kazemi were found.
Through it all, authorities insist that the evidence at the crime scene points to a murder-suicide.
“If it were a double homicide that killed Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi, how would we benefit by saying this is a murder-suicide, investigation closed?” Nashville Metro police Sgt. Pat Postiglione told the Tennessean. “We follow the evidence where it goes. It went to murder-suicide.”
Frankly, Postiglione’s comment makes us even more suspicious. Of course the police benefit from declaring that it was a murder-suicide. They’re able to close the case, and the general public doesn’t have to worry about the presence of a double murderer in the community, creating the impression that the police are providing genuine security for the community.
And with the evidence at the crime scene supporting a finding of a murder-suicide, prosecutors never would have been able to convict Gilliam or anyone else under the very high standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, especially when the police observations initially made at the scene pointed so heavily to a murder-suicide, apparently ignoring all other available leads and possibilities.
But, hey, why suspect Gilliam of murder? I mean, why would a convicted murderer who apparently was pursuing Kazemi and whose alibi didn’t check out be guilty of, you know, murder?
