Tapes Reveal Details On McNair Murder Gun - WSMV Channel 4

Tapes Reveal Details On McNair Murder Gun

One year after former Tennessee Titan Steve McNair's murder, we are finally getting to hear what police found out from the only person ever charged in the case.


Convicted felon Adrian Gilliam said he had a gun his fiance wanted him to get rid of, so he sold it to a woman named Sahel Kazemi on July 3, 2009.


Police said that hours after the sale, Kazemi ended up using that gun to kill her lover, former Tennessee Titan Steve McNair.


But Gilliam's story to police seemed to often change about how well he knew the so-called stranger to whom he sold the gun.


"I hold myself accountable for the transaction that occurred," said Gilliam on Dec. 18, 2009.


That's what he told a federal judge by video that day right before being sentenced to two and a half years in prison for being a convicted felon in possession of a weapon.


That weapon was a loaded 9 mm pistol.  It was sold in the parking lot outside Dave and Busters at Opry Mills Mall, according to Metro police.


The buyer was 20-year-old Kazemi, or Jenni as she was known to friends and co-workers. Police said sometime in the early-morning hours of July 4, 2009, she pulled the trigger, killing McNair, before turning the gun on herself.


On July 5, Metro police went to question Gilliam at his home in LaVergne about the gun sale.


"I sold it to some young lady. I don't even know her name," Gilliam said.


A detective asked what she looked like.


"She was small (and had) dark, black hair. She drove a Kia Rio, Kia something," said Gilliam.


Detectives next asked Gilliam how he met the woman.


"I met her, I met her, I was selling cars and she said she was trying to get rid of her Kia.  I was trying to help her sell her car," Gilliam said. "Through talking to her about selling her car, she eventually asked me about a gun."


Detectives asked Gilliam if Kazdemi ever said why she needed a gun.  Gilliam said she didn't and that he "didn't even know her name."


Gilliam was persistent that he didn't know Kazemi's name, but when detectives went back to talk to him again -- 19 days later on July 24 and after he'd been arrested for having the gun -- his story changed.


Gilliam said he did know Kazemi and had met her three weeks before. Through the second interview, police determined that Gilliam actually desired more from Kazemi.


"We used to text frequently all the time.  I mean, she was flirting with me and trying to lure me in, but we never, we never really could, you know, never really able to, never really got a chance to do nothing," he said.


Gilliam also told police the last time he spoke with Kazemi was on the phone just two minutes after midnight on July 4. They questioned him about his whereabouts that night.


"I was in Antioch, Tenn. I was at a BP gas station, and I pulled up. I'm going to tell you how I know where I was at because I had just left my friend's house," Gilliam said.


He went on to say he didn't see Kazemi that night, but sent her a text message later.


"Do you recall sending her a text message, on July 4 at 1:17 a.m. in the morning, and you said, 'You good?' Why did you send her that text message?" the detective asked Gilliam.


"'Cause I hadn't heard from her; I don't know," Gilliam said.


Gilliam has never been charged with anything but selling Kazemi the murder weapon, but early on, investigators did not rule out Gilliam as a suspect in McNair's murder.


In December, Sgt. Pat Postiglione of Metro police said, "Gilliam was eliminated based on our investigation. Our investigation determined clearly that we were looking at a murder-suicide, not a double homicide made to look like a murder-suicide."


Gilliam is currently being held at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, Ga.  He is set to be released in September 2011.


Channel 4 News contacted him for comment, but he did not respond.