Netflix’s hit sports documentary series Untold kicks off its fourth season with an in-depth look at the career of NFL star quarterback Steve “Air” McNair and his 2009 murder at just 36 years old.
As TIME wrote back then, McNair had an “outstanding” 13-year NFL career but “sadly, what we’ll most remember about Air McNair is the shocking way in which he died.” He was found dead in his Nashville apartment on July 4, 2009, lying next to his mistress, Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi, a Dave & Buster’s waitress. Police ruled the deaths were a murder-suicide by Kazemi.
Rodney Lucas and Taylor Alexander Ward, directors of Untold: The Murder of Air McNair, wanted to make a film that was not only about the tragedy of his death, but also about his incredible career.
McNair was born in Mount Olive, Miss., where he excelled at several sports—basketball, baseball, and track. He played football at the historically black college Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss. and setting Division I-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision) records for career passing yards and total offensive yards. He was named I-AA player of the year and finished third in voting for the Heisman Trophy. From 1995 to 2007, he played for the NFL’s Houston Oilers, Tennessee Titans, and Baltimore Ravens. He famously led the Titans to the Super Bowl in 2000, where they lost to the St. Louis Rams. He won a NFL Most Valuable Player Award in 2003.
“As brilliant as Steve was, when he was killed, he became just another black man who was shot dead,” says Lucas. “This doc humanizes Steve.”
For their hour-long film, Lucas and Ward had access to over 100 crime scene photos and the complete case files given to them by Charles Robinson, the lead detective on the case. Robert Gaddy, one of McNair’s friends, appears in the film, openly weeping as he recalls what it was like to visit McNair and find him dead, blood splattered all over his white sneakers. McNair’s former coaches, NFL team players, and fans appear throughout to tout his achievements.
So why did Kazemi kill McNair?
Because she is dead, there may never be one definitive answer, but the film paints a picture of someone in a really vulnerable place. Robinson says in the film, “I think everything went downhill after Jenny started realizing that there were other women that Steve was also seeing and that she wasn’t the only one.”
While McNair was a philanthropist and father, he was also a complicated person. He was not faithful to his wife, and Kazemi was one of several mistresses he had over the years. “He had an itch he had to scratch,” as his friend Gaddy puts it in the film.
Kazemi was stressed about her finances too. A month before the shooting, Kazemi texted McNair that she was on the verge of a “breakdown,” asking him to transfer $2,000 to her bank account. As the documentary shows, Sonya New, one of Kazemi’s co-workers at Dave & Buster’s, told authorities the day before the shooting, Kazemi told her she wanted to kill herself.
Kazemi was only 20 when she died, and in those 20 years, she had suffered a lot of heartbreak. She grew up in Tehran, Iran, and when she was 9 years old, her mother was murdered in a robbery. She immigrated to the U.S. at 13, living with an older sister in Jacksonville, Fla. But she had trouble fitting in socially and ended up dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, where she got a job at the Dave & Busters that McNair frequented.
Ward hopes the film will be the definitive account of McNair’s career. “Our goal is to just tell the complete story as honestly and objectively as possible,” he said. He hopes viewers will be able to see McNair for more than his grisly death, arguing, “this brief moment shouldn’t define or overshadow all the other things that came before.”
