NASHVILLE - Former NFL star Steve McNair's girlfriend bought, less than two days earlier, the gun found where the two were shot to death, police said yesterday.
Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron did not identify the person who sold Sahel Kazemi the semiautomatic handgun Thursday evening.
McNair, 36, and Kazemi, 20, died early Saturday. He was shot four times in what was ruled a homicide. She was shot once, and Aaron said police were awaiting results of ballistic and gunpowder-residue tests before deciding whether she had been slain or committed suicide.
The bodies were found in a Nashville condominium leased by McNair.
Aaron said that as far as he knew, McNair was not with Kazemi when she got the gun.
The public will have a couple of opportunities to attend viewings of McNair in Nashville on Thursday, and a memorial service will be held that evening at Mount Zion Baptist Church.
A second memorial service will be held Saturday at Reed Green Coliseum in Hattiesburg, Miss., on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. McNair was from Mount Olive, a small town nearby.
Fans are asked to make donations to the Steve McNair Foundation.
Fisher and George praise McNair. An emotional Jeff Fisher said McNair, his former quarterback, was a "great person" who put the Tennessee Titans on the NFL map.
The Titans coach called McNair one of the "greatest competitors of all time on the field." Fisher was the only coach McNair had for the first 11 years of his NFL career, and he said McNair's legacy is what he did on the field and in the community.
"The Steve McNair that I knew would want me to say, 'I'm sorry. I'm not perfect. We all make decisions sometimes that are not in the best interests. Please forgive me.' The Steve McNair that I knew would want me to say, 'Celebrate my life for what I did on the field, for what I did in the community, the kind of teammate that I was,' " Fisher said. "That's what the Steve that I knew would want me to say."
Said Eddie George, a former Titans running back from Philadelphia who was a teammate of McNair's: "I'm not in a position to judge anyone or to be judged. That's up to God. And he was close to me."
Fisher's first full season was in 1995 when the then-Houston Oilers made McNair the No. 3 pick overall in that year's draft. George joined the team in 1996.
