The brain of Phillip Adams, the former NFL player that police say he killed a South Carolina doctor, three family members and a repairman before being fatally shot – will undergo testing for a degenerative disease that has affected several professional athletes and has been shown to cause violent mood swings and other cognitive disorders, according to local forensic.
York County coroner Sabrina Gast said in a statement Friday that she had obtained approval from Adams’ family to include the procedure as part of her autopsy, which will be conducted at Medical University. of South Carolina. The hospital will work with Boston University, whose center for chronic traumatic encephalopathy is conducting research on the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma on athletes and military personnel, according to its website.
According to police, Adams went to Robert and Barbara Lesslie’s home Wednesday and shot and killed them, two of his grandchildren, 9-year-old Adah Lesslie and 5-year-old Noah Lesslie and 38-year-old James Lewis. Gaston’s air conditioning technician who worked there. He also shot Lewis’ partner Robert Shook, 38, of Cherryville, North Carolina, who was taken to a Charlotte hospital, where he was in critical condition “fighting hard for his life,” said one cousin, Heather Smith Thompson. .
York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said investigators have not understood why Adams carried out the attack.
Tolson said evidence left at the scene of the shooting led investigators to Adams as a suspect. He said they went to Adams ‘parents’ house, evacuated them and then tried to persuade him to leave. He was eventually found dead by a single gun to the head in a bedroom, he said.
It will be months before the results of tests for chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, which can only be diagnosed at an autopsy, can be obtained. The disorder has been found in former military personnel, football players and boxers and in other people who have been subjected to repeated head trauma. A recent study found signs of the disease in 110 of 111 NFL players whose brains were inspected.
Several years ago, the league agreed to pay $ 1 billion to retired players who claimed it deceived them about the dangers of playing football.
Adams, 32, played 78 NFL games for six seasons on six teams. He joined the 49ers in 2010 as selected for the seventh round of the South Carolina state draft and, although he rarely started, he played in New England, Seattle, Oakland and the New York Jets before to end his career with the Atlanta Falcons. in 2015.
As a rookie in the late 2010 season, Adams suffered a serious ankle injury, which resulted in surgery that included several screws on his leg. He never played in the 49ers again, pitching just before the start of the 2011 season. Later, with the Raiders, he had two concussions during three games in 2012.
It was not immediately clear if he suffered long-term injuries related to concussions. Adams would not have been eligible to test as part of a comprehensive deal between the league and its former players for those injuries, because he had not retired in 2014.
Adams’ father told a Charlotte television station that he blamed football for his son’s problems and that they could have led him to commit Wednesday’s violence.
“I can say he’s a good kid – he was a good kid, and I think football messed him up,” Alonzo Adams told WCNC-TV. “He didn’t talk much and didn’t bother anyone.”
Adams’ sister told USA Today that her brother’s “mental health has deteriorated rapidly and terribly badly” in recent years and that the family noticed “extremely worrying” signs of mental illness, including an intense temperament and a negligence in personal hygiene.
In a statement to McClatchy Newspapers, Adams’ parents and siblings sent their condolences to the Lesslie, Lewis and Shook families, saying, “The Phillip we know is not a man capable of the atrocities he committed Wednesday.”
Relatives went on to say they didn’t know “whether football played a role” in the violence, but “we know there has to be some catalyst.”
Gerald Dixon, a former NFL defender who retired in 2001, said when he coached Adams in high school, the young player was a team leader, but also moderate and humble.
Dixon added that he had spoken to Adams a few months ago and had not noticed any signs of depression or other mental health issues. “Whenever I talked to him, he was always happy and he remembered old things,” he said.
Dixon acknowledged that the repeated blows to the head during the game could have affected Adams, as they have negatively affected many of the other NFL players Dixon has known and who were later diagnosed with CTE.
“You never know what’s going on in a person’s mind after going through these concussions,” Dixon said.
Agent Scott Casterline told The Associated Press that Adams did not participate in easily accessible physical and mental health programs for former players.
“We encouraged him to explore all of his disability options and he wouldn’t,” Casterline said, noting that Adams ’career was hampered by an ankle injury in 2010.“ He knew it hurt and he missed the football, but he would not accept the health advice he was offered. He said yes, but no. “