Phillip Adams, the former NFL player who allegedly killed six people in an April mass shooting, suffered from severe CTE at the time of the killings in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Adams, who appeared in the NFL from 2010-’15, was accused of the Rock Hill shooting on April 7 of this year that left six dead. At the time, law enforcement said it later found Adams deceased with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
He was accused of killing physician Robert Lesslie, his wife, Barbara, two of their grandchildren and a pair of HVAC technicians working at Lesslie’s home at the time of the shooting. He was la
On Tuesday, per ESPN, coroner Dr. Ann McKee revealed that an autopsy found Adams had an “unusually severe” brain disease in his frontal lobe. It led to McKee diagnosing him with Stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE.
There are four stages of CTE, with Stage 4 the most severe and often being tied to dementia. McKee said that of the 24 NFL players posthumously diagnosed with CTE in their 20s and 30s, a majority had Stage 2. At that stage, the person typically shows more signs of paranoia, anxiety, depression is more common and there are more instances of explosivity.
Adams appeared in 78 career games across six seasons, suiting up for the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks and then-Oakland Raiders among several others. A seventh-round pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, Adams’ family said his mental health degraded quickly in recent years.
He is not the only former NFL player to be diagnosed with CTE following a violent death. Justin Strzelczyk, who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1990-’98), died in a highway chase in 2004 in a head-on collision with a tanker truck. He was later diagnosed with CTE. In 2017, an autopsy concluded that former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez suffered from the most severe CTE case ever found.
The NFL admitted in 2016, following years of denial, that there is a link between playing football and CTE.