A post-mortem examination showed unusually severe brain disease in the frontal lobe of a former NFL player accused of fatally shooting six people before killing himself, a coroner said.
A post-mortem examination showed unusually severe brain disease in the frontal lobe of a former NFL player accused of fatally shooting six people before killing himself, a coroner said. T he 20 years Phillip Adams spent playing American football “definitely… gave rise” to a diagnosis of stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, said Dr Ann McKee, who examined Adams’ brain. Authorities have said Adams killed physician Robert Lesslie, his wife Barbara, two of their grandchildren – nine-year-old Adah Lesslie and five-year-old Noah Lesslie – and two engineers working at the Lesslie home, James Lewis and Robert Shook, both 38. The incident happened in April in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Police later found Adams with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The degenerative disease known as CTE is linked to head trauma and concussions and has been shown to cause a range of symptoms, including violent mood swings and memory loss. Dr McKee, who directs the CTE Centre at Boston University, said that of 24 NFL players diagnosed with the disease after dying in their 20s and 30s, most had stage 2, like Adams.
