An examination of the brain by neuropathologists at Boston University revealed that the former player showed “unusually severe” brain damage.
Former NFL player Phillip Adams suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) brain disease when he shot and killed six people before committing suicide last April, authorities said Tuesday.
An examination of Adams’ brain by neuropathologists at Boston University revealed that the 32-year-old former player showed signs of “unusually severe” brain damage.
Ann McKee, the director of the Boston University CTE Center who conducted the exam, compared the findings to the case of Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star who was convicted of murder in 2015 before taking his own life in prison two years later.
“Phillip Adams had an extraordinary amount of CTE pathology in the frontal lobe, the area of the brain behind the forehead,” McKee explained.
“Adams’s 20-year football career put him at high risk for FTE,” he said.
CTE, which can only be diagnosed at autopsies, is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma.
The disease has been linked to a number of behavioral symptoms, including aggressiveness, depression, anxiety, paranoia, and suicidal tendencies, as well as memory loss.
The ETC’s discovery – which McKee says has been found in 315 former NFL players – led to a series of lawsuits against the League, which settled for about $ 1 billion in compensation to retired players in 2016.
According to the York County Coroner Sabrina Gast said Tuesday, the Adams family warned that the former ‘cornerback’ had suffered “several concussions” during his time in the NFL between 2010 and 2015, in which he played in the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Atlanta Falcons.
On April 7, Adams shot and killed Robert Lesslie, 70; his wife Barbara Lesslie, 69; two of her grandchildren, ages nine and five, and two men who worked on an air conditioning system at Lesslie’s home in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Shortly after the murders, Adams was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a nearby home.
Gast stressed that the ECT findings released Tuesday do not “fully” provide an explanation for what triggered the Adams crimes.
“It’s hard to say that that alone led to these behaviors, because it is usually a complicated issue with many other factors,” he said. “But we have certainly seen this behavior and in fact it is not what I would consider unusual in this disease.”
A toxicology test on Adams found that he had used amphetamines as well as an herbal extract that can act as a stimulant. (D)
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