Remember CTE? These Are Its Victims.

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]By the time the police arrived, it was already too late. It was just after 6:30 in the evening. Emergency responders gathered outside of 345 Park Avenue, the high-rise office complex in Midtown Manhattan. Inside lay five bodies, punctured by bullets for an M4 rifle.

[00:00:16]First of all was a security guard, a Bronx police officer working his second job. The next victim was a middle-aged Blackstone employee. And finally, another security guard who tried to stop him. The shooter then allowed a woman to flee the elevator unharmed before pressing the button for the 33rd floor where he opened fire once again. His final victim was a young woman who worked for the building company. The responders who entered the building found the shooter on the ground surrounded by his own blood. At the end of his rampage, he shot himself in the heart. And investigators would soon know why. Inside the shooter's wallet was a three-page note. It was rambling and sometimes difficult to understand, but one thing was very clear. The shooter believed that America's National Football League was trying to bury research about CTE, a medical condition supposedly caused by repeated blows to the head. Now that he had taken his revenge, he asked for his own brain to be studied for the disease. The road to 345 Park Avenue covers a decade of research, a national sports controversy, and several high-profile crimes. And it brings to mind a curious question. Was something like this inevitable? Now, today's story begins back in 2003 with the death of former champion boxer Paul Pender. He was a Marine Corps veteran and former football player turned boxer who retired in 1963 as the reigning world middleweight champion. At the time of his death, he spent years suffering from what appeared to be advanced Alzheimer's disease. He died in a Veterans Administration hospital on the outskirts of Boston. An autopsy was then conducted and his brain was sent to Anne McKe, an Alzheimer's expert who worked for both Boston University and the Boston area VA. At first glance, his brain looked normal. But after carefully examining thin slices of tissue under a microscope, Dr. McKe realized that something rather strange was going on.

[00:01:55]She believed that Paul Penda didn't have Alzheimer's disease at all. Instead, he suffered from a brain condition she had heard about, but had never seen. Chronic traumatic encapopathy. In both cases, there's an abnormal amount of to protein in the brain. In a healthy person, this protein provides structural support from microtubules, kind of like how asphalt sports a highway. As a road gets older, though, the asphalt starts to crack and crumble, disrupting normal activity.

[00:02:23]With chronic traumatic enapylopathy, or CTE, the brain seems to respond to repeated blows to the head by beefing up the amount of asphalt on its roads. At time, the extra protein crowds out and kills other parts of the brain. Often it's the parts that are responsible for emotional regulation, memory, and highle thinking. Quite important stuff. Now, as far back as the ancient Greeks, people noticed that those who fought for a living tended to get a bit loopy in their old age. In the 20th century, the condition was called dementia pugalista or punch drunk syndrome. It was thought to only affect boxers, probably because the sport revolves around, you know, repeatedly getting smashed in the head, usually without having a helmet on. But only a year earlier in 2002, a Nigerian American neuropathologist named Bennett Marlo had conducted an autopsy on the American football player Mike Webster.

[00:03:16]Like Penza, his brain did seem to be normal at first, but when he looked at the tissue under a microscope, there were high levels of to protein. Seems like boxers weren't the only ones getting punch drunk. Now that she'd seen a case of CTE, Dr. McKe wanted to know more. She had grown up in Apple, Wisconsin, and had four older brothers.

[00:03:34]So, the Green Bay Packers were a team since birth. She was disturbed by the idea that underneath all that padding, football players were getting invisible injuries. However, there was plenty to keep her busy with Alzheimer's research, so her interest would have to wait.

[00:03:48]Then, in 2005, a retired NFL player named Terry Long was found dead. It suffered a slew of financial troubles in the past year and was facing charges for setting his Pittsburgh based chicken processing center on fire in order to collect a million-doll insurance policy.

[00:04:02]When he appeared in court a little over a month before his death, he told the judge that he had only $750 in the bank and $300 in his pocket. His NFL money was all gone. Because the death occurred in Pittsburgh, Bennett Amarlu was the one to do Long's autopsy. He found a gallon of antifreeze in his stomach and an overabundance of tor in his brain.

[00:04:22]Amaru concluded that the former NFL player's mental problems were caused by CTE and that it had likely had a significant impact on his bizarre behavior and his decision to commit Marley sent his findings to the prestigious scientific journal Neurosurgery. The NFL legal team requested that the paper along with the previous one on Mike Webster be retracted on the grounds that it was bad science. The journal ignored them and published Terry Long's diagnosis.

[00:04:47]Anyway, good for them. As more and more people heard about CTE, Amaru was contacted to investigate the death of former Pittsburgh Steeler players Justin Strazzik. In September of 2004, Strazzik was driving to a fundraiser in upstate New York when he stopped at a gas station outside of Buffalo. He tried to hand over $2,000 in cash to a stranger.

[00:05:08]When the man refused, Stellzik told him to run because the evil ones were coming. Stellic then got in his car and pilledled away at 90 mph, 145 kph. After a 40-m police chase, he swerved into oncoming traffic and collided with a tank truck, which exploded. Strazik was killed instantly. Miraculously, the truck driver survived. Everyone assumed that Stellzik had been drinking on drugs or maybe both at the time of the accident, but an autopsy revealed that he was stone cold sober that night.

[00:05:36]Amari got permission to study his brain and found advanced CTE. Strazzik was 36 when he died. News of these scientific discoveries eventually reached Chris Ninsky, a former WWE wrestler who went by the name of Chris Har. He was proud to be the first Ivy League wrestler on Monday Night Raw. Then, as he put it, I got kicked in the head and it gave me a 15-year headache. Nwinsky wanted to know more about the long-term effects of head injuries. He was familiar with both athletics and academia, which put him in a unique position to bring them together. He approached Bennett and Marlu and Anne McKe with a deal. If they'd run the tests, he'd get them the brains. In 2009, Ninsky convinced the family of former NFL linebacker John Grimsley to donate his brain to Boston University. After retiring from football in 1993, Grimsley develops memory problems and had angry outbursts that seemed to come completely out of nowhere. His wife was so confused that she once shouted, "Who are you?" and he simply couldn't answer. When Grimsley forgot his son's engagement party, which had helped plan months in advance, his wife realized that something was very wrong. A year later, Grimsley died when a gun he was cleaning discharged into his stomach. Despite a lifetime of gun knowledge and a job as a professional hunting guide, he seemingly forgot that there was a bullet in the chamber. Now, the time concussions were believed to be the cause of CTE and Grimsley suffered a wse inducing nine over the course of his career. Nwinsky believed that he might be key in convincing the NFL to take concussions more seriously. At the time, there weren't any set protocols on how to handle a head injury, and there were no studies on the long-term effects of multiple blows. But already the pieces were coming together and it was not forming a pretty picture. Grimsley's family were the first to work with Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Enkalopathy or CST. This was a brand new program headed by Anne McKe and it was the only research lab in the world completely dedicated to the study of CTE. The plan was to create a brain bank of individuals thought to have the condition and go through their brain tissue one by one to learn everything that they could about what caused it, how it spread, and most importantly, how to stop it. Dr. McKe and her colleagues examined Grimsley's brain and found clear signs of CTE. They published their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. Soon after the article was printed, Dr. McGee got a message. The NFL would like a word.

[00:07:55]Sensing that this was unlikely to be a friendly chat, McKe asked if Chris Ninsky could come along. He could, but he wouldn't be allowed to say a word.

[00:08:04]Armed with slides showing the brains of four former NFL players, they stepped before the NFL's Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. As expected, the research was met with skepticism. This was clearly a fluke or maybe a misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. And even if it was CTE, it wasn't something to worry about. I mean, the sample size is too small. You couldn't prove that the buildup of tour was the result of repeated blows to the head? Not at all.

[00:08:28]And also, who is Dr. McKe to tell the NFL how to run the business anyway?

[00:08:33]There were millions of dollars on the line, and obviously a woman couldn't understand the importance of football.

[00:08:38]Dr. McKe left the meeting with little hope that the NFL would ever accept her research, but she wasn't exactly surprised. After Benetamarlu presented his research, the chair of the NFL's committee on mild traumatic brain injury told the press, quote, "In my opinion, the only scientifically valid evidence of a chronic encapopy in athletes is in boxers and in some steeplejase jockeyies." The NFL had even gone so far as publishing their own research in the scientific journal Neurosurgery, where they stated that the NFL didn't have to worry about concussions because American football players were essentially built differently. The article said, quoting, "Some individuals are more prone to delayed or poor recovery. They are selected out either of their own valition or because their head injuries prevent them from continuing to participate in the sport. As a result of this winnowing process, those players who ultimately play in the NFL are probably less susceptible to MTBI and prolonged postconussion syndrome than the general population." End quote. Now, for anyone wondering how a paper like this got published in a peer-reviewed journal, the editor-inchief was a consultant for the NFL. Convenient. He overruled concerns about the suspiciously small sample size. The same accusations aimed at Dr. McKe and ordered that the paper go to print. It was clear that football was a cherished American institution and the two people tried to change it or an immigrant and a woman. The NFL was never going to listen to them. That is unless someone could make them. In October 2009, the NFL answered to the highest power in the land, US Congress. After all, the NFL was a monopoly and it had an antitrust exemption granted by the government. If they weren't being reasonable, that could go away. A House Judiciary Committee called for both the NFL and scientists to testify before them in order to determine once and for all if the players were being harmed. The first to testify was Roger Good, the NFL's commissioner and the highest ranking person in the entire league. When asked whether or not he was aware of a link between head trauma and mental illness, he said that the science would have to speak for itself. Congress took him at his word. Several scientists, including Dr. McKe, presented their research on the link between professional football and CTE. There was also an internal NFL document, which had been leaked to a journalist less than a month before. In a telephone survey of over a thousand retired NFL players, those over 50 were six times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or other memory issues. For players between the ages of 30 and 50, it was a shocking 19 times more likely. But it might get even worse. Dr. McKe testified that she had recently received the brain of an 18-year-old who had committed shortly after his 10th sports related concussion. There were clear signs of CTE in the frontal lobe despite the fact that he'd only ever played for middle and high school teams. Apparently, you didn't have to be a professional athlete to get brain damage. And this had the potential to affect anyone anywhere playing American football, from the pros all the way down to children putting on a helmet for the first time. And there was simply no way to know who was suffering from CTE until the victim died. So, Congress took this all in and decided it didn't really look very good for the NFL. Representative Linda Sanchez from California said, and we'll quote her, "The NFL sort of has this blanket denial or minimizing of the fact that there may be this link." And it sort of reminds me of the tobacco companies pre-90s when they kept saying, "Oh, there's no link between smoking and damage to your health." Emphasis my own.

[00:12:03]The next morning, her statement was splashed across the national news.

[00:12:07]Americans were pretty angry. Anyone who watched football knew that it was violent and dangerous, but this was on another level. players understood that they were risking their bodies when they signed up to play and it was considered a worthy trade for the potential benefits. For many players, this was their opportunity to give their families a better life. They could attend college, make connections, and collect huge paychecks that were simply beyond their wildest dreams. But that fouian bargain hadn't just been a gamble on their bodies. They had also unknowingly offered their souls. All of a sudden, the NFL changed its tune. Commissioner Gul openly admitted that there was a link between head trauma and CTE. He pledged a million dollars to Dr. McKe's research and declared that the CST was now the preferred brain bank of the NFL.

[00:12:56]But despite their sudden and very public support for Boston University, the NFL still seemed to harbor doubts about its validity. This became obvious when tragedy once again struck a retired player. This time it was the veteran quarterback Junior Sea. It was already a familiar story. After a wildly successful 20-year professional football career, Seattle's life had fallen apart.

[00:13:17]He developed a gambling problem, floated in and out of his children's lives, and after a girlfriend accused him of domestic violence, he decided to drive his car off a cliff, and he survived. In 2012, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his heart. The eerily similar to that of another NFL player, Dave Dwon. The former Chicago Bears safety had also shot himself in the chest. Before he pulled the trigger, he sent a message to his loved ones asking them to send his brain to the CST so that it could be studied. The family did so, and they later learned that Dwesson had been right. He did in fact have CTE.

[00:13:51]Despite the fact that so chose not to aim for his head, he left no instructions for what to do with his brain. Both Ben Marley and Dr. McKe expressed interest in examining it for CTE, but the NFL had other ideas. They steered the show family toward the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which they claimed would provide the highest level of scientific integrity. If the NFL thought this would keep a lid on the concussion crisis, though, well, they were a bit wrong. The NIH declined to release their diagnosis publicly, but that didn't stop the SO family from going public. They released documents showing that three separate doctors had diagnosed Junior with CTE. Then they sued the NFL. And they weren't the only ones pursuing legal action. By 2013, 4 and a half thousand former NFL players were suing their former employer. They claimed that it intentionally hid the risks of brain injury in their jobs. That's about a third of all living NFL retirees. If the case went to trial, the payout could be in the billions with a B. After intense mediation, both sides agreed on a number. The NFL would pay $765 million for medical benefits and injury compensation to its former players. They agreed to fund future brain research and allow those suffering from neurological disorders to apply for further assistance. In exchange, the NFL refused any liability for their actions regarding CTE. Now, over in another universe, that might have been the end of things. After over a decade of denying that there was any connection between head injuries and mental problems, the NFL was finally forced to confront the overwhelming research that there was something very wrong in the world of football. But that's not where the story ends, is it? CTE is a complex medical disorder that is still being defined. It can include a wide range of symptoms from mood swings to personality changes, insomnia to memory issues, depression to anxiety. Everyone who has it experiences it differently. Some have only mild symptoms. Others can barely function. And to the continued bafflement of scientists, some people can take repeated blows to the head and just be perfectly fine. At the moment, the only way to diagnose someone with CTE is to cut open their brain and look at it under a microscope. This is well not possible to do while someone is alive. There is ongoing research on how to find to buildup on brain scans, but so far nothing works. And unless someone can be diagnosed with CT while they're still alive, treatments are not going to go anywhere. For those who suspect they have the disorder, it can be hard to accept that nothing can be done to help them. But everyone finds their own way to cope. Some find treatments to reduce their symptoms. Others contribute to scientific research. In advanced cases, they find an institution that can provide for their needs. Ultimately, a person suffering from CTE is far far more likely to hurt themselves than someone else. Sometimes it's drugs or gambling or self harm far too often.

[00:16:39]But in a number of small cases, CT seems to unleash something darker in its victims. And when it does, it leaves behind the body count. So, while this video has so far focused on American football, it is far from the only sport to cause CTE allegedly. In fact, anyone who receives multiple blows to the head can develop it. This includes people in the military or victims of violence, including domestic violence. However, most of the brain studies have been done on athletes. The most dangerous sports where CTE is concerned are boxing, ice hockey, American football, Australian football, MMA, professional wrestling, rugby, and regular old football, also known as soccer in some parts of the world. In other words, it's basically any sport that requires physical contact. It's also impossible to ignore that these sports are hugely popular and blows to the head are often the most exciting part of the show. Nowhere is this more obvious than professional wrestling, where athleticism mixes with theater to create a crowd-pleasing spectacle. It's not uncommon for fights to end with a knockout blow to the head, potentially delivered with a piece of furniture. While there's plenty of scripting going on, the impact to the head is real. After all, this caused the 15-year headache that drove Chris Ninsky to CTE research in the first place. But for another wrestler, the price of those head injuries would be much higher.

[00:17:56]Chris Benoir spent 22 years in the ring and was a highly accomplished athlete.

[00:18:01]He started wrestling near his hometown of Montreal, Canada, and joined the US-based WWF in 1995. He proved to be a major hit and began taking regular blows to the head as part of his job. Since he was shorter than the other wrestlers, he took steroids to keep up an intimidating physique. Shortly before his death, Benoir began acting strangely. He was convinced that someone was following him and that he was going to lose his job.

[00:18:22]His wife mentioned to a friend that he seemed more aggressive and was worried about her safety. It turned out she was absolutely right. On the evening of Friday, June the 22nd, 2007, Benoir tied up, beat, and strangled his wife Nancy in their home spare room. He wrapped her body in a towel and placed a Bible beside her. Then he went to bed. Early the next morning, he went to the bedroom of his 7-year-old son, Daniel. He gave him some prescription Xanax and waited for the boy to fall asleep. He then strangled his son and placed a Bible on top of his body. At around 3 p.m., he called a friend to say that his wife and child had food poisoning, so he'd be late to work that night. He ended the call with a deliberate, "I love you." At 3:00 in the morning, he sent text messages to four of his co-workers stating his home address and where his dogs were located. When Benoir failed to shop for work on the 25th, the WWE reached out to local law enforcement for a wellness check. Officers entered the home and found Chris Benoir in his home gym hanging from a makeshift noose fashioned from a lap pull down machine.

[00:19:22]He had committed 24th, 2 days after murdering his wife. The details of the crime shocked the entire wrestling community. No one had any idea what might have caused Benoir to kill his family. Some speculated that it was steroid use, especially after it was reported that it had 10 times the normal amount of testosterone in his body when he died. But Chris Noinsky had another theory. He had met Benoir during his time at the WWE and had spoken to him around 6 months before his death. Ninsky was writing a book about the link between concussions and brain damage and Benoir wanted to know more. Ninsky asked how many concussions he had had and Benoir responded more than I can count.

[00:20:00]He then gave Ninsky his phone number and asked if they could discuss things further. That phone call never happened.

[00:20:06]And after the tragic events of June 2007, Nwinsky was left wondering if that phone number hadn't just been curiosity, maybe it had been a cry for help. Ninsky used his connections to get Benoir's brain to Dr. Julian Bales, a professor of neurosurgery. The autopsy results showed CTE in all four loes of the brain and the brain stem. A shockingly advanced case for a 40-year-old. Given the amount of damage, it's likely that CTE played a role in Benoir's decision to murder his family. The steroid use and whatever marital issues were going on probably didn't help either. And then tragedy struck again. In December 2009, a second WWE wrestler was found to have CTE. Andrew Martin, who went by the ringame test, died at only 34 from an overdose of oxycodone. His brain was examined by Bennett Maru, who found a severe case of CTE, 34 years old. In an interview with ESPN, Dr. Julian Bales said, quote, "The science tells us that jumping off the 10-ft ladders and slamming people with tables and chairs is simply bad for the brain. I mean, wrestling might be scripted, but the danger of CTE is very, very real." Since 2007, 11 professional wrestlers have beenostimously diagnosed with CTE, including Shannon Spruel, who went by the ring name Daffy and became the first woman diagnosed with a condition. Only Benoir has committed murder, although there are some lingering questions about Jimmy Superfly snooker. That still leaves the vast majority of sufferers in the not murderous category where we all prefer to be. However, the connection between CTE and violent crime was only just beginning. In 2012, a tragedy shook the heart of the NFL. Joan Belchure, a linebacker of the Kansas City Chiefs, was 25 years old and had already accomplished a great deal. With his NFL paychecks, he bought himself his dream Bentley in a three-bedroom home in a quiet neighborhood. He shared the home with his girlfriend, Cassandra Perkins, and their three-month-old daughter. His mother moved into a spare bedroom so she could help look after the baby. Belure and Perkins had an intense relationship that often led to fights. It was all the usual things: money, work, who was staying out too late. The night before he died, Belchure had had a fight with his girlfriend and left to go drinking with another woman. They quickly lost track of each other in a crowded Kansas City nightclub. At around 3:00 a.m., the police got a call about a suspicious person sleeping in a car. It turned out it was Belchure, who claimed he'd forgotten the code to his girlfriend's apartment and had to wait until she came home. The police told him he couldn't sleep in his car and he needed to figure something out. A neighbor buzzed Belchure into the building and let him crash on their couch for the night.

[00:22:35]Belchure insisted that he needed to be up early that morning to attend a team meeting. The neighbor woke him at 6:30 and sent him home to make himself presentable. A little before 8:00 in the morning, Belchure's mother heard the young couple arguing in the bedroom. And then it was gunfire. She ran into the room and saw the mother of her grandchild lying on the bed covered with bullet holes. Her son stood above her holding a handgun and crying. Belchure kissed his girlfriend on the forehead and said he was sorry. Then he fled the home. His mother grabbed the baby and called 911. As police sirens echoed through the streets, Belchure drove to the chief's training facility where he was due for the team meeting. At some point on the five-mile drive, the true impact of what had done must have finally hit him. He stepped out of his car with a gun held to his head. The team's general manager rushed across the parking lot and tried to intervene.

[00:23:23]Belchure thanked him for all done and asked him to take care of his daughter.

[00:23:27]The head coach and a linebacker also ran over and tried to get him to drop the gun. Everyone knew there were problems in Belchure's relationship and they promised that they could help. But it was too late. Belchure told them he'd killed his girlfriend and now he needed to kill himself. As the sound of sirens closed on the parking lot, Belchure pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. It was a devastating emotional blow to the NFL. No one was in the mood for a football game, but there was no rescheduling. At the next day's game, there was a moment of silence for the victims of domestic violence. The coach stood on the sidelines and did his best to pretend that one of his players hadn't committed right in front of him the morning before. About a year after the funeral, Belchure's mother learned that CTE might have played a role in her son's actions. She asked that his body be exumed and his brain examined. The report, which was completed by Dr. Pott Kazowski, found significant CTE damage in Belch's hippocampus, the part of the brain involved with learning, memory, and emotion. It's possible to know exactly what went through Belch's mind that morning, but the diagnosis provides some insight into his actions. His emotions would have been running haywire, and his impulse control was likely damaged. Probably regretted his actions the moment the murder was over.

[00:24:38]Hopefully, that will give some degree of comfort to his daughter, who's now growing up without her parents. And then, of course, there's the most famous NFL murder of all. On June the 27th, 2013, a teenager jogging home from the gym decided to cut through a local industrial park in North Attboro, Massachusetts. What he found in a gravel pit set off a chain of events that shook the entire country. Police arrived to find the body of Odin Lloyd, a 27year-old who played football for the semi-pro Boston bandits. A summer storm was brewing, so the police quickly covered the body with a tarp, put a nearby cigar and five shell casings into an evidence bag, and took photos of some footprints that didn't match the victim.

[00:25:15]When the rain passed, the police removed the tar and searched through the victim's pockets. They contained a cell phone, some cash, a wallet, and car keys with a tag for Enterprise Rental Car.

[00:25:23]After checking the gravel bit for vehicles, the police called up the local enterprise shop and asked who rented the car. When the employee pulled out the rent document, he gasped. It was Aaron Hernandez, a tight end for the New England Patriots. The police immediately headed to Hernandez's home, assuming that he must have been the true target.

[00:25:42]But when they arrived, Hernandez was not only fine, but seemed unconcerned about the whole thing. And this was odd because he confirmed that Odin Lloyd was his friend and was dating his fiance's sister, so they did spend a lot of time together. That Hernandez asked for a lawyer. The police named him as their prime suspect. The rental car was found parked near Lloyd's home about 40 mi away from the gravel pit. When the police talked to his relatives, his sister said that she'd seen Lloyd get into a silver Nissan Ultima around 2:30 in the morning. She'd also received three text messages from him that night that said, "You saw who I'm with, NFL."

[00:26:15]And just so you know, at the time, she thought he was bragging about who he was parting with. Now, it seemed like a warning. After checking back with Enterprise Rental Car, it turned out that Hernandez had actually rented two cars that night. One of them was the vehicle found near Lloyd's home. The other was a silver Nissan Ultima.

[00:26:33]Security footage from the industrial park showed a silver car entering the area at 3:23 a.m. and exiting 4 minutes later in the direction of Aaron Hernandez's home. This was enough for the police to get a warrant to search his house. When they checked his security cameras, the video showed Hernandez leaving his home in the early hours of Monday morning in his silver rental car. Several hours later, he returned home with two friends. As they stepped inside the house, Aaron was holding what appeared to be a gun. The timestamps revealed that he'd come home only a few minutes after the silver car left the gravel pit. His house was only a mile away. Everything matched up. On June the 26th, Aaron Hernandez was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd.

[00:27:11]Many people responded simply with disbelief. Others immediately returned their Patriots merchandise, but a few people were not surprised at all. One man came forward to say that Hernandez had shot him in the face and left him to die in the parking lot of a Florida strip club. As for Hernandez, he pleaded not guilty to all charges. He didn't deny renting the Nissan Ultima or that the vehicle was used in the murder.

[00:27:33]Instead, he claimed that the two other men in the car, both childhood friends of his, with the real guilty ones.

[00:27:39]According to him, he'd been asleep in the back seat and was completely oblivious to the whole thing. But the police didn't buy it. For one, the driver of the car was wearing a light colored shirt, and everyone else was in something dark. Two, the footprints beside the body came from a 13-siz sneaker and the other men wore a size 10. Three, there was surveillance footage from a convenience store that showed Hernandez bought cotton candy, flavored gum, and a black and mild cigar on the evening of the murder, a perfect match for the cigar found at the crime scene. After the arrest hit the news, the manager from Enterprise Rental Car called him with a tip. Per standard procedure, she had thoroughly cleaned the Nissan Ultima after it was returned.

[00:28:17]She found a piece of gum and what she called a bullet. Since weapons related items weren't uncommon in the American rental car business, she tossed it in a nearby dumpster. The police immediately started dumpster diving. It turned out that the bullet was actually a shell casing and it matched the other five found at the crime scene. The gun was bright blue, exactly the shade for cotton candy gun. The manager said she found it under the driver's seat.

[00:28:39]Everything pointed to Aaron Hernandez's guilt. The trial started January 9th, 2015. On April the 15th, the jury declared him guilty of first-degree murder, which carried an automatic life sentence. The New England Patriots had already fired him and rescended all of his upcoming paychecks. His college, the University of Florida, all but erased him from the records. Aaron Hernandez's life was essentially over, and yet no one could figure out why he did it. He and Odin seemed to get along just fine.

[00:29:07]He had signed a multi-million dollar deal with the NFL, so money definitely wasn't an issue. It was as though Hernandez just woke up one morning and decided to murder a man who in another lifetime would have been his brother-in-law. Shortly after the guilty verdict, the police started looking into a possible connection between Hernandez and a double murder that had happened a year before. At the time, no one had any idea who might have shot two men outside a Boston nightclub. But a second look at the customer interviews revealed that Aaron Hernandez had been partying along with them. Also, the car scene speeding away from the crime scene matched one owned by Hernandez's cousin. The case went to trial, but the evidence was simply too circumstantial. Hernandez didn't know these people. The best motive the prosecution could come up with was that that caused him to spill his drink. The jury declared him not guilty. 5 days later, Aaron Hernandez was found hanging from the window of his cell, his bed sheets wrapped around his neck. The prison guards rushed him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was 27 years old. Now, by this point, it was already suspected that Aaron Hernandez might be suffering from CTE. His family donated his brain to what was then called the Unite Brain Bank of Boston University, where it was examined by Dr. McKe. Not only did she discover that these suspicions were correct, but it was the most advanced case she had ever seen in someone in their 20s. Aaron Hernandez's frontal lo, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, was heavily damaged. It doesn't explain why he murdered Odin Lloyd, but it might mean that once the thought entered his brain, he would have had a hard time dismissing it. Dr. McKe told the Boston Globe, quote, "We can't take the pathology and explain the behavior, but we can say collectively that individuals with CTE in this severity have difficulty with impulse control, decision-m, aggression, often emotional volatility, and rage behavior." The Hernandez case was a chilling warning of what can happen when someone with a violent streak develops CTE. This was no longer just about athletes. Anyone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time might become a victim of a disorder that they didn't even have. And unfortunately, CTE was about to take even more people's lives.

[00:31:09]On April the 7th, 2021, a former NFL cornerback rode his ATV to a neighbor's house with two submachine guns slung over his back. He parked behind the treeine and approached the driveway where two HVAC workers were unloading a truck. Philip Adams aimed his gun at their red uniform shirts and opened fire. James Lewis and Robert Shook were both 38 years old and each had three children. Lewis died immediately, but Chook was able to reach for his phone and call for help. He later died in hospital as doctors frantically tried to save his life. Adams entered the house, which belonged to Dr. Robert Lesley and his wife Barbara. The couple were watching their grandchildren, ages 5 and nine, so their daughter-in-law could relax on a birthday. Barbara heard the gunshots in the driveway and grabbed the children retreating to a back room where her husband was working out in a home gym. Philip Adams shot open the locked door and forced his way inside. He found the back room and opened fire. Police later recovered two dozen bullets from the crime scene. Adams dropped his cell phone on the way out of the home and its discovery set off a multi- agency manhunt. The police found him at his parents house and surrounded the building. Adams shot himself in the head. After the events of April the 7th, Alonzo Adams, the shooter's father, gave an interview to the local news saying, "I know they were good folks down there.

[00:32:19]I don't know what happened. He was a good kid. I think the football messed him up. There was no question about whether or not Adams's brain would be examined for CTE. A retired football player had killed six people, and he hadn't had a single meaningful interaction with any of them before that day. Clearly, something had gone wrong upstairs. What was left of the brain tissue was donated to Boston University, and Dr. McKe conducted the examination.

[00:32:46]She told the Leslie family that Adams did indeed have CT and that the damage to his frontal lobe was eerily similar to that of Aaron Hernandez. The Leslie family released a statement that said, "After going through medical records from his football career, we do know that he was desperately seeking help from the NFL, but was denied all claims due to his inability to remember things and handle seemingly simple tasks such as traveling hours away to see doctors and going through extensive evaluations." End quote. Despite their earthshattering grief, the surviving members of the Leslie family found it in their hearts to forgive Villain Adams.

[00:33:19]The diagnosis they believe revealed the real murderer. It wasn't Adams. It was CTE. Dr. Anne McKe was drawn to the field of medicine because she wanted to help people. She knew her line of work would involve talking to grieving families. In her Alzheimer's research, most of her brain donations came from older people who died somewhat peacefully. Her CTE research involved younger people who often suffered tragic deaths. But now she was spending more and more time explaining her diagnosis not only to the subject's family members but to the families of their victims. In 2025 she was called onto another case and this time the note asked for her by name. Shane Tamara grew up in Los Angeles and started playing tackle football at the age of six. At high school he was a running back for both the Golden Valley High School and Granada Hills charter teams. He was considered a good player and a reliable teammate. As a teenager, he received multiple blows to the head and began complaining of headaches. Tammora moved to Las Vegas after graduating and found a job working security at a casino. The headaches became debilitating and overthe-counter pain medication was no longer cutting it. He received yearly MRIs and was diagnosed with depression.

[00:34:25]He was hospitalized twice for a psychiatric hold which meant that he was considered a danger to himself or others. This didn't stop him from getting a concealed carry license for a handgun.

[00:34:37]In June 2025, a seller at a Las Vegas gun show called authorities about a young man buying large amounts of ammunition. Information from co-workers note hinted that Tamura asked his boss to buy at least part of a gun on his behalf. Whether or not that's true, he definitely found one outside of the normal channels. On Saturday, the 26th of July, Tamura packed up his Black Series 3 BMW and started driving east. a license plate reader in Colorado and detected the vehicle around 1 p.m. On Sunday, he was spotted in Nebraska, then Indiana. He apparently slept in his car and continued his journey, finally arriving in New York City just after rush hour on Monday, July the 28th.

[00:35:15]Tomorrow double parked in front of 345 Park Avenue and walked across the plaza with an M4 assault rifle in his hand. He entered the building and aimed the weapon at Dural Islam, an offduty Bronx police officer. Islam was working a second job to earn extra money before his wife gave birth to their third child. He was wearing his police uniform when he died. With the officer out of the way, Tamura turned his attention to the rest of the lobby. Chris Clemente, an NFL finance employee, was shot in the back as he tried to take cover. Once he was out of the line of fire, he called his co-workers to warn them not to come to the lobby and dial 911. The NYPD began receiving a flurry of active shooter alerts for 345 Park Avenue. A woman tried to run for cover behind a pillar, but she wasn't fast enough. Her name was Wesley Leatner, a Blackstone employee. She had met her husband while attending Yale, and they had two teenage children at home. Tammora approached the elevators and spotted another guard hiding behind the security desk. Alan Etien was 43 years old and unarmed. He'd been a fixture of the lobby for years and had two small children. Tomorrow killed him and continued making his way to the elevators. The doors opened and a woman stepped out. The gunman ignored her and allowed her to walk away unharmed. He got in the elevator and pressed a button for the 33rd floor.

[00:36:31]Now, before we go any further, it's necessary to explain that elevators in NYC highrises are somewhat unique. Each elevator is assigned to a set number of floors. For example, one goes to floors 2 through 20, another from 20 to 40, and so on. Tamura wanted to go to the NFL headquarters, which was on floors 6, 7, and 8, but had gotten into the wrong elevator. So, the lowest he could go was the 33rd floor. When the elevator stopped, he got out and found himself in a glass hallway. Police believed he realized he was in the wrong place, but he was too far along to stop. Now, he tried opening doors and shattered the glass with his gun. He opened fire, narrowly missing an office cleaner who fled and barricaded herself in a closet.

[00:37:09]Now, this being the United States, the office was prepared for a mass shooting.

[00:37:13]In addition to yearly drills, their bathrooms were equipped with bulletproof doors. A 27-year-old employee of router management stepped out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway, probably trying to figure out what was going on.

[00:37:23]Julia Hyman never saw her killer because he shot her in the back. Tomorrow looked around for another victim, but the employees were barricaded behind office doors, denying him an easy target. It was exactly what they were supposed to do in this event. Moments after killing his last victim, Shane Damora turned the gun on himself and shot himself in his heart. By the time police arrived, he was dead. In his long and rambling, Tamura apologized to his parents and to his boss for what he had done with the gun that he bought. He blamed the NFL for his headaches and mental health issues. He seemed to think that if they'd taken CTE seriously back in the early 2000s, he would never have suffered hen injuries during his high school years. He mentioned Terry Long, the NFL player who died in 2005 with a gallon of antifreeze in his stomach. To him, violence seemed to be the only way to make people understand the amount of pain he was in due to his time playing football.

[00:38:15]Note also asked for his brain to be studied for CTE and mentioned Dr. McKe by name. However, since this was a criminal case, the autopsy was done by the New York City office of the chief medical examiner. 2 months after the mass shooting, the world had its answer.

[00:38:28]Shane Tamora did indeed have CTE. The NFL condemned his actions and confirmed that Chris Clemente, the finance employee, would make a full recovery.

[00:38:36]None of the victims who died had any connection to the NFL. Tomorrow's revenge was a failure. But even if he had gotten into the right elevator, the people in those officers weren't the ones responsible for his head injuries.

[00:38:49]This wasn't the fault of one person.

[00:38:51]Instead, it was thousands of tiny failures stretched out over decades. A person with CTE can be aggressive, emotional, impulsive, and it was already well known that this combination can lead to murder.

[00:39:06]And considering the well-known history of the NFL refusing to believe CTE research, it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone decided to take revenge. However, it wasn't the NFL that was punished. It was just four innocent strangers. A vigil was held. Thoughts and prayers were directed towards the victims. A few people talked about gun control. Others talked about football.

[00:39:28]And some wondered what was next for CTE.

[00:39:31]In the past two decades, our knowledge of CT has grown from almost nothing to a condition that most people vaguely understand. At first, it was believed to be caused by concussions. That's why it's the title of that Will Smith movie.

[00:39:44]Now, the evidence suggests that all repetitive hits to the head, concussive or not, have the potential to cause CTE.

[00:39:52]In fact, subconcussive hits might be more dangerous because they don't set off any alarm bells. This research has launched a worldwide discussion about sports safety at all levels from children's leagues to professional athletes. There isn't a definitive list of people who have been diagnosed with CTE, but the numbers quite high. In the NFL, the total count is 345 former players. Another 43 deceased players are suspected to have had it, but were never tested. And thousands have approached the NFL with symptoms consistent with CTE and asked for help covering healthcare costs. Other sports have lagged behind American football, but they're catching up quickly. In 2018, more than 100 players for the National Hockey League sued their former employer for failing to prevent head injuries.

[00:40:34]Like the NFL, the NHL reached a settlement deal. In 2025, Dr. McKe led a study on the brains of former professional hockey players, including NHL players Derek Bugard and Ryan Reapion. Out of the 28 brains studied, 27 had CTE. There's also increasing research into CTE and Australian football which is usually called Aussie rules or footy. In 2019, former AFL star Danny Froley committed a car accident.

[00:41:00]In July 2020, the death of another former player Shane Tuck was also ruled a brains were examined by the newly formed Australian sports brain bank and both were diagnosed with CTE. It was also revealed in a post-mortem that one of the greatest Aussie rules football players of all time, Poly Farmer, had not in fact been suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but instead had CTE. The popularity of female footy puts Australia at the forefront of research on women with CTE. The brains of two women's league players who committed Cinder Barkley and Heather Anderson were donated to the ASBB. Dr. and McKe commented that it was only a matter of time before more women are diagnosed with the disease. The potential of getting CTE from playing rugby has also received scrutiny. A 2023 study pulled brains from Boston, Glasgow, and Sydney and found that the risk of CTE goes up 14% for every year of play. Most of the diagnosis came from amateur players.

[00:42:00]However, there are discussions about CTE at the professional level, especially after the recent of New Zealand's Mario Blacks player Billy Gton and Shane Christie. Despite the fact that CTE was first discovered in boxers, there is a surprising lack of research on how it affects them. In some ways, boxing and MMA are so obviously linked to mental health issues that studies feel redundant. As a result, science has focused on those who are still alive. In 2023, a study of 130 active and retired fighters looked at 6 years of brain scans and cognitive tests in an attempt to diagnose CTE during life. The results were inconclusive, but promising.

[00:42:38]Hopefully, the research around CT will continue to grow as more and more athletes pass away and donate their brains to science. With a greater understanding of how the condition operates, a treatment can be developed to help those who are still alive. And while this can never erase what CTE has done to its victims, we can hope that each new case will be the last. Thank you for watching.