Authorities said that on April 7, Adams, 32, shot and killed prominent local doctor Robert Lesslie, his wife, Barbara, and their two grandchildren, Adah Lesslie and Noah Lesslie. James Lewis and Robert Shook, two HVAC technicians working at the Lesslie home, were also shot to death.
Police later found Adams dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) center at Boston University, examined Adams’ brain and concluded that his football career “definitely… gave rise” to a diagnosis of stage 2 CTE. The disease has been associated with head trauma and concussions.
McKee said that most of the 24 former NFL players diagnosed with CTE after dying in their 20s and 30s had stage 2 CTE. CTE has four stages, with the fourth stage being the most severe. The second stage of CTE is associated with cognitive and behavioral abnormalities such as aggression, anxiety, depression, explosivity, executive function and memory loss, impulsivity and paranoia.
Adams’ CTE diagnosis was different from the other young players because it was “unusually severe” in his frontal lobes, according to McKee. The Adams family issued a statement saying they were not surprised to learn Adams had CTE, but were surprised by the severity of his condition.
“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 to handle seemingly simple tasks, such as traveling hours away to see doctors and going through extensive evaluations,” the statement said.
Adams played in 12 games for the Jets in 2014. He also spent time with San Francisco, New England, Seattle, Oakland and Atlanta during his six-year NFL career.