Tragedy ·
The Rock Hill Killings and the Limits of a Brain Diagnosis
Authorities attributed six deaths to former NFL player Phillip Adams in April 2021. A later examination found stage 2 CTE that was unusually severe in his frontal lobes, but the sheriff said it might not conclusively explain the violence.
On April 7, 2021, a shooting at the Lesslie home outside Rock Hill, South Carolina, set in motion a death toll that would reach six. Authorities identified the gunman as Phillip Adams, a 32-year-old former NFL player. The victims were physician Robert Lesslie; his wife, Barbara; their grandchildren Adah, 9, and Noah, 5; and two air-conditioning technicians who had been working at the home, James Lewis and Robert Shook, both 38.
Officers responding to a 911 call found the four Lesslie family members dead at the back of the house, York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said. Lewis was also killed. Shook was taken to a hospital and initially reported in critical condition; by the time authorities announced findings from Adams’s autopsy in December, he was counted among the six people killed.
Investigators traced Adams to a nearby home where he was staying with his parents, according to Tolson. Officers removed his parents and tried to contact him. After a standoff, Adams was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the coroner’s office said. In the immediate aftermath, Tolson said investigators had no evidence that Adams had been Lesslie’s patient. “There’s nothing about this right now that makes sense to any of us,” he said.
Adah and Noah had been students in a language immersion program at Cherry Park Elementary School. Their school district described teachers, staff and classmates as “hurting and confused.” The Lesslies’ children said in a statement: “We are truly in the midst of the unimaginable. The losses we are suffering cannot be uttered at this time.”
On December 14, researchers announced that a post-mortem examination of Adams’s brain had found stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. York County Coroner Sabrina Gast had facilitated the brain donation to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. The findings were released at his family’s request. Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, described unusually severe disease in both frontal lobes.
CTE is a progressive degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head trauma and can be diagnosed only after death. Adams had played six NFL seasons and suffered two concussions over three games in 2012. McKee said frontal-lobe damage is associated with impulsive or explosive behavior and a lack of self-control. But her interpretation was qualified: his brain disease “might have contributed to his abnormal behaviors,” alongside other physical, psychiatric and psychosocial factors.
Adams’s family told investigators that he had experienced severe pain, memory problems and difficulty sleeping, Gast said. They said the diagnosis was not surprising, though its severity was shocking. The finding did not establish why the shooting happened. At the December announcement, Tolson cautioned that the diagnosis and other investigative findings might not provide a conclusive explanation.
The Lesslie family said the results offered some comfort. “Even in the midst of crushing heartbreak,” they said, “we are finding some comfort in the CTE results and the explanation they provide for the irrational behaviors pertaining to this tragedy.”