Former NFL Player Phillip Adams had Same ‘Unusually Severe’ CTE as Aaron Hernandez when he Killed Six Innocent Neighbors and himself in April and Doctors Blame NFL for IGNORING him when he Begged for Help

Ex-NFL player Phillip Adams (pictured in 2011, four years before he retired) killed six people and then himself in April this year in an as-yet unexplained rampage

Ex NFL player Phillip Adams had ‘unusually severe’ levels of CTE when he killed six people in April before turning the gun on himself, pathologists revealed on Tuesday as they shamed the NFL for allegedly ignoring his pleas for help.

Adams, 32, played 78 NFL games for six different teams across six seasons before retiring in 2015.

In April, he shot and killed Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife Barbara, two of their grandchildren and two HVAC workers at the Leslie home in South Carolina.

There is no motive for the attack and the only connection between them was that they lived close to each other.

Adams’ family agreed for his brain to be studied afterwards in order to detect if he had Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – which can only be detected posthumously through an autopsy.

At a press conference on Tuesday, researchers from Boston University confirmed that he had stage 2 CTE, that was ‘severe’ in both of his frontal lobes.

‘Microscopically, he had very dense and extensive tell pathology in a pattern and distribution diagnostic of stage two CTE.

‘CTE is a progressive, degenerative disease caused by repetitive head impacts. It can include concussions but can include smaller hits. We have diagnosed CTE in over 700 individuals including 315 NFL players.

‘Adams ’20-year-career in football put him at risk. CTE is a progressive disease that worsens with age although in many instances, as with this one, it is a disease of the young.

‘We have diagnosed CTE in 24 NFL players who died in their 20s and 30s. Most of those football players had stage two CTE. Stage two CTE is associated with progressive cognitive and behavioral abnormalities such as aggression, impulsivity, explosivity, depression, paranoia, anxiety, poor executive function and memory loss.

‘I can say definitively that his 20 years of football gave rise to CTE. We’ve seen homicidal behavior in others diagnosed with CTE. It’s hard to say that it alone [is responsible] but certainly we have seen this behavior and it is not what I would consider unusual,’ she added.

The NFL has not yet responded to the doctors’ criticism.

These scans show the severe damage in the frontal lobes of Phillip Adams’ brain that doctors say came as the result of his 20-year NFL career. CTE, they said, shrunk his brain and caused him to lose control of his decision making, as well as becoming increasingly paranoid These scans show the severe damage in the frontal lobes of Phillip Adams’ brain that doctors say came as the result of his 20-year NFL career. CTE, they said, shrunk his brain and caused him to lose control of his decision making, as well as becoming increasingly paranoid

LEFT TO RIGHT: A normal brain, Aaron Hernandez’s brain and Phillip Adams’ brain. The normal brain of a 27-year-old man, left, has no ventricular enlargement or damage towards the frontal lobes. Center is Aaron Hernandez’s brain, which shows he had severe ventricular enlargement and damage. Right is Phillip Adams’ brain. He had ventricular enlargement too – though not as severe as Hernandez – but his brain was in essence shrinking as a result of the disease, doctors say

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SOURCE: Daily Mail, Jennifer Smith