Tragic stabbings.
Traumatic brain injuries.
Rampant drug abuse.
These autopsy findings prove the life of a famous athlete isn't always glamorous.
Mike Webster was the center for the legendary '75 Steelers team, but there were no coaching
positions, charity events, or broadcasting jobs in his future.
According to The Atlantic, his post-retirement years were spent dealing with behavior that
got increasingly erratic.
He would threaten to kill strangers he met on the street, wander through the city and
sleep where he fell, and when he couldn't sleep?
He would use a taser on himself until he was shocked unconscious.
And then — at the young age of 50 — he died.
It was a pathologist named Bennet Omalu who examined his brain, and he was looking for
dementia pugilistica.
It's a type of severe dementia that was usually diagnosed in boxers that had suffered major
head trauma.
Omalu suspected that Webster's bizarre behavior was caused by this early onset dementia which
had, in turn, been caused by repeated head trauma.
Webster, after all, even held the record for most games played by a single Steeler: 220.
Omalu was so certain that he spent thousands of his own dollars to run a series of tests
on Webster's brain, and found what he was looking for.
So-called "neurofibrillary tangles" are protein build-ups that interfere with things like
emotions, mood, and day-to-day functioning.
When the family of 31-year-old Jimmy Hayes spoke to the Boston Globe in the wake of the
release of his autopsy results, they said that everyone had been shocked to learn that
his cause of death had been officially declared as "acute intoxication due to the combined
effects of fentanyl and cocaine."
Everyone, that is, save for his father, who said that the former NHL Right Winger had
come to him for help getting off the painkillers he'd started taking after sustaining an injury.Hayes
got the help, but his father said:
"Everything was on the path to recovery, I thought.
But this s--t is so powerful."
Hayes' death came just the day after he, his wife, and their family celebrated their son's
second birthday, and just after he'd planned a golfing trip with his brother.
NBC Boston reported that he had everything to live for, and his family is trying to make
sure that his death wasn't in vain.
His brother, Kevin Hayes, said,
"It's never something that I hope anyone goes through and it sucks that my family's going
through it."
Jimmy's wife, Kristen, wrote a formal statement that included these thoughts:
"Jimmy touched so many lives while he was here [...] and I hope his story can continue
to make a positive impact, especially for anyone struggling with the grips of substance
abuse."
ESPN says that when Korey Stringer died, he was one of the best offensive linemen in the
NFL.
He was also extraordinarily well-liked by his teammates, and on the 20th anniversary
of his death, former teammate Todd Steussie had this to say:
"He was the guy who made you feel like you were his best friend."
Stringer died on Aug. 1, 2001, and at first, it was unclear what had happened.
When the autopsy results came back, it was even more heartbreaking: "multiple organ failure
due to heatstroke."
The 27-year-old lineman had collapsed after leaving the practice field on a 99-degree
day, and at the time, the potential for heatstroke wasn't really at the forefront of sports medicine.
Stringer's widow, Kelci, has since partnered with other organizations — like Gatorade
and the University of Connecticut — to found the Korey Stringer Institute.
They're credited with kickstarting a complete overhaul of procedures both on and off the
field, helping to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to other athletes.
Stringer's brother, Kevin, summed it up like this:
"Any time there is a major change in how society does things, it's typically because somebody
died or got hurt in some way, shape, or form.
I guess Korey's death was my family's turn to pay that cost."
Agnes Tirop may not have been a household name globally, but in Kenya, she was the woman
to watch.
She headed to the Tokyo Olympics, won world championships for long-distance running, and
broke world records in her sport.
Then, she was murdered.
The BBC reported that she was killed in 2021 just a month after breaking a 10-kilometer
road race record, and that her husband was almost immediately arrested as he tried to
flee the country.
"A huge blow not only to the athletics fraternity but also the local sporting industry."
It wasn't until the completion of the autopsy that authorities realized just how gruesome
her death had been.
The final cause of death was a series of stab wounds in her neck, with The Standard noting
that precise details weren't being released at the time.
They did, however, add that she had also been bludgeoned, and sustained head injuries from
blunt force trauma.
Reuters later reported that the brutality of Tirop's murder, among other tragic events,
was being used by activists to shine a light on a staggering statistic: About half of Kenyan
women will be subjected to a gender-based attack during their lives, and a third of
girls will be sexually assaulted before turning 18.
The findings spurred the creation of the Agnes Tirop Conference, which is working to promote
inclusivity and safety for all athletes.
Len Bias's name was mentioned alongside Michael Jordan's when it came time to talk about the
best ever to set foot on a basketball court.
"Len Bias was not a great player, he was a transcendent player."
He was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1986, but he never made it: After the draft, he
headed back to the University of Maryland to celebrate with some friends, and died just
hours later, on the early morning of June 19, 1986.
Time reported that the official cause of death was "cocaine intoxication," and there were
more details: Based on the state of Bias's mucous membranes, this wasn't a regular habit.
When that was released, cocaine hotlines were overwhelmed with callers wanting to know whether
or not cocaine could really be lethal at any dose, the first time it was used.
Since then, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has confirmed that yes, the first use
of cocaine can definitely be deadly.
His death came at the height of the 1980s attempt at overhauling drug convictions and
sentences.
Bias became the poster child for why the U.S. needed stricter drug laws — and needed them
right that very second.
They even became known as Len Bias Laws, but more recent data has shown that the laws have
ultimately done more harm than good.
In 2021, news of another shooting hit the headlines, but this one was a little different.
According to NBC News, the gunman was identified pretty quickly as ex-NFL cornerback Philip
Adams.
Reports said that he had shot and killed 70-year-old Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife Barbara, their
grandchildren Adah and Noah, and a workman who had been at the home.
Another man was wounded, and then, Adams turned the gun on himself.
The initial report mentioned that there had been suspicious that Adams — who had played
in 78 NFL games — had suffered concussion-related brain injuries, but it wasn't until the results
of his autopsy were released in December of the same year that the Boston University CTE
Center confirmed that they found he had been suffering from Stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Stage 2 CTE is associated with things like aggression, paranoia, anxiety, and violent
mood swings, and experts reported that most of the NFL players who have died then been
diagnosed with CTE are in stage 2.
They also said that his case was a little different, in that the worst of the damage
was seen in the frontal lobes of his brain.
That's the part of the brain that governs things like memory, impulse control, judgment,
and personality.
Kosta Karageorge was on his way to making it big.
The Ohio State football player's true passion was wrestling, and he had dreams of going
pro.
That all ended in November of 2014.
According to Sports Illustrated, he went missing on the day before Thanksgiving.
Fast forward to Sunday, and his body was recovered from a dumpster.
The cause of death was quickly ruled a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
What had happened wasn't immediately clear, but the subsequent investigation turned up
some telling text messages he had sent to his mother just before he disappeared, including
one that read,
“Sorry if I am an embarrassment, but these concussions have my head all F---ed up.”
When Karageorge's parents worked with Boston University and the Concussion Legacy Foundation,
they shared what little details they knew about his injuries — and it included at
least 15 concussions.
Dr. Ann McKee analyzed slices of the college senior's brain and diagnosed him with Stage
1 CTE.
While McKee hesitated in explicitly connecting the suicide to sports-related injuries, his
parents had no such qualms.
The explanation, however, left them with little but regret.
In 2000, the Independent did a piece on just how grueling the Tour de France is, and how
many cyclists turn to performance-enhancing drugs.
It had been happening for a long time, and interviews suggest doping had been a problem
way back to the turn of the 20th century.
The race's history is littered with sordid tales; fast forward to 1967, and you'll get
the death of a British cyclist named Tom Simpson.
The BBC says that he was the first Brit to make a name for himself in the world of European
cycling.
He was a big deal, but all his accomplishments were put in a different light after his death.
That came 13 days into the Tour de France and 6,000 feet up the side of Mt.
Ventoux Simpson collapsed as he rode, was helped back on his bike, collapsed again,
and died at a nearby hospital.
Simpson's autopsy revealed that it wasn't just the extreme heat that played a role in
his death, but the amphetamines he'd been taking, too.
The following investigation turned up more pills in his gear, and a retrospective in
Cyclist called his death "a wake-up call for cycling's ethical issues."
There's a "but" here: When Simpson's daughter tried to confirm the autopsy findings, she
couldn't.
Originals were destroyed in the 1990s, and the family has never had or seen copies.
Sometimes, autopsies can't give definite answers, and what findings they do provide still leave
a lot to be desired.
In 1963, defending featherweight Davey Moore squared off against Sugar Ramos.
In the 10th round, Moore went down against the ropes and died 75 hours later.
According to the Los Angeles Review of Books, that kicked off a massive movement to end
boxing forever — but that was of undoubtedly small concern to the wife and five children
Moore left behind.
While many were quick to condemn the sport of boxing, neurosurgeons in Los Angeles conducted
an autopsy that suggested swelling of his brain had been the cause of death.
Furthermore, The Guardian says that the combination of the autopsy and close review of the fight
footage revealed that the trauma hadn't come from not his opponent's fist, but a bad fall
where he hit the ropes on the base of his skull, leaving a bruise that turned deadly.
Time says the team who examined him called it a "one-in-a-million accident — something
that could happen on your front porch if you fell down."
In 2015, ABC News announced the end of a case that had begun on June 17, 2013.
That's when Odin Lloyd — the boyfriend of Aaron Hernandez's fiancée's sister — was
discovered.
He had been shot and killed, and it was just under two years later that the ex-New England
Patriot was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
"Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez will spend the rest of his life in prison."
"A Massachusetts jury found him guilty of murder just a short while ago."
Not long after he was sentenced, he was back in court for his alleged connection to another
murder.
He was acquitted of those charges, but according to The Guardian, it wasn't long after that
verdict had been handed down that he killed himself in his jail cell.
The initial reaction from many who knew him was that there was no way he had taken his
own life, but the autopsy that followed revealed there had been much more going on.
Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University's CTE Center said,
"In our collective experience, individuals with CTE and CTE of this severity have difficulty
with [...] emotional volatility and rage behaviors."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please dial or text 988 to speak
with The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
You can also seek help by visiting 988lifeline.org.