Jovan Belcher media coverage roundup
Many people woke up Saturday morning to the news that a Kansas City Chiefs player had killed his girlfriend and then taken his own life. The details trickled in. Within a few hours of the murder-suicide, the player’s identity was released: Jovan Belcher, a linebacker in his fourth year as a pro.
The scene was horrific: Belcher, 25, had shot Kasandra Perkins, the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, Zoey, nine times, just before 8 a.m. Belcher’s mother was in the couple’s home at the time of the shooting. Belcher then drove to the team’s practice facility where he held a gun to his head. He thanked head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli. As the police sirens grew louder and officers converged on the Chiefs’ practice facility, Belcher shot himself in the head.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder-suicide, the local and national media tried to interpret the uninterpretable story: the answer to the question why, the fact that it could never be answered. Had concussions played a factor in the killing? (The crime recalled the 2007 murder-suicide involving professional wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed his wife and 7-year-old son before hanging himself. Study of Benoit’s brain revealed that it resembled that of an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.)
