Is there a link between CTE brain disease and violent crime?

Published

2 years ago

February 19, 2024

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When Noah Green, a 25-year-old with no known history of violence, crashed his car into a barricade at the Capitol building in Washington DC, killing one police officer, before lunging at others with a knife, his own family were grappling for answers.

“My heart just sank,” his mother, Mazie Green, tells me. It was a murder, which, on the face of it, had nothing to do with American football.

But three years on and speaking publicly for the first time since that day, Mazie says she now believes it has everything to do with American football.

Green was shot dead by responding police, and in the days after the killing the FBI recommended that Mazie submit Noah’s brain to be analysed.

The diagnosis came back months later, indicating Green had stage one Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE.

It’s a brain disease caused by repetitive blows to the head and it afflicts participants of contact sport, including American football. Symptoms include aggression, paranoia and problems controlling impulses.

“Noah took big hits,” Mazie says. At Alleghany High School in rural Virginia, Green had played in defence and was voted most valuable player and he later played for Christopher Newport University.

Teammates recall him being dependable and good-natured but Mazie says she noticed changes after he suffered several head injuries.

“He wanted to be tough, to prove himself,” Mazie says, “But there were changes. He would start wearing blankets around his head and I thought it was a teenage thing, but it was because he was so sensitive to the light. Then he would lose his keys and he forgot how to cook, prepare his meals.

“After that, he started with these really bad headaches. One day he said ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, mum, I’ve lost 20 pounds…. I feel like I need to leave. I’ve got to get out of the country. They’re going to kill me, the FBI, they’re going to kill me.’

“He was paranoid.”

Officer William Evans, the police officer who Noah Green killed, left behind two young children. I ask Mazie if she has any message for his family.

“Officer Evans should not have died that day,” she says, “Noah should not have died that day. Someone has to take the responsibility for telling parents what to do if something’s just not quite right with those kids that are out there playing football for entertainment.”

Shannon Terranova, the former spouse of Officer Evans and mother of his two young children, said: “I want to be mindful of all who are impacted by this real-life horror; but it is difficult for me to comprehend any rationalisation of what happened to Billy and the events that led up to his death. I appreciate the efforts in bringing awareness to the long-term implications of bodily trauma caused by sports injuries. However, nothing can justify what Billy’s co-workers and family experienced, saw, and felt on April 2 2021, and every day since.”

Christopher Newport University declined to comment on Noah Green’s case. Alleghany High School did not respond to Sky News’s request for comment.

The question over whether CTE is linked to violent crime has come to the fore after numerous incidents of violent ex-football players.

Former San Francisco 49ers star Phillip Adams shot dead six people in an explosion of violence in 2021.

He murdered doctor Robert Lesslie, his wife, Barbara Lesslie, and two of their grandchildren, Adah, 9, and Noah, 5 at their home in South Carolina.

He also killed James Lewis and Robert Shook, who were working on an air conditioning unit at the house. Analysis of Adams’ brain showed he had severe CTE.

Kellen Winslow, another former NFL player, was convicted of multiple rapes in 2021.

His lawyer argued for his sentence to be reduced because of what he says was head trauma suffered on the football field. That potential mitigating factor was rejected by a judge.

Most experts say it is hard to say definitively what motivates someone to commit a crime, but the symptoms CTE causes could all contribute. More research into the causes of CTE and what factors might make some people more susceptible is under way.

Sky News was given access to the national sports brain bank in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where former professional and amateur American footballers are being urged to donate their brains for study.

Inside the histology laboratory, Dr Julia Kofler slices open a brain with a knife to show me the cross-section.

It is impossible to diagnose CTE with the naked eye so she takes a tiny sample of the brain tissue and loads it onto a slide so it can be analysed under the microscope.

I ask if she thinks there is a link between CTE and violent crime. “It’s really difficult to draw any conclusions about what motivates someone to commit a crime based just on their pathology,” she says, “but we certainly know that neurodegenerative diseases can cause all sorts of different behavioural changes and changes in executive function and judgement, so it certainly could have contributed.”

‘We watched him lose himself’

Karen Kinzle Zegel is one of those fighting for more research. Her son, Patrick Risha, had CTE and died by suicide aged 32. He had played American football throughout his childhood and at university.

“We watched him over 10 years, sadly lose himself, lose his dignity,” she says, “He was paranoid, he was argumentative.

“One time there was an incident with him and he said a homeless guy attacked him in Pittsburgh and he broke his hand punching this person. The rage he had was definitely scary.”

Through her organisation Stop CTE, Karen is campaigning for the brains of those who commit mass violence to be analysed for traumatic injury.

“Every time we’re looking at the symptoms like ‘they lost a job, they, broke up with their girlfriend’.

“Everybody wants to know why, why would someone take another person’s life? But if you’ve dealt with somebody whose brain became unwired you see the lack of empathy. They don’t care about other people, sadly.

“We’re not going back to the root cause, which could be a damaged brain.”

Concerns about brain injuries have contributed to the growth of flag football, a lesser contact sport which means fewer big hits and not an obvious danger.

But the popularity of the NFL as a spectator sport is enduring. Last week’s Super Bowl final was the most-watched TV event in American history.

But for its stars, the damage may already been done. The human cost of the richest sport league in the world is far too difficult to count.

Sky News contacted the NFL for comment about our report. In response, the NFL provided details of the funding they are giving into CTE-related research, mental health support and the physical safety measures they say they are taking in the sport.

US

In pictures: Memorable moments between the royals and US presidents

Published

2 hours ago

September 16, 2025

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In pictures: Memorable moments between the royals and US presidents

American presidents have travelled to Britain to meet the Royal Family for more than 100 years.

Donald Trump will meet King Charles for the second time when he arrives in Windsor on Wednesday, having been hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth II on his previous state visit during his first term.

For the King, it will be the first time he welcomes a US president as monarch.

Some presidents’ visits have run more smoothly than others. Here, we look back at some of the most memorable.

Woodrow Wilson was the first US president to visit the Royal Family while in office, making the long journey on SS Washington in December 1918 – weeks after the First World War came to an end.

Arriving in London on Boxing Day, thousands of people lined the route to Buckingham Palace, where he appeared on the balcony alongside King George V and Queen Mary after chants of “we want Wilson” from the crowd.

King George VI also made history when he met Franklin D Roosevelt, after becoming the first reigning British monarch to travel to the US in June 1939.

People flocked to greet him and the Queen Mother as they rode through the streets of Washington DC. After state dinner formalities at the White House, they travelled to New York, where they enjoyed a more relaxed hot dog picnic in Hyde Park.

Harry Truman was the first US president to meet Queen Elizabeth – while she was still a princess in 1951.

Seven years after she took the throne, Dwight D Eisenhower met her at Balmoral, where a young Princess Anne and Prince Charles were pictured alongside him, wearing kilts.

John F Kennedy met the then-35-year-old Queen Elizabeth in June 1961, just six months into his presidency.

A state banquet was held at Buckingham Palace, with the glamorous visit dramatised in the Netflix series The Crown.

Just two years later, on 22 November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Gerald Ford didn’t visit the UK during his two-and-a-half years in office, but the Queen met him on a visit to the US in July 1976.

The pair danced together at a White House state dinner, but with unfortunate timing, the band played The Lady Is A Tramp just as the Queen took to the floor – a now infamous faux pas.

Jimmy Carter met the late Queen at Buckingham Palace in May 1977.

His more memorable interaction was with the Queen Mother, however, when he abandoned protocol and greeted her with a kiss on the lips.

According to biographer William Shawcross, she later wrote: “I took a sharp step backwards – not quite far enough.”

Among the most memorable meetings of a British monarch and a US president was that of Ronald Reagan and the late Queen.

When he came to Windsor Castle in 1982, the pair were famously pictured riding horses together in the grounds.

He met her a further three times in London throughout the 1980s and she gave him an honorary knighthood when he left the White House in 1989.

George HW Bush, wasted no time in making the Queen’s acquaintance, travelling to the UK in May 1989, just five months after he was sworn in.

There were a few red faces when Her Majesty travelled to the US to visit him a year later.

As she stood up to give a speech on the White House lawn, she was partially obscured behind a cluster of microphones that had been arranged for the much taller Mr Bush. He later reassured reporters that the Queen laughed off the incident.

George W Bush‘s state visit in November 2003 was met with huge protests over the Iraq War. Tens of thousands of people crowded into Trafalgar Square, where an effigy of the president was toppled by demonstrators.

The protests did not appear to affect the ‘special relationship’, however, with the Queen visiting the US to meet Mr Bush in 2007, and him returning to the UK to see her a year later.

Barack Obama first met the Queen on a visit to the UK in 2009 when his wife, First Lady Michelle, made headlines for breaking royal protocol and giving Her Majesty a hug.

The Obamas received the full pomp of an official state visit in May 2011.

They visited a final time during the president’s second term in April 2016, when Marine One landed in the grounds of Windsor Castle and the royal couple walked to greet them.

Donald Trump first met the King while he was still Prince of Wales in December 2019, when his mother hosted a state visit to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

His trip was met with huge protests in London, which memorably featured a giant ‘blimp’ that depicted him as a baby.

Despite being accused of breaching royal protocol on several occasions, he described the Queen as an “incredible woman” in one of his speeches.

When Joe Biden visited Windsor Castle in June 2021 it was the first time the Queen had met a head of state alone – following the death of her husband Prince Philip.

It was also the first state visit of any foreign leader after the coronavirus pandemic saw Her Majesty halt royal duties and quarantine at Windsor as part of ‘HMS Bubble’.

US

In pictures: Memorable moments between the royals and US presidents

Published

6 hours ago