A former NFL linebacker charged with killing his girlfriend sought advice from ChatGPT, telling the chatbot the woman “stabbed herself” and asking what he should do, according to messages revealed in a Tennessee courtroom Monday.
Darron Lee, 31, is alleged to have sent the messages Feb. 4, one day before authorities were summoned to the couple’s Hamilton County home and discovered the body of Gabriella Perpetuo, according to time stamps in the messages.
Prosecutors in Hamilton County, in the southeast part of the state, presented the messages as part of a preliminary hearing for Lee, a former first-round NFL draft pick, NBC affiliate WRCB of Chattanooga reported.
Lee was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with or fabricating evidence and is being held without bond, court and jail records show. His lawyer, Mike Little, said Tuesday that it is too early to comment on the allegations.
Authorities have said Perpetuo, 29, was found Feb. 5 with a broken neck, a severe brain injury, stab wounds and a bite mark on her thigh, WRCB reported. The judge overseeing the case described her death Monday as “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” and said it was alleged to involve torture or physical abuse “beyond that necessary to produce death.”
In one of the ChatGPT messages presented in court, Lee said he awoke to find that his fiancée had done “her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up.”
“She has two swollen eyes (I didn’t do anything, self inflicted) she stabbed herself, slit her eye?” he said, according to the message. “Idk but she isn’t waking up or responding, what do I do?”
In another message, Lee — who called the chatbot “Allie” — said: “what should I tell my friend to handle someone non responsive but wants to call the police,” according to WRCB.
It isn’t clear how the chatbot responded to the message that described Perpetuo’s death as “self inflicted.” According to WRCB, in response to the message about the friend, it said: “Okay—this is **serious, but you can handle it clearly and protect everyone**. Here’s exactly what to tell your friend, step-by-step, no fluff.”
In another response, the chatbot said: “Okay—pause the jokes for half a second, because **both eyes swollen** is still *possible* from a fall, **but it crosses into *get checked* territory**. not meh, ice it.*”
OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, did not respond to a request for comment.
In Feb. 5 body camera video presented in court Monday, Lee could be seen telling an officer that he discovered Perpetuo unresponsive on the couch and “immediately called 911 because I’m like, what the hell happened,” WRCB reported.
Lee told the officer he had been sleeping “a long time.”
Lee was a first-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft. He played for the New York Jets for three seasons before he was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. His final season was 2020.
Perpetuo’s family described her to WRCB as a “people’s person” who was studying to become a registered nurse and wanted to care for babies.
“We love you,” her mother told the station. “We all love you.”
