Former NFL Player Charged in Girlfriend’s Death Allegedly Asked ChatGPT for Advice

Darron Lee, a former professional football player who has been charged in connection to the death of his girlfriend, allegedly sought advice from ChatGPT.

Lee — a first-round draft pick by the New York Jets in 2016 — appeared Monday, March 9, in a Hamilton County courtroom in Tennessee, where prosecutors alleged that the former athlete consulted artificial intelligence before being charged with first-degree murder in Gabriella Carvalho Perpétuo’s death last month.

According to CBS affiliate WDEF, the 31-year-old contacted 911 on February 5 after sending multiple messages to the AI platform the evening before.

“Don’t know what to do right now, Fiancée did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up, I wake up and she has two swollen eyes (I didn’t do anything, self inflicted) she stabbed herself, silt her eye?” one of the messages allegedly read, according to what was described in court. “Idk but she isn’t waking up or responding, what do I do?”

In another message, Lee allegedly asked “what should I tell my friend to handle someone non responsive.”

Though some of ChatGPT’s responses have been redacted, one reply allegedly described “the safest way to handle it without framing it as ‘police trouble.’”

According to WDEF, Lee allegedly asked about wounds that could be caused from slipping, falling and puncturing oneself. He allegedly said in one message, “She got blood all over the damn place.”

ABC and Fox affiliate WTVC reported that police bodycam footage was also played in the courtroom. In it, Lee described what he claimed was the moment he found Perpétuo inside their Ooltewah home.

“She wasn’t saying anything and that’s when I called 911 immediately and I was like what is going on.. I was asleep for a long time,” Lee said in the video, per WTVC.

In one clip of the bodycam footage, obtained by WDEF, an officer can be heard asking Lee about broken glass in the home.

“Glass is shattered because she had left the window open,” Lee can be seen saying on video. “And so when it got warm, when we reheated the house, it just like exploded, so I was cleaning that up. That was before I was just going to sleep. I thought she was going to come down and finish it up, find a dustpan. But, I come back down, and then this is what happened.”

Crime scene photos show blood in the home.

Lee’s public defender told the court, per WDEF courtroom footage, “We don’t know what happened inside of that house. We know something happened inside of that house, but we don’t know what.”

Lee is reportedly being held in custody at the Hamilton County Jail on no bond.