A day before he called 911, the ex-NFL player accused of killing his partner asked ChatGPT how to get medical help without calling the police, according to evidence prosecutors entered at a preliminary hearing Monday.
Darron Lee, 31, was arrested Feb. 5 after deputies found Gabriella Perpetuo, 29, dead at a home on Snow Cone Way in Ooltewah. He’s charged with first-degree murder and tampering with or fabricating evidence.
He asked the artificial intelligence assistant whether a fall could cause bruising to two eyes and “two stabby looking wounds,” according to evidence shown in court.
During testimony, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office detective Brian Lockhart said Lee named his chatbot Allie and sent his messages under the name Xander. Not all of his messages would be published to the court this early in the case, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors: Ex-NFL player asked ChatGPT for advice on calling 911 before fianceé’s death
In one message sent the day before his arrest, Lee asked the assistant what to do when a friend has to handle someone nonresponsive but doesn’t want to call the police.
“Fiancee did her crazy thing again and now she’s messed up,” Lee told the chatbot. “I wake up and she has two swollen eyes (i didn’t do anything, self-inflicted), she stabbed herself, slit her eye? Idk but she isnt waking up or responding, what do I do?”
Lee discussed the wounds she had and told the chatbot that she got blood all over the place, according to messages shown in court.
Some of the messages sound as though Lee is asking on behalf of a friend, according to the detective.
“‘Here is exactly what to tell your friend,'” Lockhart read the chatbot’s response aloud in court. “‘This is the safest way to handle it without framing it as police trouble.'”
District Attorney Coty Wamp questioned the detective about the messages. He said they were obtained from a forensic download, and the software appeared to give Lee advice.
“Do you recall what message from Mr. Lee, you may or may not, resulted in ChatGPT telling him to pause the joking?” District Attorney Coty Wamp asked.
Lockhart couldn’t name a specific message, but he said that while chatting with the artificial intelligence during this time period, Lee used acronyms like LOL for “laughing out loud” in the messages.
(TIMES FREE TEXT: Get the top story of the day sent to you by text. Sign up at timesfreepress.com/text.)
ARGUMENTS
Lee had dozens of conversations with the chatbot about what he did to Perpetuo, according to Wamp. At the hearing, she asked for the judge to move the case forward and keep the same bond conditions.
She listed the findings from the medical examiner’s office, which she said included knocked-out front teeth, stab wounds and a broken neck. She said the cause of Perpetuo’s death was blunt force trauma.
Lee claimed his partner fell in the shower, she said, and he didn’t tell the police that anyone else had entered the home.
“But if that’s not enough, you have Mr. Lee using ChatGPT as a legal adviser, as a defense attorney, asking ChatGPT to basically give him advice on how you cover up a crime scene,” she said, “asking ChatGPT the exact questions someone would ask ChatGPT who has just murdered his fiancée with blunt force trauma and stab wounds.”
There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence in Lee’s case, according to Deputy Public Defender Mike Little.
“All I can remind the court is that we don’t know what happened,” Little said. “The court doesn’t know what happened. Something happened, but we don’t know what happened.”
General Sessions Judge Tori Smith found probable cause to send both of Lee’s charges to the grand jury. After hearing that there was a 24-hour delay between Lee consulting ChatGPT and when the officers were called, she decided to leave Lee’s bond conditions unchanged.
“I’m even more convinced now that the offense was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel and that involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death,” she said.
(READ MORE: Family of Darron Lee’s girlfriend sues for $50M in her Ooltewah killing)
MORE EVIDENCE
During the hearing, Wamp and Little also questioned one of the first deputies to arrive on the scene and a detective handling the case during the hearing.
Prosecutors also entered additional new evidence into the court record, including about 15 minutes of footage from a body-worn camera from before Lee’s detention, the preliminary medical examiner’s report and several photos of blood in the house.
The video opened with the deputy walking inside the house, with EMS working on chest compressions for the victim. Lee, wearing a Kansas City Chiefs hoodie, told the deputy he was asleep before allegedly finding his partner lying on the couch.
He explained the glass broke in the house due to a rapid temperature change from leaving a window open.
“And so when it got warm, we reheated the house, it just, like exploded,” Lee said on the video. “So I was just cleaning that up.”
Lee asked the deputy if he could grab a phone charger, and the ex-NFL player searched upstairs, allegedly looking for a base to plug into the wall. In the video, he repeatedly said “oh my god” as he searched the rooms.
Perpetuo’s cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries, according to the medical examiner’s preliminary report.
Members of her family attended the hearing and sat in the front row of the gallery. One wore a shirt with pictures of her in her honor. At the close of the proceedings, many left the courtroom in tears.
When asked for comment, Little said by email that the defense did not introduce evidence today because the case is still within its early stages.
The prosecutors will refrain from commenting while the case is pending, Wamp said by text. However, she said she can confirm that before today, she had not yet seen a local homicide in which ChatGPT has been used as a key piece of evidence.
(READ MORE: Ex-NFL player accused of murder in Ooltewah had assault charges in Ohio, Florida)
BACKGROUND
Lee and Perpetuo started moving into a home in Hamilton County 10 days before her death, according to prior testimony from detective Lockhart.
When deputies arrived at the residence in Ooltewah on Feb. 5, they found blood in almost every room. Investigators could see cleanup attempts, where there were swipes and wipes in the blood patterns, he said, and cleaning wipes were out of the package.
Lockhart said Perpetuo was found dead on the floor, lying on her back and without a top. Before Lee was read his right to remain silent, he allegedly told police that Perpetuo had narcolepsy and likely fell in the shower.
Wamp said in court previously that Lee’s explanation does not make sense.
At the time of Lee’s arrest, he was on probation in Franklin County, Ohio, and Alachua County, Florida, after he was charged in three separate alleged assault incidents involving another man, Lee’s mother and the mother of his child, court records showed.
If he completed an anger management program as ordered by a Florida court, Wamp said, his probation in that state would have ended three days after Perpetuo’s death.
Lee was born in Chattanooga before moving to Ohio, where he played football. He last played for the Las Vegas Raiders as a practice squad member in 2021.
He remains in jail after a judge denied bond.
Contact courts reporter Mason Edwards at medwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6409.