Last updated: December 29, 2014


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US soldier fears he shot dead NFL star Pat Tillman in friendly-fire incident

Friendly-fire... Tillman became a national hero after he left the Arizona Cardinals to jo

Friendly-fire... Tillman became a national hero after he left the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army. Source: AP

A US soldier has admitted that he might have fired the fatal shots that killed Pat Tillman, the NFL player-turned-Army Ranger who died in a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan.

“It is possible, in my mind, that I hit him,” Steven Elliott told sports network ESPN.

Tillman became a national hero in America after he left a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals after the September 11 terrorist attacks to join the Army.

He was patrolling in the mountainous terrain of southeast Afghanistan when he was killed in 2004.

Tillman’s platoon was ordered to divide into two groups after the Humvee they were travelling broke down.



According to ESPN Tillman died from three head shots all close together.

Elliott, 33, said this was consistent with the way he fired his M240 Bravo machine gun.

“You aim at a point, and you fire a burst. You are holding your trigger for a fraction of a second, but that fraction of a second releases three to five rounds,” he said. “It would be disingenuous for me to say there is no way my rounds didn’t kill him, because my rounds very well could have.”