'Bizarre' details disclosed in Benoit death
Provided/WWE
Pro wrestling star Chris Benoit.
Professional wrestling star Chris Benoit strangled his wife with an electrical cord, smothered his 7-year-old son with a bag and placed Bibles next to their bodies before hanging himself in the weight room of their Georgia home, authorities said Tuesday.
Investigators believe Benoit, 40, killed his wife, 43-year-old Nancy, and son Daniel and then himself. The bodies were found Monday afternoon in three separate rooms of the million-dollar home situated on more than eight acres in a secluded neighborhood in suburban Atlanta.
Autopsy results indicate that Benoit killed his wife Friday night and his son Saturday morning. Investigators believe Benoit hung himself with the pulley on an exercise machine several hours and as long as a day later. Autopsies showed all three died of asphyxiation.
Benoit's body was found hanging by his neck from a weight machine in the basement. The body of his wife, who was wrapped in a towel with her feet and wrists bound and blood under her head, was discovered facedown on the hardwood floor in an upstairs family room. His son's body was found facedown, with no handmarks on his neck, in his own bed in an upstairs bedroom. A closed Bible was placed next to the bodies of the wife and son, authorities said.
Fayette (Ga.) County District Attorney Scott Ballard said he found it "bizarre" that the WWE superstar spread out the killings over a long weekend and appeared to remain in the house for up to a day with the bodies.
"In a community like this, it's bizarre to have a murder-suicide, especially involving the death of a 7-year-old child," Ballard said during a press conference outside the Benoit house Tuesday. "That's what struck me the most in all this — there's a 7-year-old little boy who's dead. I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my mind around that completely."
Lt. Tommy Pope of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department would not comment on Benoit's state of mind or possible motive. No suicide note was found at the home.
Authorities also are investigating whether steroid abuse, which has been linked to aggressive behavior and explosive outbursts known as "roid rage," may have been a factor in the double murder-suicide.
"We don't know yet. That's one of the things we'll be looking at," said Ballard.
Anabolic steroids, however, were present in the home, as were numerous medications legally prescribed to Benoit. Toxicology test results may not be available for weeks or even months, Ballard said.
Steroids have been linked to the deaths of a number of professional wrestlers in recent years. Eddie Guerrero, one of Benoit's closest friends in the business , died in 2005 from heart failure linked to long-term steroid use.
WWE issued a statement Tuesday concerning the steroids allegations: "WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts."
But the bizarre story took an even more bizarre twist late Tuesday when Ballard said in an interview on the ESPN Web site that needle marks were found on the arms of Daniel Benoit and he had been injected with human growth hormones because "the family considered him undersized."
Ballard also said in the interview that two text messages of note caused authorities to investigate the house. In one, Benoit told somebody he knew that his wife and son were sick.
"Of course, they were dead," Ballard told ESPN.com.
In a second message to a neighbor, Benoit said that the door of the house was open and the pets were outside.
"And our assumption is that that was an effort to try and get somebody to come find the bodies after the suicide," Ballard said. "That is our assumption."
Chris and Nancy Benoit had lived together since 1997, married in 2000, separated in 2003 and got back together shortly thereafter.
Benoit previously had been arrested in the Atlanta area on a DUI charge but has no record of a previous arrest for domestic violence.
Nancy Benoit filed for divorce in May 2003, saying her three-year marriage to the 220-pound wrestler was irrevocably broken and alleging "cruel treatment." But she later dropped the complaint, as well as a request for a restraining order in which she charged that Benoit had threatened her and had broken furniture in their home.
A judge issued a restraining order against Benoit and barred him from entering the family home. Nancy Benoit asked the court to dismiss the petition in August of that year. The couple later reconciled, celebrating together in the ring following Benoit's WWE world championship win at Wrestlemania XX in 2004.
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Comments
This article has 4 comment(s)
Posted by mggoose2000 on June 27, 2007 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
When are we going to insist that the exploitation of these men called Wrestlers stops? Everyone that pays to attend the matches or watch on Pay Per View is contributing to this scenario. Anabolic Steroids kill!, plain and simple. The use of these drugs is illegal and only when we, as a society, insist that the Law Enforcement Community rigoursly and relentlessly pursue any person that peddles these drugs will we see this kind of atrocity stop. When these "drug peddlers" are apprehended, they should be prosecuted and jailed. This will send the message that there is no place in our society for the use of these drugs. Then we need to work on changing the culture that says we need for our atheletes to excel outside the relm of normal atheletic performance. What is happening to our sports is shameful and frightening. Let's open our eyes and look at the example we are setting for our young children. Enough is enough!
Posted by CHIEF1959 on June 27, 2007 at 5:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
ban wrestling and all other violent sports as a starter. this wont stop what happened,but it sure as hell will slow it down.
Posted by BigMello on June 27, 2007 at 11:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Anabolic Steroids kill ", did it take you all day to come up with that ? "Ban wrestling and all other violent sports" . He had a legal prescription and if you have seen the man he never hulk-ed up the way a few others have . Look at a video from ten or twelve years ago . I would find it easier to believe he was roided up back then as to now . He passed a drug / steroid test back in April of this year .
Pro Wrestling is not a sport , it's more like Broadway in tights . It does take more athletic ability then NASCAR of Golf though . Pro wrestling always seems to be targeted when some unfortunate thing happens . Yet the NFL has almost an arrest a week and nobody is trying to ban them . Ray Lewis , Jamal Lewis , OJ ,Rae Carruth, Pacman Jones I could go on and on . Wrestling reflects society , if it happens in the news you will probably see it in the ring in one form or another . Don't blame the WWE for the flaws in the world . Hell my dad and I watched wrasslin' together as a child and I do the same with my own son . I don't do drugs , have never been arrested in my 30 years and contribute daily to the culture you say is failing our children . I think Charles Barkley said that athletes are not role models and to quit trying to pass off your responsibilities on athletes . It was as true when he said it as it is now . While what Chris Benoit did was tragically wrong and unforgivable . It happens everyday in America and around the world . The only difference is this time the crime has name recognition .
Posted by vacottonmouth316 on June 29, 2007 at 11:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I have to agree with "BigMello" on this issue. The events that transpired over this weekend are nothing short of a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the lives this has destroyed, living or deceased.
The question of anabolic steroid use has been placed in the spotlight more recently based on the ethical dilemma of, "How can you say you were the best when you had performance enhancing drugs?" Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Football League, and even NCAA have dealt with this as much as they physically can. Random drug screening has been on the rise, with more incidence of substance abuse policy violations greeting an ESPN SportsTicker everywhere.
However, to sit there and state the obvious and offer suggestions such as, "ban all violent sports" to get the use of steroids down is just as do-able as satirist Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" back in the 1600's. As mentioned previously, steroid use covers many sports, and not necessarily "violent" sports. When I played baseball for 7 seasons (11 years old to age 18), it wasn't a full "contact sport". I don't see how something like baseball can be violent. However, the allegations of Barry Bonds using performance enhancing medications prove that it doesn't stop at contact sports.
Now, when you want to talk the WWE, it's "sports entertainment". To go as far to say that this is exploitation, you're way off the mark there. If it was exploitation, they would be forced into their profession. Vince McMahon is no different than my boss. At my job, I am to perform certain duties necessary to proper function of my company to earn a living for myself and my family. If I fail or if I refuse, I'm fired. I am not bound to this occupation, though. I can leave this job whenever I want (I mean quit, not just up and leave in the middle of a shift), and my boss can't make me do anything that I don't feel comfortable doing. The WWE never "forced" Chris Benoit to do what he did for a living, and if you give the argument, "Well that was his only marketable skill" that's complete garbage, considering he could take the millions of dollars a year that he makes and go to college, issuing them a check to pay his tuition and books in full before he ever attended a day in the next 4 years.
The solution to the problem lies in a person's free will and decision making. No one forced Benoit to take steroids, he did it of his OWN accord. As simple as it gets, Nancy Reagan put it best when she started the, "Just Say NO!" campaign. And as the arrests increase, there'll still be the "War on Drugs"
Thank you for your time.