The dark side of wrestling — the disturbing murder-suicide of Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit
From whispers of steroid abuses and drugs to life-changing injuries and sometimes even death, the professional wrestling world has always been surrounded by controversy and rumours and it all came to the forefront with the suicide and preceding murders of one well-known wrestler and his family.
CHRIS BENOIT
On May 21st 1967 in Montreal, Quebec, Christopher ‘Chris’ Michael Benoit was born the son of Michael and Margaret Benoit and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. During his childhood and early adolescence, Benoit idolized wrestlers such as Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington and Bret Hart — at twelve-years-old, Benoit attended a local event where the two performers “stood out above anyone else”. Benoit trained to become a professional wrestler in the Hart family “dungeon”, receiving education from the family patriarch, Stu Hart.
Benoit’s wrestling career began in 1985 when he started on Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling promotion, where he was called “Dynamite” Chris Benoit — a homage to Billington who’s persona and moves he channelled. For 22 years, he moved between different circuits from WWF/WWE, WCW, NJPW and ECW and held 22 championships. He was a two-time world champion, having been a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in WWE. Benoit was the twelfth WWE Triple Crown Champion and seventh WCW Triple Crown Champion and the second of four men to achieve both the WWE and the WCW Triple Crown Championships. In 2004, he won the Royal Rumble, joining Shawn Michaels and preceding Edge as one of three men to win a Royal Rumble as the number one entrant. Benoit headlined multiple pay-per-views for the WWE, including a victory in the World Heavyweight Championship main event match of Wrestlemania XX in 2004.
Industry journalist Dave Meltzer considered Benoit to be within the top ten all-time-pro wrestling greats, renowned for his high-impact technical style, something echoed by his former WWE rival, Kurt Angle in 2017.
NANCY BENOIT
Nancy Elizabeth Toffoloni was born May 17th 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts. Having worked in a call centre for an insurance company and also as a model, she was scouted by famed professional wrestler photographer, George Napolitano to appear on the cover of the June 1984 edition of the pro-wrestling magazine, Wrestling All-Stars. Alongside her jobs, she sold programs at Orlando wrestling shows and appeared as ‘Para’ in “Apartment Wrestling” features. It was on this shoot that Nancy met WCW wrestler, Kevin Sullivan, who wanted her to be a part of his wrestling entourage. After months of convincing, she finally became an on-air valet, taking on the ring name of ‘Fallen Angel’.
Toffoloni made her in-ring debut in Florida on June 30th 1984 and became part of Sullivan’s stable of kayfabe “Satanists”, and travelled across the United States using the “gimmick” for promotions. After divorcing her first husband in 1985, Sullivan and Toffoloni married the same year, and transferred to the Philadelphia-based promotion, Extreme Championship Wrestling, where she reverted to the ring name, “Woman”. She continued to manage her husband’s career as well as other high-profile wrestlers, such as Ric Flair and The Sandman.
WHEN LIFE IMITATES ART
Chris Benoit and Nancy Sullivan (as she was now known) first met during their time at WCW when Benoit was approached by legendary wrestler Ric Flair to become a member of the professional wrestling stable, The Four Horsemen in 1995. Benoit was put at the forefront of an ongoing feud with Kevin Sullivan between the Four Horsemen and another wrestling stable, ‘Dungeon of Doom’, which led to violent confrontations on pay-per-views. Sullivan then booked a feud in which Benoit was having an affair with his wife and onscreen valet, Nancy, forcing them to spend time together in public to make it look real (holding hands in public, sharing hotel rooms etc).
However, in the most remarkable twist of fate, the on-screen romance between Chris and Nancy ended up becoming a real-life affair behind-the-scenes. As a result, Sullivan and Benoit had a contentious backstage relationship at best, while Benoit did admit he had the greatest respect for Sullivan, who never took undue liberties in the ring, during their feud, even though he blamed Benoit for the breakdown of his marriage.
Nancy and Sullivan divorced in 1997 and Chris and Nancy were engaged the same year, marrying on November 23rd 2000. It was Chris’s second marriage (having been married from 1988 to 1997 to Martina Benoit and sharing two children together) and Nancy’s third. Nancy then proceeded to manage her husband’s career from their home in Georgia. The couple had one child together, a son, born on February 25th 2000 named Daniel Christopher Benoit.
However, in May 2003, Nancy filed for divorce stating the marriage had been “irrevocably broken” and alleging “cruel treatment”. She dropped the suit in August 2003 as well as a restraining order was filed against her husband.
THREE DAYS
On Friday 22nd June 2007, Chris Benoit killed his wife Nancy in an upstairs bedroom of their home in Fayetteville, Georgia. Her limbs were bound, and her body was wrapped in a towel. A copy of the Bible was placed next to her body. Injuries indicated that Benoit had pressed a knee into her back while pulling a cord around her neck, causing strangulation. Officials stated that there was no sign of an immediate struggle. Toxicologists found alcohol in her system but were unable to determine whether the alcohol was present before death or part of the decomposition process. Decomposition also made it difficult to estimate the pre-death levels of hydrocodone and alprazolam, found in “therapeutic levels”. In any case, there was no evidence to suggest she had been sedated before her death.
Chris suffocated and killed his son, Daniel, in his bedroom, a copy of the Bible placed next to his body. Daniel had internal injuries to the throat area and had no external bruising — his exact time of death is unknown. The reports determined that Daniel had been possibly sedated with Xanax and likely unconscious when he was killed. His body was showing signs of decomposition but not as far as long as his mother’s body.
At 3:30pm EDT on the 23rd of June, fellow wrestler and close friend, Chavo Guerrero received a voicemail message from Benoit’s phone stating that both Nancy and Daniel had food poisoning and he would be late for that night’s house show in Beaumont, Texas. Guerrero called Benoit back and he confirmed everything in his voice messenger, Guerrero noting he sounded groggy. Concerned over his “tone and demeanour”, Guerrero proceeded to ring him back 12 minutes later but Benoit did not answer the phone and Guerrero left a message telling Benoit to ring him back.
Benoit did call back at 3:44 pm, stating that he was on the phone with Delta Air Lines changing his flight, adding that he had a stressful day due to Nancy and Daniel both “being sick from food poisoning”. Guerrero then replied with “All right man, if you need to talk, I’m here for you”, with Benoit ending the conversation with “Chavo, I love you.” In 2014, Guerrero remarked that Benoit sounded “off” during the talk with him, especially when he said “I love you” with emphasis. Another co-worker who often travelled with Benoit called him from outside the Houston airport: Benoit answered and told the co-worker that Nancy was vomiting blood and Daniel was also vomiting. Benoit failed to show up to the house show in Beaumont and left a voicemail on Guerrero’s phone, telling him his flight would arrive in Houston, Texas at 8:00 am CDT on the following Sunday morning. Benoit called and left a voicemail for an unknown friend during this time.
Five text messages were sent to co-workers between 3:51 am and 3:58 am using both Nancy and Chris’s phones. Four of them were Benoit’s address and the fifth text detailed that the family’s dogs were in an enclosed pool area and that the garage side door was left open. Guerrero and referee Scott Armstrong were two of the recipients of these texts. While Guerrero was awoken by the readers, he went back to sleep and told himself that he would be picking up Benoit from Houston airport in a few hours. Benoit failed to show up at Houston airport on the flight that arrived at 8:00 am.
Later Sunday morning, Benoit phoned WWE’s talent relations office and stated that his son was vomiting and that he and Nancy were at the hospital with him. He also said he would be taking a later flight to Houston where he was scheduled to face CM Punk for the vacant ECW World Championship at Vengeance: Night of Champions. Benoit failed to appear for the Vengeance: Night of Champions pay-per-view event in Houston on the night of Sunday, June 24th.
According to the district attorney Ballard and the city sheriff, Chris Benoit committed suicide by hanging, using a weight machine cord, by creating a noose from the end of the cord on a pull-down machine from which the bar had been removed. Benoit released the weights, causing his strangulation. Nancy’s sister Sandy Toffoloni revealed more information in 2016, stating that over the entire weekend, Benoit had been researching the “quickest and easiest ways to break a neck”.
A GRIM DISCOVERY
On Monday 25th June 2007, WWE wrestlers and senior officials arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas for WWE Raw, which was to take place that night. As the early hours of the afternoon emerged and the show got closer to starting, senior officials became concerned that they had not heard from Benoit in over 24 hours. Chavo Guerrero and Scott Armstrong showed WWE Vice President of Talent Relations Johnny Laurinaitis the text messages they had received from Chris and Nancy’s phones in the early hours of the previous morning. As more time progressed without any contact from Benoit, WWE officials contacted the Fayetteville Police for a welfare check at the Benoit household.
The bodies were soon discovered and the police notified WWE at around 4:14 pm, ruling the home as a “major crime scene”. While a suicide note was not discovered upon the initial investigation, one was later discovered in a Bible amongst Benoit’s possessions that were going to be sent to his first wife (Martina) and their two children in Canada. Benoit’s father, Michael Benoit stated that Chris had left a “hand-written notation saying ‘I’m preparing to leave this Earth'”.
A SEVERELY DAMAGED BRAIN
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt appeared on Live with Dan Abrams on July 17th 2007 and said that Benoit had been prescribed testosterone as part of the treatment for testosterone replacement therapy, which McDevitt said was standard medical practice for people who had used steroids in the past and had suffered testicular damage as a result.
Former wrestler Christopher Nowinski stated that Benoit may have been suffering from repeated, untreated concussions throughout his wrestling career, ultimately leading to an unstable mental state. Nowinski was quoted as saying that Benoit “was one of the only guys who would take a chair shot to the back of the head…which is stupid.” Tests conducted on Benoit’s brain showed that his brain was “severely damaged” and that it “resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient”. Other tests revealed severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and damage to all four lobes of the brain and brainstem. Benoit’s father said that brain damage may have been the leading cause of the double murder-suicide. A statement released by the WWE dismissed the idea as “speculative.”
26 HOURS LATER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported in February 2008 that Nancy’s divorce filings in 2003 were because she suspected her husband had been having an affair with a fellow female WWE wrestler, and they have also argued over a life insurance policy. The source of the information was claimed to be the Fayetteville County Sheriff’s Office.
World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince MacMahon gathered the wrestlers present at the Corpus Christi venue together to break the news to them, with a formal statement being uploaded on the corporate website, sending their condolences to the families of Chris, Nancy and Daniel. The three-hour-long Raw event that was scheduled to take place that night was cancelled with Vince MacMahon addressing the live broadcast, breaking the news to wrestling fans. The broadcast transmission was replaced with a three-hour-long tribute to Chris Benoit who MacMahon himself described as the “greatest WWE superstar of all time”. It wasn’t until the final hour of the tribute broadcast that more information surrounding the circumstances of the Benoit deaths started to emerge.
The next night, on Tuesday 26th June 2007, after the details of the murder-suicide were made publicly available, WWE aired another statement by MacMahon;
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Last night on Monday Night Raw, the WWE presented a special tribute show, recognizing the career of Chris Benoit. However, now some 26 hours later, the facts of this horrific tragedy are now apparent. Therefore, other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr Benoit’s name tonight. On the contrary, tonight’s show will be dedicated to everyone who has been affected by this terrible incident. This evening marks the first step of the healing process. Tonight, WWE performers will do what they do better than anyone else in the world: entertain you.”
After learning about the full details of the incident, WWE quickly distanced themselves from Benoit, removing all traces of his name and likeness from all of their platforms, including video games, websites, archival footage and playlists. However, he remains in the WWE Encyclopaedia, where his wrestling career and his title history are detailed. Prominent WWE wrestlers including Sean Waltman, Kurt Angle and his scheduled opponent for the Vengeance: Night of Champions pay-per-view the night he died, CM Punk, have all spoken about Benoit, commenting on the deaths and the aftermath.
THE STEROIDS DEBATE
Steroids were found in the Benoit home, leading much of the media to speculate that the murders and suicide were because of a steroid-fueled rage as some doctors have linked steroids to uncontrollable anger, among other psychological issues which include paranoia. WWE released a press statement, challenging the “roid-rage” claims, arguing that the act was a “deliberate thought” due to the “substantial periods of time between the death of the wife and the death of the son” adding the presence of the Bible by both bodies “is also not an act of rage.”
THE CTE DEBATE
At the time of the incident, CTE in former gridiron football players was a fast-growing issue that had been at the forefront since Dr Omalu’s 2002 report on Pro Football Hall of Fame member Mike Webster done after his death. Subsequent analyses of the brain of recently deceased NFL players agreed with the report on Webster’s death, as each player showed the kind of brain damage previously seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, as well as in some retired boxers. Michael Benoit agreed to have his son’s brain analysed by the same neurosurgeons and they found that “multiple concussions are part of his medical history, along with clinical symptoms associated with CTE”. They also stated that the findings suggested that there was a “common syndrome among athletes who suffer multiple head injuries in contact sports”.
The death of a second WWE wrestler in 2009, Andrew Martin, known by the ring name ‘Test’, was attributed to CTE. Julian Biles, the chief of neurosurgery at West Virginia University (who conducted the original analyses on Benoit’s brain) told ESPN, “When we announced our findings about Chris, some in the media said it was ‘roid rage. We said at the time the real finding was that repeated head trauma was the cause. With Andrew Martin as the second case, the WWE and the sport, in general, have to ask themselves, ‘Is this a trend?’ Science tells us that jumping off 10-foot ladders and slamming people with tables and chairs is simply bad for the brain.”
WWE noted that the research was new at the time but released the following statement to ESPN;
“While this is a new emerging science, the WWE is unaware of the veracity of any of these tests, be it for Chris Benoit or Andrew Martin. Dr Omalu claims that Mr. Benoit had a brain that resembled an 85-year-old with Alzheimer’s, which would lead one to ponder how Mr Benoit would have found his way to an airport, let alone been able to remember all the moves and information that is required to perform in the ring.”
In the decade that followed the original ESPN report, postmortem brain research on numerous deceased wrestlers diagnosed findings consistent with CTE. Wrestlers diagnosed with CTE in the postmortem research include Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney, Jimmy Snuka, Mr Fuji and Ron Bass.
Over 60 professional wrestlers and representatives of deceased wrestlers filed lawsuits against WWE. The litigation claims that WWE concealed the risks of injury, specifically CTE.
The lawsuit was dismissed by United States District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018. Bryant said the Benoit tragedy did not cause the WWE to recognise a link between CTE and professional wrestling but stated: “The circumstances surrounding Mr Benoit’s death were so tragic and so horrifying that it would have been reasonable for his fellow wrestlers to follow news developments about him and about CTE, through which they could have deduced that they were at risk of developing CTE and sought medical opinions about risks to their own health.”
Nancy Elizabeth and Daniel Christopher Benoit were cremated after a memorial service took place on July 14th 2007. Their ashes were placed in starfish-shaped urns for Nancy’s family. Christopher Michael Benoit was also cremated but the whereabouts of his ashes have never been publicly disclosed.
Resources:
https://www.lvcriminaldefense.com/woman-wolverine-happened-benoits/
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3320736
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=3562665&page=1
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2007/06/25/4290333.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20071007131554/http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=3315501&page=1
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2007/06/25/wwe-benoit-obit.html
