Chris & Nancy (13 page)

The sheriff's logs' known omissions of phone calls on the Benoits' several phone numbers include five calls made by
WWE
executive John Laurinaitis on Sunday after Chris killed himself:
4
:
27
,
4
:
46
, and
6
:
25
p.m. (before the Houston pay-per-view show),
8
:
25
(during the show), and
11
:
56
(afterward). There were numerous other calls from
WWE
cell phones, plus two others from cell phone numbers in Stamford, the company's headquarters city.

In addition, there were the following calls:

• 4
  :
  21
  p.m. from a cell phone in Florida — perhaps Dean Malenko, a
  WWE
  agent and Benoit's old “Three Amigos” pal.
  
• 4
  :
  32
  from a land line in California — most likely wrestler Oscar “Rey Mysterio” Gutiérrez.
  
• 4
  :
  40
  from Scott Armstrong. Interestingly, this call adds additional weight to the theory that Armstrong, a recipient of Benoit's early morning texts, truly believed that his friend would be on an Atlanta-to-Houston plane that morning, and that Armstrong might even have been at the airport waiting for Benoit at
  9
  :
  27
  a.m., when Armstrong texted, “What time do u land?” (The alternative theory is that the Armstrong text — perhaps even if accompanied by Armstrong's drive to the airport — along with this afternoon call by Armstrong, simply had the purpose of contriving a timeline item. But, as noted earlier, the alternative theory is somewhat weakened if Armstrong went to the trouble of driving to the airport.)
  
• 4
  :
  43
  and
  6
  :
  26
  from a
  WWE
  cell phone. If there was a one-digit typo in the printout, it is possible that this was from the same person, “Mark,” who would text Benoit on Monday a willingness to “kayfabe for you” if Benoit was in any kind of trouble. (One of John Laurinaitis's assistants in talent relations was named Mark Carano, but would not qualify as someone in the
  WWE
  inner circle of top executives.)
  
• 7
  :
  50
  from a phone at the Toyota Center in Houston.
  
• Several calls from Canada — from an old workout buddy of Benoit's and from his ex-wife, Martina.
  
• Perhaps significantly, no apparent calls from Chavo Guerrero. This raises the possibility that Guerrero and Scott Armstrong did not have the same level of information, even though both were recipients of the same early-morning texts; or, if they did have the same information, they acted differently on it, either in separate decision-making or in coordination.
  

* * *

WWE
lawyer McDevitt and I agree on at least one thing: the performance of the district attorney was very poor.

“In point of fact, the authorities did not do many things which should have been done, and which they were urged to do, and did several things which should never be done in any competent investigation,” McDevitt wrote in an email complaining about my blog coverage. “Foremost among such actions was releasing the crime scene, together with critically important evidence, to persons with financial interests within a day of discovering the bodies. Indeed, it is a matter of historical record that I called on authorities during a national television program to locate Chris Benoit's diary when I learned of it since it might have shed light on the murders. Incredibly, when it finally was located or retrieved, it was evidently given to Michael Benoit rather than maintained in police custody.”

McDevitt's account of the diary debacle is substantially accurate. Ballard's decision to allow Nancy's side of the family to move into the house almost immediately, and thereby to gain special access to the crime scene, was the crown on the
DA
's comedy of errors.

Whether with the goal of concealing secrets or merely in an incoherent homicidal mania, Chris appeared to have thrown a number of items into an outside trash container.
^[7]
One of the items was the diary Chris began keeping after Eddie Guerrero's death. Apparently, the cops missed the diary, either inside the house or in the trash can; if the former, then the Toffolonis might have attempted to dispose of the diary, perhaps because it was simply too unpleasant to confront in their grief, or perhaps because it would strengthen the case of Chris's side of the family that he suffered from dementia and was not responsible for his actions.

From what we know, the diary includes rambling biblical references, as well as passages directly addressed to Guerrero in the beyond. (If the
Daily News
report of the former in unreleased text messages was inaccurate, that could explain where that piece of confusion originated.) The only glimmer of the content, other than excerpts read by Mike Benoit in broadcast interviews, came in Chris's email exchanges with journalist Greg Oliver after Guerrero's death. “My wife Nancy bought me a diary and I have started to write letters to Eddie. It may sound crazy but that is how I'm coping,” Chris wrote to Oliver.

On a visit to Chris and Nancy's house, some time after authorities released it to the Toffolonis, next-door neighbor Holly Schrepfer is believed to have retrieved the diary and then given it to Mike Benoit.

In our exchanges, McDevitt took exception to a quote in my blog coverage from an unnamed source who stated that
WWE
had played the Fayette County authorities “like a cello.” That phrase was uttered by Patricia Roy, one of Mike Benoit's lawyers. To the extent that McDevitt wanted to highlight that the work of the authorities had been incompetent, and to argue that the incompetence had as much of a claim to the explanation of the gaps in the record as corruption, he may have had a point. In the end, we don't know
why
the Fayette County district attorney and sheriff screwed up the investigation of the thirty-hour text message gap, and not knowing why includes not knowing if they were in someone's pocket. We only know that they did screw up.

In an age of instant and unverified information, the only element missing from this tableau of mind-bending ambiguity would be an excruciatingly intriguing Inter-net rumor, transmitted through the ether and never pinned down, but nonetheless shedding additional light on
WWE
's preposterous timeline and the lengths to which the company went to divert attention from it.

And guess what? Thanks to the “Wikipedia hacker,” the Benoit case had that element, too.

CHAPTER 9

SOONER OR LATER ANY PROBE
of pro wrestling's mysteries crawls into a bunny hutch of surrealism, a tunnel of barbershop mirrors with no way out. Call it an alternative universe, or a place where fantasy imposes its will on truth, or just call it a weave of meta-events too tangled to unravel. In the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide, that bunny hutch is the strange tale of the nineteen-year-old Stamford, Connecticut, college student who posted on Wikipedia the news of Nancy Benoit's death, fourteen hours before the authorities knew of it.

It would be folly surpassing that of young Matthew T. Greenberg himself, the now-iconic “Wikipedia hacker,” to suggest that this angle does or ever could answer the biggest questions of the Benoit investigation; the official findings of the crime and its perpetrator remain intact regardless. On the other hand, if the Wikipedia story meant nothing at all, then why couldn't the principals who looked into it have stopped sashaying long enough to lay out the handful of objective, non-self-referential facts that would easily establish its purportedly innocuous nature?

Assuming the explanation is entirely innocent — a reasonable hypothesis though, when it comes to wrestling, never a completely safe one — then the attendant dissembling could be written off to muscle reflex. Muscle reflex on behalf of the privacy of an essentially harmless prankster who learned his lesson about the dangers of monkeying around on the computer, and who stumbled onto the worst possible prank in the worst possible way. That, plus the “kayfabe” muscle reflex of the carnies who were, for once, victims of a hoax rather than its perpetrators, but who don't like to disclose their inner workings under any conditions.

In Greenberg's case, however, the temptation to dismiss the story is leavened by knowledge that World Wrestling Entertainment might have had a specific motive for keeping the Wiki fiasco under wraps. The more the public was exposed to even an honestly misguided suggestion that someone had gotten a premature tip about one or more Benoit family deaths, then the more people might reflect on the unbelievable thirty-hour gap between when Chris Benoit sent Chavo Guerrero and Scott Armstrong the final text messages and when the timeline insists “
WWE
officials” were informed of them. Once the Matthew Greenberg cat got out of the bag — whether wildcat or pussycat, it didn't matter —
WWE
's credibility firewall, in the form of two similar-but-different timelines, was in danger of being breached. It's a lot easier for corporate
PR
to justify a crisis response that was triggered Monday afternoon rather than early Sunday morning.

Greenberg therefore represented somewhat more than a brief, perhaps unintended, center of attention during the media frenzy. He was also someone whose consequences the powers-that-be had to work overtime to suppress, for they wanted to make sure he didn't wind up getting elevated to the status of the Benoit story's answer to Brandon, the young fan in the
1999
movie
Galaxy Quest
. In that parody of
Star Trek
, Brandon has encyclopedic knowledge of his cult, which comes in handy for the climactic solution finally figured out by Tim Allen's character, a washed-up and cynical former actor on the
TV
show. The verisimilitude of
Galaxy Quest
has such a hold on the sweet, hollow souls of its followers that it has inspired the architecture of an entire civilization in another quadrant of the universe.

* * *

This much is known: Late in the night of Sunday, June
24
,
2007
, an anonymous poster logged on to Wikipedia from a computer with the Internet Protocol (
IP
) address
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
, via Cablevision's Optimum Online service provider.

The Wiki page with the biography of Chris Benoit had already been edited, at
10
p.m. eastern time, to note, “Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the
ECW
Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues.” A minute past midnight Monday, eastern time, poster
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
added at the end “stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.”

Strictly speaking, this edit was not a “hack,” nor even necessarily a hoax. Billing itself as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” Wikipedia, launched in
2001
, amalgamates information from a network of more than
15
million global users. More than
130
,
000
of these are active volunteer editors, around
100
,
000
of them in the English language. Serving as virtual gatekeepers is a force of more than
1
,
600
“admins” (administrators), who play catch-up in the vetting of facts published in real time in a bank of articles, long and short, which in
2009
surpassed the three million mark. In the sense that “hacking” is a generic term — used by the technologically challenged to describe a range of crude acts by those who are more comfortable with computers and exploit that skill gap for nefarious ends — the word is appropriate.

According to Wikinews, a Wikipedia affiliate, the Benoit edit by
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
was reversed “just under one hour later with the [admin's] comment: ‘Need a reliable source. Saying that his wife died is a pretty big statement, you need to back it up with something.'”

The Wikinews report continued: “Then just one hour after the first edit reversion, another anonymous edit by
125
.
63
.
148
.
173
using
unwiredAustralia.com.au
, a wireless Internet service provider, was made about the aforementioned personal issues:
‘which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy.'
” That edit, too, was quickly reverted with the comment: “Saying ‘several pro wrestling websites' is still not reliable information.”

One of the many online wrestling forums buzzing with Benoit news and gossip was one called Smart Marks. At
11
:
18
Monday night, Jonathan Barber, a Smart Marks poster with the handle LucharesuFan
619
, claimed credit for being the first person to trace the
IP
address
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
and notice that the Wikipedia edit had come from Stamford, the home of
WWE
.

The next day the Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer coordinator, Cary Bass, notified the Georgia authorities. Bass said someone put the pieces together “and realized that the comment was made by someone who apparently knew about the murders.” On Thursday major news outlets broke the story of how the police were working on the mystery of an explosively curious Benoit edit on Wikipedia.

That night, at
12
:
26
a.m. eastern time Friday,
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
confessed in another anonymous post, on the “talk” page of Wikinews:

Hey everyone. I am here to talk about the wikipedia comment that was left by myself. I just want to say that it was an incredible coincidence. Last weekend, I had heard about Chris Benoit no showing Vengeance because of a family emergency, and I had heard rumors about why that was. I was reading rumors and speculation about this matter online, and one of them included that his wife may have passed away, and I did the wrong thing by posting it on wikipedia to spite there being no evidence. I posted my speculation on the situation at the time and I am deeply sorry about this, and I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life. It is one of those things that just turned into a huge coincidence. That night I found out that what I posted, ended up actually happening, a
1
in
10
,
000
chance of happening, or so I thought. I was beyond wrong for posting wrongful information, and I am sorry to everyone for this. I just want everyone to know it was stupid of me, and I will never do anything like this again. I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on wikipedia, as it is done all the time.

Nonetheless, I feel incredibly bad for all the attention this got because of the fact that what I said turned out to be the truth. Like I said it was just a major coincidence, and I will never vandalize anything on wikipedia or post wrongful information. I've learned from this experience. I just can't believe what I wrote was actually the case, I've remained stunned and saddened over it.

I wish not to reveal my identity so I can keep me and my family out of this since they have nothing to do with anything. I am not connected to
WWE
or Benoit at all in anyway. I am from Stamford as the IP address shows, and I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen. I will say again I didn't know anything about the Benoit tragedy, it was a terrible coincidence that I never saw coming.

I hope this puts an end to this speculation that someone knew about the tragedy before it was discovered. It was just a rumor that I had heard about from other people online who were speculating what the family emergency Chris was attending to. I made a big mistake by posting this comment on his page, since all we had were what we thought was going on and nothing about what actually was going on yet, and sadly what happened turned out to be my speculation at the time. I assumed wiki would edit out my information, which they did, so thats why I didn't go back to edit it out myself.

I know I keep repeating it but I feel terrible about the mainstream coverage this has received, since it was only a huge coincidence and a terrible event that should of never happened. I am not sure how to react, as hearing about my message becoming a huge part of the Benoit slayings made me feel terrible as everyone believes that it is connected to the tragedy, but it was just an awful coincidence. That is all I have to say, I will never post anything here again unless it is pure fact, no spam nothing like that. Thank you, and let this end this chapter of the Benoit story, and hopefully one day we will find out why this tragedy ever actually happened.

In subsequent exchanges on the talk page,
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
was asked if he would grant an interview. He replied:

Hey, I'm sorry but I would prefer not to do an interview, I really just want to put all this behind us. I made a mistake and I'm sorry, I know I've said that a million times but today has just been a bad day with this getting all this mainstream coverage even though it was just a huge coincidence. If an interview is deemed necessary, than I will only do it under the condition that I remain anonymous out of respect for my privacy. But really I would rather not do one, all that needs to be known is that this situation was blown out of proportion, though I can understand why.

I'm just still in shock that what I posted turned out to be true, and I feel awful that my post turned into a huge story, when it was only speculation on my part. Sorry I'm writing a lot, I just want to move on from this mistake and I hope you understand this. Thank you.

I also want to clarify again that the comment wasn't meant to be a prank, but just speculation on my part from some rumors that I had heard on the internet about the family emergency that caused Chris to miss the pay per view Vengeance. It was stupid of me to post, and I regret it, but I did and that won't change, but as long as everyone knows that it was simply a coincidence and nothing more then we can move on from this. Also, I'd like to apologize for my other wiki “updates” on other pages as they were immature and dumb, but I know I'm not the only one who has done this, but nonetheless I will never post anything like that again as I have learned from this. Thank you again.

By this time, online journalist Corey Spring was already putting the finishing touches on an investigation of the Wikipedia affair, which he would post at
3
:
04
a.m. on his page on another website called Newsvine. Spring found that
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
had also been responsible for several other Wikipedia alterations dating back to May
16
of that year. At the Wiki page for the city of Naugatuck, Connecticut, for example, he replaced the name of the town's mayor and other officials with those of three friends; reporter Spring's research on the social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook revealed that they were all part of a circle of students at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Furthermore,
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
had been warned in the past for vandalizing content and for posting pranks displaying a range of immature behavior. On the page of Stacy Kiebler, an actress and former wrestling personality, he wrote: “People want to @!$%# her in her lovely @!$%# and whip her ass til the dawn of day. Many people fantasize about ramming their cocks up her @!$%#.” On the page of Ron Artest,
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
called the basketball player “a piece of @!$%# nigger!!!!!!!” (Though Spring did not clarify this, his report appeared to be cleaning up the epithets with the same series of characters for each one.)
69
.
120
.
111
.
23
replaced the Wiki page of information about the African Wild Ass with one word: “piss.”