Chris & Nancy (8 page)
Authors: Irvin Muchnick
In
1999
, another pay-per-view was just getting under way in Kansas City when wrestler Owen Hart crashed into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena. In a stunt entrance gone awry, Hart's harness broke and he was killed on impact. Again, McMahon continued with the show â later maintaining, in part, that he feared a riot by fans if the show were canceled â and he dedicated the next night's
Raw
to a tribute to Hart.
In
2005
Eddie Guerrero also got the full tearjerker treatment on
Raw
. In the age of reality
TV
, the Guerrero tribute garnered great ratings. And the Owen Hart tribute had been one of the two most-watched episodes in
Raw
history.
By coincidence, exactly two weeks before the Benoit tribute â on June
11
,
2007
â McMahon had pulled off a modern-day poor man's version of Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds
hoax. That night's
Raw
, from the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, revolved around a “Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night,” which turned into an orgy of tragedy and terror at the conclusion, when a bomb exploded inside McMahon's limousine just as he was entering it. The explosion had been shot over the course of the previous two nights, then edited into the live Monday night feed, in a stunt production coordinated by Zenith Pyrotechnology of Deer Park, New York, which secured local permits and had the area blocked off.
WWE
's corporate website, designed to separate public disclosures to investors from wrestling story lines, merged the two in a news release whose tongue-in-cheek nature sailed over the heads of some fans:
The shocking ending raised a myriad of questions: Could Mr. McMahon have survived the fiery explosion? And who could've committed such a heinous act? Although full details have not been disclosed, initial reports indicate that Mr. McMahon is presumed dead. An official investigation into Monday night's events is currently underway with no one being ruled out as a suspect. Throughout the night, people from Mr. McMahon's past â from Donald Trump to Snoop Dogg to Bob Costas to Stone Cold Steve Austin â had less than flattering things to say about the
WWE
Chairman, but would any go so far as to actually blow him up? The question of “whodunit,” as well as the fate of Mr. McMahon, will be on everyone's minds as the
WWE
saga continues on “Monday Night RAW” on
USA
(
9
p.m. ET/
8
C).
On the
CNBC
business news network, sports business specialist Darren Rovell questioned whether the fake death broke any laws, and concluded that the answer was no: “McMahon isn't creating any sort of phony documentation or cashing in on a life insurance policy; it doesn't seem like there's any exposure here.
But I still think there's a possibility the organization could be sued by a shareholder.
By announcing that he is âpresumed dead' on their official website, they could be charged with misleading stockholders.”
WWE
responded to Rovell's report by releasing a deadpan statement adding him to the list of suspects in McMahon's murder
[5]
.
On the June
18
edition of
Raw
, Stephanie McMahon Levesque â Vince's daughter and a
WWE
executive, as well as an on-screen
WWE
personality and the wife of wrestler Paul Levesque (“Hunter Hearst Helmsley” or “Triple H”) â confirmed that her father was “presumed dead” and said the next week's show would be a celebration of his snuffed-out life.
Instead, in mid-afternoon in Corpus Christi, Vince gathered the talent ringside at Citizen Bank Center in Corpus Christi and informed them that the Benoits had been found dead. McMahon did not elaborate. The wrestlers were in street clothes â some in the black suits they had been asked to bring for “Mr. McMahon's” goof memorial. Chris Masters saw Randy Orton, a star wrestler, break into tears talking with Michael Hayes, the head writer and a former wrestler. Masters later told WrestleZone.com that there had been “a buzz about some odd text messages Chris had sent to Chavo Guerrero and one of the
ECW
referees.” Masters suspected the worst. “I mean, how many different scenarios can there be? Either home invasion or Chris snapping. Not many others shared my thoughts on a double murder-suicide.”
McMahon told the crew that, in lieu of wrestling, Benoit's colleagues would give interview testimonials and remembrances on
Raw
. McMahon said anyone who wanted to go home had permission to do so. Few, if any, took up the offer â there was comfort in remaining enveloped in the numbers of this spontaneous wake. Ted DiBiase, a retired wrestler who had become an evangelical Christian minister, had been flown to Texas to be part of the McMahon death story line; now DiBiase found himself enlisted as a real-life grief counselor.
At
8
p.m. eastern time on June
25
, Vince McMahon stood in center ring in the empty arena. Eyes blurred by tears, voice choking and reduced to the hoarse growl characteristic for him at the end of a long day of stress, McMahon broke character as he delivered the
Raw
opening:
Tonight's story line was to have been the alleged demise of my character, Mr. McMahon. However, in reality,
WWE
superstar Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and their son Daniel are dead. Their bodies were discovered this afternoon in their new suburban Atlanta home. The authorities are undergoing an investigation. We here in the
WWE
can only offer our condolences to the extended family of Chris Benoit. And the only other thing we can do at this moment is, tonight, pay tribute to Chris Benoit. We will offer you some of the most memorable moments in Chris's professional life and you will hear, tonight, comments from his peers â those here, his fellow performers â those here, who loved Chris and admired him so much. So tonight will be a three-hour tribute to one of the greatest
WWE
superstars of all time. Tonight we pay tribute to Chris Benoit.
With that, taped highlights of Benoit's career were played to the accompaniment of the song “One Thing” by the Canadian grunge band Finger Eleven.
Raw
announcers Jim Ross and Jerry “The King” Lawler reflected on Benoit's legacy. Retired wrestling legend “Stone Cold” Steve Austin spoke via videotape. John Bradshaw Layfield talked about Benoit's devotion to his family. Tazz, C.M. Punk, Dean Malenko, Triple H and his wife Stephanie, and others said their pieces. The tribute culminated with footage of Benoit's
2004
WrestleMania
championship victory, followed by the emotional in-ring celebration with Nancy, Daniel, and Eddie Guerrero.
One of the live testimonials was by William Regal, one of Benoit's original Fayette County wrestling neighbors. Regal's segment came off as unintentionally chilling. Just before Regal went out for the shoot, Layfield remarked to him, “You don't think Chris killed that boy, do you?” Spooked, Regal proceeded to deliver an eerily detached eulogy; while calling Chris the best wrestler he had ever faced, Regal also said he would rather reserve comment on anything else until the facts came in.
“If you watch the
Raw
tribute carefully, it doesn't appear that the wrestlers, as a group, had an inkling that it was murder-suicide,” Meltzer said. “But the McMahon family had to know.” Meltzer's assessment was too generous. Though the power of denial cannot be discounted, my investigation has unearthed plenty of evidence that a substantial group of people had “an inkling.”
During the hour from
10
p.m. to
11
p.m. (eastern time) â two thirds of the way through the tribute's live feed â Doug Evans of Fox
5
News in Atlanta became the first journalist to report to a wide audience that the Fayette County crime scene investigation was focusing on murder-suicide. Minutes later the
WWE
website's own home page was headlined, “Double Murder-Suicide,” with the text: “It has been ruled that the deaths . . . were the result of a double murder-suicide from within the home.
WWE
.com will have more as soon as it becomes available.”
“Here is what has always bothered me,” Evans said in a later email to me. “I got a tip about the murder not long after the investigators arrived, and it came from inside the gates. Pretty fresh you would think, right? I started heading immediately to Fayette County. On my way, a radio reporter from Canada called me (he was given my cell number by our staff in Atlanta) and he wanted to know about the murders and suicide. He said it was already on the
WWE
web page. How did that happen so fast? My source couldn't reveal the names at the time but gave me the location. However, there it was already in full detail for the whole world to read. How did that happen?”
The last hour of the Benoit tribute forged ahead on
USA
cable, after which the repeat feed to the West Coast was broadcast intact. The
WWE
website home page, alongside the news bulletin, continued to stream a tribute video package along with exclusive studio-produced testimonials.
Inside the ring and in
TV
skits,
WWE
's verbal agility is always striking, and it was on full display here. The company had concealed the overwhelming suspicion of murder-suicide, of which at least higher-ups had been aware since, at the latest, around the hour of four to five o'clock eastern time. Turning on a dime,
WWE
.com now exaggerated the report of the preponderant investigative theory, calling it a “ruling.” At the same time, the phrase “within the home” continued to keep the identity of the killer vague. Recalling the murder of comic actor Phil Hartman by his wife, many of Chris's fans continued to hold out the perverse hope that Nancy, and not Chris, would prove to be the perpetrator.
Of course, that was not to be. The next night, at the start of another cable show, on the Sci Fi network, McMahon said Chris Benoit would never be mentioned again on
WWE
television. By then all references to Benoit had been expunged from the website, and all Benoit-related videos and merchandise were being pulled from physical and virtual store shelves “as facts emerged surrounding the case,” according to the company's timeline. The passive construction “as facts emerged” was key. When they emerged to Vince McMahon did not compute; only when they emerged to the public at a pace and in a manner McMahon tightly controlled.
It was the end of the following week, Friday, July
6
, by the time McMahon got around to calling Mike Benoit in Alberta. “I suppose that I could have called earlier,” McMahon said. “But we were both trying to deal with this.”
Screening calls, Benoit heard the message live as it came through on his answering machine. He chose not to pick up. Nor would he ever return McMahon's call.
[
1
]. The sheriff did not release the full Internet and email history, images, and video files, asserting that they were exempt under Georgia open records law: “None of this information is relevant to the incident and had any bearing on the investigation.” Whether the entirety of the computer's Internet and email history was irrelevant seems highly questionable, but at least the assertion of a legal exemption was made directly. As will be seen later, the sheriff in other areas fudged the very existence of a supporting record.
[
2
]. The publicly released home answering machine messages would include a series of late Monday afternoon/early Monday evening calls from Nancy's parents, Paul and Maureen Toffoloni, escalating in confusion and worry. Though neither DeMarco nor Turner would grant an interview to confirm this, it seems overwhelmingly likely that DeMarco called Turner or got a message to him after DeMarco spoke the first time with Margaret Benoit. Also on the answering machine was a message left at some undetermined point by Daniel Benoit for his father, whom the little boy affectionately called “pooh-bear.” Finally, the answering machine still retained â probably for sentimental reasons â the very last known recordings of the voice of Eddie Guerrero, in two messages left the day before Guerrero died in Minneapolis in 2005. The answering machine audio is included in the companion disk. See “Order the DVD” at the back of this book.
[
3
]. Facsimiles of the RCMP “Occurrence summary” and “General Occurrence Report” are included in the companion disk. See “Order the DVD” at the back of this book.
[
4
]. After some of the information in this chapter was published on my blog, Zerr denied to Josh Stewart, a wrestling columnist for the
Long Island Press
, that he was the one who had told Mike Benoit that Chris was the perpetrator. Mike linked Zerr's puzzling denial to Mike's earlier refusal to sign a legal release authorizing a book Zerr was planning to write. Mike reemphasized the accuracy of my account and said he believed Zerr to be part of “a coordinated attempt to discredit” my work. Zerr â whom I have never met or spoken to â also falsely told others that an essay I had published months after the Benoit deaths failed to mention Chris's concussion syndrome, and he spoke of me in disparaging terms to Mike Benoit. A wrestling insider told me, “The fact that Zerr would run you down in combination with the denial shows it's likely coming directly from DeMarco, and that they have no defense. DeMarco is the type â clumsy in covering his tracks.”
[
5
]. Generally speaking, does WWE, a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, run afoul of federal securities law prohibitions against issuing materially false statements when it hypes wrestling story lines on its corporate website, outside the boundaries of its entertainment television shows, website, and magazines? In a related example, WWE in the spring of 2008 staged a news conference to announce that boxer Floyd Mayweather was being paid $20 million to appear at
WrestleMania
â a figure surely many multiples higher than Mayweather's actual payoff. If there were factual misstatements in WWE's published internal timeline for Benoit, the same issue might arise. And in June 2009, WWE shares plunged seven percent after a TV storyline, supported by a USA cable news release, had Donald Trump purchasing WWE's Raw brand.
