00:00The Lat Pull-Down Machine
00:01Over a three-day weekend, from June 22 through 24, 2007,
00:07Chris Benoit, a 40-year-old Canadian wrestling star
00:10and former WWE World Heavyweight Champion,
00:14was at his family home in Fayetteville, Georgia,
00:16while quietly missing the live events he was booked for in Texas.
00:20He texted colleagues his home address and the location of his dogs
00:24and gave WWE different excuses about family illness and flight trouble.
00:28By then, his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel
00:32were already dead inside the house.
00:34Investigators concluded Benoit strangled Nancy on the night of June 22,
00:39bound her hands and feet, and placed a Bible by her body.
00:42The next morning, he sedated Daniel with Xanax
00:45and suffocated him in his bed, leaving a Bible there, too.
00:49On June 24, Benoit went to his home gym,
00:53looped the cable of his Lat Pull-Down Machine around his neck,
00:56and released the weight stack.
00:58WWE asked for a welfare check on June 25,
01:02and deputies found all three.
01:05Authorities in Fayette County determined the case to be a double murder,
01:08carried out by Benoit, who then died by his own hand.
01:12And later medical analysis found severe brain degeneration
01:15comparable to that of an elderly dementia patient.
01:19The Fall
01:20In May 1983, James Wiley Smith Jr.,
01:24the WWF high flyer known as Jimmy Superfly Snuka,
01:28was on the road with his girlfriend, 23-year-old Nancy Argentino,
01:33staying at a motor lodge in Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania,
01:36after an Allentown area event.
01:39Snuka called an ambulance to the room.
01:42His account was that Argentino had hit her head in a fall.
01:45The coroner found she died of cranio-cerebral injuries
01:49with multiple scalp, facial, and bodily bruises and abrasions,
01:53a pattern, the report said,
01:55wasn't consistent with a single, simple fall.
01:57Prosecutors believed she'd been beaten.
02:00Snuka maintained it was an accident.
02:02For decades, nothing happened.
02:05He wasn't charged in 1983.
02:07Then, a newspaper reopened the story.
02:09A grand jury took it up.
02:11And in 2015, more than 30 years later,
02:14Snuka was charged with third-degree murder
02:17and involuntary manslaughter.
02:19He never stood trial.
02:20In 2016, a judge ruled him not competent because of dementia.
02:24And on the 3rd of January 2017,
02:28the case was dismissed as he sat in hospice care in Florida.
02:31He died days later,
02:33and the death linked to him remained legally unresolved.
02:36The 619
02:37On the night of Friday, the 20th of March, 2015,
02:43Pedro Aguayo Ramirez,
02:45the 35-year-old Mexican star wrestling
02:47as Jijo del Perro Aguayo,
02:50son of a Lucha Libre legend,
02:52was in a tag match at a municipal auditorium in Tijuana
02:55against a team that included Rey Mysterio.
02:58It was a standard bout, not a stunt match.
03:02Aguayo ended up draped against the middle rope,
03:04the classic setup position for Mysterio's signature 619.
03:09Mysterio delivered a flying dropkick that struck him from behind
03:12and drove him forward into the ropes.
03:15Aguayo slumped over and stopped moving,
03:17hanging in that same position.
03:19For about two minutes,
03:20the other wrestlers and the referee kept working,
03:23not realizing he wasn't selling the spot.
03:25When they finally tended to him,
03:27he was rushed to a hospital one block away.
03:30He was pronounced dead around 1.30 a.m. on March 21.
03:34The Baja California Prosecutor's Office,
03:36citing the autopsy,
03:38gave the cause as trauma to the neck and a cervical fracture.
03:41They opened an investigation into possible manslaughter,
03:44but no charges were filed.
03:46The second knife,
03:48just after 8.30 p.m. on Wednesday,
03:50the 24th of July, 2013,
03:53deputies in Tampa, Florida,
03:55were called to the Grand Oaks Apartments on Del Lago Circle.
03:58Brian McGee,
03:59a 29-year-old former WWE developmental wrestler from the street.
04:04Louis Area,
04:04who'd worked the Florida system as the future,
04:07had gone to see his ex-girlfriend,
04:0925-year-old Bianca McGaughey.
04:11She was outside walking her dog.
04:14Prosecutors said McGee walked up
04:15and immediately attacked her with a knife.
04:17A witness saw what looked like a punch to the stomach.
04:20McGaughey fell screaming,
04:21and when the witness came back,
04:23a knife was sticking from her abdomen.
04:25During the attack,
04:26the blade broke,
04:27so McGee went back to his car for a second knife
04:30and kept stabbing.
04:31She died at the scene with multiple wounds.
04:34He fled in a Pontiac Grand Prix,
04:36posted a bloody image to Facebook,
04:38and confessed to his sister,
04:40his mother,
04:40and then a police officer over the phone.
04:43A chase ended when he crashed near Interstate 75
04:46and was taken down by a K-9.
04:49In 2016, he pleaded guilty,
04:51and the state dropped its death penalty bid
04:54in exchange for life without parole.
04:56The Spinebuster.
04:57On the 28th of May, 2001,
05:00at All Pro Wrestling's boot camp training school
05:03in Hayward, California,
05:04a 27-year-old trainee named Brian Ong
05:08was paired up to practice a move
05:10with a 28-year-old Indian powerhouse,
05:12a former Punjab police officer
05:15who hadn't yet become the great Kali.
05:17This wasn't a hardcore stunt.
05:19It was a basic drill,
05:21a spinebuster,
05:22run safely with other trainees that same day.
05:25But on the move,
05:26Ong grabbed Kali's shirt,
05:28which threw him out of position.
05:30His tailbone hit the mat first,
05:32then his head whipped back and slammed down.
05:35Ong had already taken a concussion
05:36in earlier training
05:37and been let back into the ring anyway.
05:40He was knocked unconscious
05:42and rushed to Street Rose Hospital,
05:44where he was pronounced dead.
05:45The Alameda County coroner listed the cause
05:48as acute subdural hemorrhage due to head trauma.
05:51Ong's family sued the school,
05:53and in July 2005,
05:55a jury found unanimously for them,
05:57awarding damages reported
05:59between $1.3 million
06:00and just over $2 million.
06:03The standoff.
06:05On the 8th of February, 2024,
06:07police in Portland, Oregon,
06:09were called to the home
06:10of 70-year-old William Albert Haynes III,
06:13the retired wrestler known to WWF fans
06:16as Billy Jack Haynes,
06:18who'd appeared at WrestleMania III
06:20back in the 1980s.
06:22The call was about a shooting
06:24involving an elderly woman.
06:26Inside was his wife,
06:2785-year-old Jeanette Becraft,
06:30who had dementia.
06:32Haynes didn't surrender.
06:33Reports describe a roughly two-hour standoff
06:36with a SWAT-style response
06:38before he was taken into custody
06:39and brought to a hospital.
06:41Becraft was found dead in the residence.
06:44Because the case went through
06:45a secret grand jury
06:46with no public probable cause affidavit,
06:49the exact sequence of the shooting
06:51isn't documented.
06:52What is on record,
06:53on February 28,
06:55he was charged with second-degree murder,
06:57domestic violence,
06:58and unlawful use of a weapon.
07:00In a jail interview,
07:01he called it way overcharged
07:03and said it didn't happen,
07:05insisting he loved her more than life.
07:07Talk business.
07:08On the evening of the 16th of July,
07:111988,
07:12Jose Huertas Gonzalez,
07:14the Puerto Rican wrestler
07:15and WWC booker
07:17known as Invader One,
07:19approached a top American brawler
07:21in the locker room
07:22at Juan Ramon Lubriel Stadium
07:24in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
07:26Before a show,
07:27the brawler was 42-year-old Frank Goodish,
07:30the legendary bruiser Brody,
07:32booked that night against Dan Spivey.
07:35Gonzalez asked Brody
07:36to step into the shower area
07:38to talk business.
07:39Brody, unarmed,
07:40went with him.
07:41Inside,
07:42Gonzalez stabbed him.
07:44Tony Atlas,
07:45watching from outside,
07:46first thought it was a punch
07:47until he saw the wound.
07:49Brody staggered back out,
07:51gravely hurt,
07:52and other wrestlers carried him out
07:54as some initially told police
07:55a fan had done it.
07:57Police even wondered at first
07:59if it was a wrestling angle.
08:01Brody was rushed to surgery
08:03but died on July 17
08:04from the stab wounds.
08:06The knife was never recovered.
08:09Gonzalez claimed self-defense
08:10and didn't testify.
08:12Key witnesses like Atlas
08:13and Dutch Mantel
08:15never made it to the stand.
08:16Mantel's subpoena
08:17reportedly arrived
08:1810 days after the trial ended.
08:20In 1989,
08:22a jury acquitted Gonzalez
08:23and no one was ever convicted.
08:26The Body Slam
08:27On the 26th of January 2009,
08:31inside the memory care unit
08:32of a nursing home
08:33in Bloomington, Minnesota,
08:3583-year-old Vern Gagne,
08:37the American wrestling legend
08:39who founded and ran the AWA
08:41and held its world title 10 times,
08:44got into a physical confrontation
08:45with a fellow resident,
08:4797-year-old Helmut Gutmann,
08:50a retired physician
08:51and cancer researcher.
08:53Both men had Alzheimer's disease.
08:55According to police,
08:57Gagne threw or body-slammed Gutmann
08:59to the floor
08:59hard enough to break his hip.
09:01Investigators said
09:02they never learned
09:03what started it
09:04because neither man
09:05could remember.
09:06Gutmann was hospitalized,
09:08declined over the following weeks,
09:10and died on February 14, 2009.
09:13The Hennepin County
09:14medical examiner
09:15ruled it a homicide,
09:16death from complications
09:18of the broken hip,
09:19but no charges followed.
09:20Gagne's advanced dementia
09:22made him legally incompetent
09:23to prosecute,
09:24and Gutmann's daughter
09:25said she didn't want
09:26charges brought
09:27because Gagne
09:28couldn't be held responsible
09:30for what his disease had done.
09:31Gagne himself died in 2015 at 89,
09:35never tried,
09:36almost certainly
09:37never understanding
09:38what had happened.
09:39Thanks so much
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