Chris, Nancy, & Daniel Benoit found dead

[MJH]

Oh, I agree with most of that... it was more throwing an argument at the wall rather than my specifically making it.

 

But in relation to the previous point about sponsors, yeah, my guess is they would, but... I do think it's somewhat unfair to attribute any sizeable blame on the company. The media played the steroid angle, etc... and 20 years of steroid abuse almost certainly played it's role in everything, but, and as scummy as the company can be... it's looking for someone to blame.

[JNLister]

If he'd lived, the publicity wouldn't necessarily have been worse, but it would have been longer. Instead of a couple of months before it faded away (save for a little bit of coverage during the Senate hearings), you'd have had the media circus of the trial including whatever revelations it brought out and possibly some WWE names getting called to testify.

 

I don't know how such decisions are made in Georgia, but presumably the death penalty could also have been on the cards, in which case you're talking years of publicity, especially if mental disorder is cited as a defense.

[jdw]

Kudos to those who were able to skip to the end of the Encyclopedia Brown story but I think family annihilation was by no means the most likely scenario outside the handful of living people who realized just how strange he was.

I think we've gone over that several times in this thread, if folks care to go back and sift through it.

 

Loss from the start wanted the speculation off of PWO:

 

I just want to say this. If anyone starts speculating on the cause of death before anything is known, they will be gone from this board.

 

I don't think anyone would do that here, but you're already seeing theories in places, and it's sickening.

Everyone pretty much respected the heck out of that, and this thread avoiding being a cesspool like a lot of places on the net.

 

But as far as what some of us thought when we initially heard:

 

Hard to respond to as well.

 

The earlier "theories" were among the obvious ones to draw from the small group of "possibilities". When Cheetah called around 8:30 PT with me having not heard/read about it yet, once she got past the Chris, Nancy and their son are dead part, my first question was "Accident?" When she said no, my reponse was along the line of "Oh god... muder-suicide?"

 

It's brutal... it's not something any of us really want to face... but it's there.

 

John

I'm a cynical person, and have read way too much true crime. Despite Helter Skelter being probably the first true crime book I read at probably the age of 14, you read enough (and follow the news enough), the reality of murder-suicide is one that you run into all the time and bizarre stuff like the Manson Family is flukey. In this case, it was just there.

 

It's not a "look at me" type of thing when Bix or Dylan say it's what popped into their mind at the time. It really was just there.

[jdw]

If he'd lived, the publicity wouldn't necessarily have been worse, but it would have been longer. Instead of a couple of months before it faded away (save for a little bit of coverage during the Senate hearings), you'd have had the media circus of the trial including whatever revelations it brought out and possibly some WWE names getting called to testify.

 

I don't know how such decisions are made in Georgia, but presumably the death penalty could also have been on the cards, in which case you're talking years of publicity, especially if mental disorder is cited as a defense.

If he copped a plea, he wouldn't have gotten death. That's the typical buyout in the deal: save us the time and cost of a trial and all the appeals, and we won't push for death.

 

Setting aside the fact that Chris killing himself sooner or later was the only realistic outcome given *Chris*, it never would have gone to trial unless Chris pulled some Jeffrey MacDonald bullshit story out of his ass. If he even remotely went down the path of forcing a trial, he was staring death in the face because of the murder of Daniel. If it was only Nancy, he could try to roll the dice on a conviction on lower charge than what the DA might be tossing at him. But Daniel... that's just not one that he could have rolled the dice on given the evidence. No matter how far gone Chris would have been at the time, it's a lock that his attorney would have gotten that across to him.

 

John

[Slasher]

Since apparently the whole act of killing everybody then himself took place over a full weekend, my guess is once he killed Nancy, and he had time to think about it, there was no way Daniel, and even Chris himself, was going to be alive after that. Benoit seems like the sort who had too much pride that he wouldn't want a son alive to endure the father killing mother taunts or that he would want to endure the guilt of having killed anybody while alive. So once the life went out of Nancy, so did Daniel and Chris's.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

So here's a question, as I never did wind up getting the 6 parts of the Observer dealing with the Benoit case, unfortunately, so I'm going off of early reports.

 

What has always confused me about the case is the nature of Benoit's premeditation. Some seem to think he flipped out on Friday, intoxicated or not, and that he thought about everything over the whole weekend until deciding that committing suicide was the best option. How sure is everyone that Benoit didn't think this out weeks in advance? For example, I remember Meltzer saying that Benoit changed his address for his WON subscription. I also know that he changed his life insurance plan weeks before he killed Nancy (and David). That led to some suspecting premeditation. But the "fight that got out of hand" hypothesis seems to have holes due to his having tied up Nancy, indicating some degree of planning, even if short-term. Yet after he killed Nancy (and possibly Daniel), Chris Googled the Biblical story of Lazarus to raise them back from the dead. (That, right there, would have gotten him an insanity plea imo.) So I was always confused for the motive. I believe there were reports that a month or two leading into that fiasco, Benoit was behaving more strangely than normal. And none of that addresses why he didn't get rid of his drugs first and thereby saving his boys. I always felt there was some degree of spite in that because Benoit is known to have been very unhappy in WWE since Guerrero died.

[sek69]

The thing about everyone trying to piece together what Chris was thinking is that it's hard to take into account how swiss-cheesed his brain was. Here in Pittsburgh we've had a few former Steeler players die from concussion related events. One flipped out and got into a high speed chase/shootout with the cops, and Hall of Fame center Mike Webster ended up homeless with dementia and depression due to concussion related CTE.

 

Benoit's co-workers seem to want to quickly dismiss it because he was able to make flights and work matches, but anyone who's ever had a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia knows there's a long period of time when the person is still functional.

 

 

At least there was a positive in what happened, all the research done in concussions and brain injuries was largely sparked by what happened that weekend. Showing the consequences from years worth of head trauma finally got some real science done on the subject, and perhaps a larger tragedy was avoided because of what we know now.

[khawk20]

it never would have gone to trial unless Chris pulled some Jeffrey MacDonald bullshit story out of his ass.

Great callback on one of the first bizarre true crime stories I ever read about.

 

Is McDonald still in jail? Has prevailing opinion ever swayed one way or another regarding his guilt or innocence?

 

Don't mean to go OT, just got curious upon reading that name again.

[jdw]

Since apparently the whole act of killing everybody then himself took place over a full weekend, my guess is once he killed Nancy, and he had time to think about it, there was no way Daniel, and even Chris himself, was going to be alive after that. Benoit seems like the sort who had too much pride that he wouldn't want a son alive to endure the father killing mother taunts or that he would want to endure the guilt of having killed anybody while alive. So once the life went out of Nancy, so did Daniel and Chris's.

Fuck... killing Daniel to protect him from a "life of shame" isn't pride. It was delusional batshit crazy. It's not thinking in terms of pride.

[jdw]

it never would have gone to trial unless Chris pulled some Jeffrey MacDonald bullshit story out of his ass.

Great callback on one of the first bizarre true crime stories I ever read about.

 

Is McDonald still in jail? Has prevailing opinion ever swayed one way or another regarding his guilt or innocence?

 

Don't mean to go OT, just got curious upon reading that name again.

 

McDonald is still in jail:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald

 

He's still an appeals machine. He's 70 later this year. With some luck he'll drop dead soon.

 

John

[Slasher]

Which is funny because Benoit's more fanatical defenders had no trouble trying to create their own McDonald story (devil worshipper Kevin Sullivan invading)

[tigerpride]

It seems like most people were too stunned to think he killed them, with the usual hare-brained theories coming up and then it was looking more and more like he did it, you had people trying to discredit the ATL police and the media and of course the usual stupid theories. (Nancy killed Daniel so Chris killed Nancy, so it's okay)

 

Now it's just the continued debate of WWE erasing him from history and people debating whether they are comfortable watching his matches.

[El-P]

Watching back WCW, as odd as it may seem to some people, I found out I had no problem watching his matches and enjoying his work. However, there has not been one single time that I haven't thought about it watching his matches, not one single time. And each time it eventually takes my attention away for a while.

 

I have avoided the 95-97 period thus far to concentrate on the downward spiral of WCW, so I don't have to watch him and Nancy work together. I have no idea if that would be more uncomfortable to me at this point. I also don't know if I'll ever revisit this era, and maybe I'm not sure if I want to partly because Nancy and Benoit are all over TV together. Not really sure though.

[Slasher]

I was a big Benoit fan so for a while after the murders, I was able to watch his matches and be detached, but as years have gone by, it's been less so. It isn't really even that he killed his family which ruined it for me, but rather that I am getting older and I just don't want to continue idolizing every tenet of which drove him to be fanatical about wrestling and leading him down a dark path.

[Al]

I personally believe the concussions contributed to Benoit's demise more than any other factor. So to watch all the diving headbutts and stunts, that gets hard to watch in retrospect.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I was a big Benoit fan so for a while after the murders, I was able to watch his matches and be detached, but as years have gone by, it's been less so. It isn't really even that he killed his family which ruined it for me, but rather that I am getting older and I just don't want to continue idolizing every tenet of which drove him to be fanatical about wrestling and leading him down a dark path.

I can relate. It's strange, but I just see the Benoit fallout as an unenviable tragedy of the highest order. You have a guy who gave his whole life to being the best of his field and, due to the damage inflicted by being the best, he just got mind fucked and went apeshit, taking two lives with him. We have no clue for his motives or even if he had one. What a tragedy. It's just unfathomable. And the longer time goes on, the more I just have a hard time looking at this amazing performer and thinking to myself that he pissed it all down the drain, partly because the business just did him in, and our semantical issues of personal responsibility make it nearly impossible to realize that the Benoit of 1999 was not the Benoit of 2007. Just a crazy story.

[flyonthewall2983]

And gee Sean Hannity mustn't have done much research if he thinks that "Vince McMahon seems like a nice guy".

To be fair, he does look a lot like Shane.

[NintendoLogic]

Sean O Mac?

[sek69]

The whole "do you feel weird watching Benoit matches" debate reminded me of how odd it is watching Invader I still in main event angles in WWC.

[flyonthewall2983]

I can't say I've gone out of my way not to watch any of Chris' stuff, but I can't say that if I had that it bothered me. I'd be more bothered by seeing documentary footage of him with his family, or just speaking as himself.

 

Getting back to the Cable coverage this got, I remember distinctly how impressed I was with John Cena when he was on Larry King. It was right then and there I knew he would be someone WWE should consider invaluable to them when it comes to that kind of stuff. He toed the company line yes, but he was classy and considerate with his answers. Showed more restraint than Vince ever has in those kinds of situations.

[victory]

Bob Holly was a guest on The LAW recently promoting his book and talked about Benoit. Nothing new, I just never heard him say anything about Benoit so I found it interesting.

 

 

 

His friendship with Chris Benoit: For the people that didn’t know Chris, he was the kindest human being you would ever find on this planet. I don’t know what happened, I just honestly couldn’t tell you what happened. Chris was one of the kindest, politest people. I never saw the guy get mad, not one single time. He didn’t get upset about anything. When I was writing the book and reflecting back on him, it was kinda hard because then I started thinking about it again, and it’s almost like it’s hard to believe that he’s not here anymore. Me and him were pretty close; we confided a lot in each other. It was very tough, just thinking about it and talking about it. Back when it had happened, that’s something that you’ve got to push out of you mind right away, because you have to move forward. We’re on live TV every week; it’s a sad situation, it’s hard to heal from something when you don’t mourn over it. It’s something that you have to do, just put it out of your mind. Otherwise it’ll ruin you, it really will.

[Marty]

Fantastic interview with Sandra Toffoloni, sister of Nancy, who gives incredible perspective to the events six years ago and how things lead up to it, with respect to what Chris and Nancy were experiencing.

 

http://the2count.com/?p=765

[Matt D]

High Spots.

[Guest Staples]

Possibly the first time Paul Heyman has been called trustworthy. Still, that was a good interview and I'm glad to see she seems to coping as well as someone could.

[anarchistxx]

Some weird things in that interview. She seems totally desperate to stress her own genius intelligence, how she had a unique connection with him, how Benoit would look up to her and saw her as a teacher and mentor despite her young age...

 

"My ex brother-in-law Kevin Sullivan said to Nancy once “Your sister’s so smart, she scares the shit out of me. Let’s hope she uses it for good and not evil”"

 

"When we would talk, as young as I was, it was like student and teacher. Books he should get, bands he would love, movies and TV that were a must watch!"

 

" Nancy told me that she would take care of flying me down there and she also said that I was very tired and stressed out and needed to unwind and do something for myself. They then suggested that a house be built for me on the acreage right by their own home. Chris was actually stoked about it."

 

Almost seems like she was supported by Chris and Nancy. She reminds me of Janice Soprano in this interview for some reason.