True Crime All The Time - Chris Benoit Part 1

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Chris Benoit was a professional wrestler, with some of his peers calling him one of the best wrestlers of all time. On June 25th, 2007, the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office responded to a welfare check requested by World Wrestling Entertainment. Police officers entered the home of Chris Benoit and found the pro wrestler, his wife, and his son dead in what looked like a murder-suicide. Join Mike and Gibby for episode 1 on the life and crimes of Chris Benoit. Benoit was admired by many and had fans around the world as a result of being on television as a professional wrestler. It was through wrestling that he met his wife, Nancy, in 1990. The marriage became troubled as the years went by with accusations of abuse. Then, the death of Chris's best friend, Eddie Guerrero, seemed to send him on a downward spiral. But what could make a man kill his wife and son and then end his own life?You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 304 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm doing good, man. How about yourself? I'm doing well. Good. Glad to see you in studio.

Glad that you're in pretty good spirits. Yeah. And I'm sure everybody listening is happy to hear that as well. Just trying to push forward. Yeah. I mean, that's all you can do. Yeah. Right.

Day by day, week by week, that's how life works. We do want to send our good thoughts and prayers out to everybody affected by Hurricane Ian. Absolutely. Rough down there. Oh, man. I think worse than even most people thought. Yeah. It was going to be, I know I talked to Morph and he had to evacuate, but he's fine.

He did have some property damage. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Amy Hall. Hey, Amy. Cool Ray jumped out at our highest level. What's going on, Cool Ray? Brenda Martins. Hey, Brenda.

Jennifer Gorley. jumped out higher than our highest level. Thank you, Jennifer. Maddie Asper. Hey, there's Maddie. Shannon Cotterman. Hey, appreciate that, Shannon. Angela DeCiroz.

Ooh, DeCiros. I'm going with. Yeah. I've said it a bunch of different ways. Shadasha Wright. Hey, Shaddaisha. Ron Lassard. What's going on, Lassard?

Diamond back. Hey, appreciate that diamond. Jason and Jennifer King jumped out to our highest level. That's awesome. Thank you, Jason and Jennifer. Glacial Gothic. Ooh, some Gothic, huh? Carly Sinclair.

What's going on, I, Carly, I mean, Carly. Florian Fisher. Hey, Florian. Bridget Donaldson. What's up, Donaldson? Rutasia. Hey, Rutasia. Danielle S.

What's happening, Danielle? Nikki Buchette. Hey, Buchat. Derek Erb. What's up, Erb? Nev. Hey, good on Nev. Jacob.

Jacob. Oh, man, that's awesome. Thank you, Jacob. Tim Peterson. Hey, Peterson. And last but not least, Carrie Cassiopo. Oh, Cassiopo. And then if we go back into the vault.

This week we selected Michelle Schult. Hey Michelle. So we appreciate all the Patreon support. On PayPal, we had great donations from Maria Flagerup. Flager up. Robin Taylor. Hey, Robin. Gregory Yankow.

Thank you, Yankow. And Jude. What's going on, Jude? So thank you to everyone. All right, Gibbs, right now on True Crime All the Time on Salt. We have an episode out on the death of Michelle Von Emster. Yeah, this is an interesting case. off the San Diego in sunny California and we are going to look at her disappearance and then the

death. Some people would say it's just a death. Some people could say it's murder. Then on where you decide to hang your hat. Yeah, it's up in the air for some. Exactly. And so there, there is some detective to be played in this episode. But make sure you check it out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all this time? Man, I am ready. This is a subject that people have been asking us to cover for six years. We are talking about Chris Benoit. On June 25th, 2007, the Fayette County Sheriff's Office responded to a welfare check requested by World Wrestling Entertainment. Police officers entered the home of Chris Benoit and they found the pro wrestler, his wife and son dead in what looked to be a murder.

suicide. So this is a rough case. There's no doubt about it. This episode, you know, contains discussion about domestic abuse, suicide. I want to put that out there right up front, but it is a case that a lot of people have requested that we do. So did you watch professional wrestling when you were younger? Oh, I did. Or do you still now? I don't know. I went through ups and downs with wrestling. But yeah, when I was little, my grandpa watched it, you know, my dad watched it. So I remember, I can't remember his name right now, the mask man. The mask. I don't think that's what his name was. No, it wasn't. The masked man. It was Mr. Wrestling. Mr. Wrestler. I don't remember, but he always had a mask on and he would fight the Sheik. The Iron Sheik. Yeah. I do remember the

Iron Sheik. So I'll tell you right up front. I never, I didn't watch pro wrestling a lot. Yeah. But a lot of my friends were into it. So if I was over at their house, I would watch it. And I think just from that picked up a lot of the, you know, Hulk Hogan, Iron Sheek. Oh yeah. Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Yeah. You know, I can't think of it.

DeViase, the million dollar man. Yeah, the million dollar man. The Rick Flair. But we're dating ourselves because that goes back. The other thing I will say is that my dad one time took me to Harrow Arena. Oh, yeah. to see Andre the Giant. Man, he was huge.

Live. Yeah. That was really cool. Yeah. It was actually cool. They all used to, so they would, they would perform at the hair arena, and then they would stay at the Holiday Inn in Englewood. So I remember one time I was working at the Holiday Inn in Englewood, and they actually got

into a real fight. You know, they did their show. Sure. They came back to the hotel, and then they were eating and drinking. And like at one o'clock, man, there was just a big brawl. like a real, you know, fight within the restaurant. And that would be brutal to have a bunch of actual professional wrestlers. Oh, yeah.

And I get it. It's scripted. People get mad at me by saying it's fake. Yeah. It's only fake in, in the aspect of, you know, pulling punches. I mean, people get hurt. They bleed. They make themselves bleed.

Yeah. You know, a lot of these wrestlers, just like in the movie, the wrestler. Oh, I love that. I love that movie too, but I think it really paints a good picture of the fact that these guys for entertainment value really do a number on their bodies. They do. They sacrifice their bodies to get the applause. Yeah. Or the booze or whatever.

So Christopher Michael Benoit was born on May 21st, 1967 in Montreal, Canada. His parents are Michael and Margaret Benoit. Chris was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We've got a lot of fans in Edmonton. We do. Chris, by all accounts, had a normal childhood. According to a study by Dr. Bennett, Umalu, at the age of six, Chris was involved in a car accident. His head hit the windshield and he spent three days in the hospital, but he made a full recovery.

But there's no doubt Chris Benoit was most well known for being a pro wrestler for the WWE World Wrestling Entertainment. And we'll talk about like we did on our Patreon mini episode, the number of acronym name changes that, you know, some of these wrestling outfits went through over the years. Oh, yeah. But Chris was very athletic from a young age. He played football. And, you know, according to that study I referenced earlier, he never really had any

injuries during the time that he played football. Michael said in an interview with ABC that Chris became interested in. wrestling around the age of 12 or 13. He was serious about having a career in wrestling, and that's really when he began weightlifting. Yeah, I remember when I started wrestling, you know, my brother was a high school wrestler and a good one, and we had in the basement, we would have the wrestling mats down there so he could practice, and then, you know, my friends would come over, and we'd act like, more like WW. Back then it was WWF. Yes. And we would have. And we, and we would, we would act like we're WWF wrestlers.

And then, you know, he'd come home and he'd be like, what are you guys doing? What are you doing on my mats? Get off my mats. You know, I thought it was strange that you're wearing the singlet in the studio just because we're doing a story about a wrestler. I thought you would have something on too. Yeah, I just have my regular clothes on. You're sitting there in full regalia, the required uniform.

Yeah, it's a little snug. So Chris saw the British. pro wrestler, the dynamite kid. This guy's name was Thomas Billington, perform in Edmonton. He said later in interviews that this is what made him want to become a pro wrestler. And I think a lot of people have that moment. Now, they don't always fulfill the dream. Right.

But a lot of people go to their first baseball game or their first football game or basketball game and they get that bug of, oh, that's what I want to do. I want to be LeBron James or I want to be a pitcher or a shortstop or whatever it is. Or the rock. Or the rock. Chris Benoit started his wrestling career in 1985. He started training with Stu Hart, a Canadian professional wrestler in Calgary. We got a lot of great fans in Calgary.

We do. In the late 80s, Chris competed for Hart's Stampede wrestling promotion. He also wrestled in Japan for New Japan. pro wrestling. At the same time, he worked with World Championship Wrestling for two years.

So WCW, right? There's going to be a lot of acronyms in this episode. In 1994, Chris began working for extreme championship

wrestling, so ECW. Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned Japan because Japan has a huge market and love for wrestling. Yeah.

So you have sumo wrestling, which obviously is different. Sure. But they, you know, they love all types of martial arts, but wrestling is huge over there. Oh, yeah, they love it. But I also think, you know, if you've ever seen, there are some really good documentaries about what these guys go through to start their career and what it takes to make it to the upper echelon.

You know, you got to start out in like small venues with like three people. Yeah. Honing your craft to get to the. the point where you're going to be on TV and making a bunch of money. Some people have called Chris Benoit, the best wrestler who ever lived. Professional wrestler Chris Jericho spoke with the dark side of the ring, producers for their episodes on Chris Benoit. Jericho recalled that when he was younger, he watched Chris when he worked with Stampede

wrestling and it inspired him to consider a career in wrestling. He called Chris Benoit the most intense. and believable performer I've ever been with. So that's high praise coming from a guy like Chris Jericho. Well, for sure, yeah, because he was a big timer too at one point. And I mentioned this documentary, The Dark Side of the Ring will be bringing that up quite a bit throughout the episode. Another one of Chris's fellow pro wrestlers, Dean Malenko said that outside the ring, Chris was

quiet, reserved and serious. But when he entered a wrestling match, he was a different person. extremely focused. He was also known as a perfectionist. That's the other thing that I think is very interesting about wrestling is, you know, a lot of these guys, they're playing a character. And so they're mean, they're big, they're bad, they do bad things. But then they go home and they're like teddy bears. Yeah, exactly. At home. But their role is to play the bad guy or whatever and they do it really, really well. So they're really good actors for sure. Yeah. I think it's a big part of it. In his Talk is Jericho. Chris Jericho talked about a time when he worked with Chris Benoit during a match. Chris made a mistake that was nearly unnoticeable to the audience. He went looking for Chris after the match and found him doing squats. And Chris told him, you know, I never should have bumped off that. That was so unprofessional of me. And it was such a bad rookie mistake. I had to do squats. Almost like he was punishing himself. Yeah, teaching himself a lesson.

Kind of like when I mess up here, you make me write things on this. Or do push-ups. The push-ups are a bit much. Yeah. Write your whatever you did wrong a thousand times. Yep. So according to Jericho, Chris did about 500 squats to punish himself for this little mistake that the audience probably didn't even know about.

And if I did 50 squats right now, I wouldn't be able to walk up the stairs. If I did one accidental squat, I'd be out. Yeah. Chris Jericho said in the documentary, the dark side of the ring, it was like he had to purge himself and punish himself for making this minor mistake that to him was everything. So I think what we're really seeing is the sign of a true perfectionist. Yes. So when you think of someone who is labeled as a perfectionist, can that be both good and bad? And I would say the answer is probably yeah. Yeah, I think it's tough to be a perfectionist.

You know, I mean, I've had challenges as perfectionist. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because you're putting it on yourself. Yes. Right. I have to be perfect. And when things don't go perfectly, that can cause like some intense mental strain.

And maybe that's not even the right work. And, you know, you're going to be your worst critic. Sure. Everybody is. And you're going to beat yourself up about it and you're going to probably dwell on it longer than you need to. If you're a perfectionist, I think for sure you are. I'm not a perfectionist. So when I make a mistake, I'm like, wish I hadn't done that.

And then you move on. And then I move on. But some people can't do that. And it's got to be really, really tough. And that's a problem. Chris Benoit earned his nickname the Cripler when he wrestled Sebu, a pro wrestler whose real name was Terence Brunk. in the November to remember 1994 event with extreme championship wrestling. That's the other thing about wrestling.

They've got these really catchy names for their events. So apparently Chris threw Cebu and Sebu broke his neck when he fell. After this incident, Chris was found crying in a closet because he was so afraid. He permanently paralyzed Terrence Brunk. You had to feel terrible, you know, I mean. knowing that something you did paralyze somebody just for the entertainment sake, how do you live with that if that actually would have happened? Yeah, you can have the same thing happen in football, right?

You can make a really good play, a legal play. Yeah. And somebody gets hurt. That would be very tough. I think to live with if somebody, you ended somebody's career, you ended their livelihood. From 1995 to 2000, Chris worked with World Championship wrestling a second time. So this WCW existed from 1988 to 2001, and it was during this time that Chris purchased the home in the Atlanta area. Chris met his wife Nancy Tofoloni in 1990.

Nancy was a wrestling manager and model who made appearances in many wrestling events. When she and Chris met, Nancy had been married to another wrestler named Kevin Sullivan since 1985. Nancy was most well known for her stage name woman. Hey woman. It's kind of a strange nickname or stage name. Yeah. But there probably was not as many women involved in wrestling back then. From what I remember Gibbs and I know I didn't watch a lot of wrestling.

It seems from the commercials that I see that the women of today's wrestling are much more integral to the, the show. Oh, I think so. Where I remember women almost like hanging on somebody's arm or not really wrestling per se. Yeah, they didn't have that many women actually in the ring. Yes. They were involved, but on the periphery. Yes. Is what I remember. Yeah. And somebody's going to write in, tell me I'm wrong. And that's okay. I'm prefacing it by saying I didn't watch a lot of wrestling. This is just the idea that I have. Sandra Tofolone, Nancy's sister, spoke about Nancy's early life in that documentary, the dark side of the ring. So Nancy got married after high school. Her husband loved wrestling, took her to wrestling matches, which she enjoyed. Nancy was a very beautiful woman who stood out

in a crowd, according to her sister, either a manager or a promoter, picked her out and asked her to come to do some work for them. So this started off as kind of a part-time gig. But Nancy loved the job so much that she turned it into a career. And man, isn't that the best way to find your career job? Just kind of fall into it. Well, if you think about how most of us do it, we apply for a job. We need a job. Right.

Sometimes you don't even really know what the job is. No. And so is it your passion? Probably not. No way. But most of our passions can't really be turned to it. two jobs. Yes. You know, I got lucky with the podcast. For sure. That it had grown by the time I lost my job. Yes. That I could do it full time. And you are passionate about it. And I'm lucky.

And we both are lucky. So Nancy met her husband, Kevin Sullivan at Florida Championship Wrestling. So I'm assuming that would be FCW. I mean, there is acronyms out the wazoo. All kind of. In wrestling. They started off as friends. And then they fell in love. Nancy was in the process. And, of divorcing her first husband at the time. As part of Kevin Sullivan's wrestling persona, he played a satanic dark prince. And Nancy was his fallen angel as part of his army of darkness. All right.

Everybody's got to have a schick. You do. You have to. That's kind of how wrestling works, right? You're a good guy. You're a bad guy. They got names for that. I don't know what they are.

But they don't say good guy, bad guy. It's, uh, what is it? Um, you're a head. heavy. I don't, I don't know. I'm sure they have a name for it in wrestling. I just can't think of what it is. But apparently Nancy was very good at playing out her role as Sullivan second or ringside performer. She was so talented that some people offered to pray for her when they saw her in public because they may have actually believed she was possessed. Wow. Impressive. So that's some really good acting. Yeah. It's like somebody walking up to Linda Blair and praying for her. because they believe the show was real? They believed what they saw in The Exorcist. Nancy came to the WCW with Kevin Sullivan in the 1990s.

This was the point where she changed her character to woman. And that's the other thing I've noticed about wrestling. Wrestlers change throughout the years, many of them. You know, they may start out as kind of a bad guy. And then eventually when they hit the big time, transform into a good guy or vice versa. And they may have, what, four or five, ten different personas over their wrestling career. And whatever one really hits home with the audience is probably what they keep the longest, I'm guessing.

Well, and I think once you get to the big stage. Yeah. It's kind of harder probably to change at that point. But when you're going through all these lower ranks, my understanding is they change all the time. Probably whatever the development team thinks you need to be at that moment. Yeah. And then when they see one that really works, I think that's probably what you stick with.

So Kevin liked Chris. He started booking matches between them. And of course, Nancy was involved in those matches as a ringside performer. Eventually, Kevin Sullivan arranged a wrestling storyline in which Nancy and Chris were supposed to act like they were having an affair. I want to be careful what you set up. Yeah, it's dangerous. And what happened was the two actually fell in love. According to Nancy's sister Sandra, as Nancy and Kevin's marriage became rocky, they had what she called some physical altercations.

According to Vicki Guerrero, the wife of deceased pro wrestler Eddie Guerrero, Nancy reached out to Chris when she and Kevin had a bad fight. Chris's colleague Dean Malenko mentioned that Chris was also having problems with his wife at the time. Now, the name Eddie Guerrero sounds very familiar. Oh yeah, big time. I think he was a big time wrestler. He was. Now word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. Have you ever been in this scenario where you've gotten stuck focusing on a problem or a set of problems instead of solutions?

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Visit betterhelp.com slash T-Cat today. to get 10% off your first month. That's better, help.com slash T-C-A-T-T-T. Julie Malinko Dean's wife received the call from Dean, saying that Nancy was having problems and needed some help. Julie worked in a psychiatrist's office at the time. Chris brought Nancy to the office. Nancy was wearing sunglasses to cover up a black eye.

And she said that Kevin did it. So Julie helped her with some documentation. In the 1997 bash at the beach match, Kevin and Chris fought. At one point, Chris began punching Kevin in the head. And he allegedly hit him so hard that it broke Kevin's eardrum. Oh, that's painful. Nancy's sister, Sandra, was called backstage. She walked towards Kevin, but Chris stopped her.

Kevin shouted at her to leave with him, but Chris handed her the phone. And Nancy was on the other end. She told Sandra that she needed to leave with Chris, not Kevin. and Sandra eventually saw that Nancy was injured. Nancy said that Kevin had hurt her again. And that was it. She was going to leave him. So this is a real kind of saga, tragic saga that's playing out both in real life at home.

Right. And then on TV or in these wrestling matches as well. Yeah, right on the stage. Because my thought is Chris was so upset with Kevin that he said, I want to hurt this guy. Yeah. And I've got the platform to do it and nobody's going to do anything to me. I think he was just pissed and his aggression came out during the match. Yeah.

Now, in this documentary, the dark side of the ring, the producer said that Kevin Sullivan was approached for a comment on these allegations and he denied that any abuse ever took place. In April 2020, Kevin Sullivan went on the Jim Cornett Experience podcast to talk about why he didn't appear in this. this documentary, which I guess came out in early 2020. He also addressed the allegations of abuse. He admitted that he and Nancy had marital problems even before Chris joined the WCW. He also said that Chris did not injure his eardrum during the match because he went deep sea diving after the event. He said that he and Chris planned their fight based on a Tyson Holyfield fight.

Okay, those were brutal. So if you're basing it off of one of those. Somebody's ears getting bitten off. Yeah. If you're not careful. Got to be careful. But when he talked about the allegations of abuse against Nancy, he said, yeah, I've never brought that up.

And you know, if you look at it, there were charges put on her. She spent three days in jail and she stabbed me with a knife. And that was the breaking of our relationship completely. Then I never went back to Daytona. And I paid for her to get out of jail. But I never brought it up. because of the respect I had for her mother and father. And I know it weighs heavy on their heart.

I used to say to myself, I can carry this. I can carry it. They can't. I'm not trying to be a hero here, but why put more weight on their heads and say that? He also addressed Sandra's claims. He said, for Sandra to say that, I think sometimes maybe Sandra sees things her own way.

And these guys from the dark side of the ring certainly aren't Sherlock Holmes or, Watson or they would have figured that out. Did some research on that. Her mother was very appreciative and father too of what I did to get it squashed. We went to court and said, this is the only time we ever had a problem. It won't happen again. And I got her out.

And she went home and I got the car and drove to the keys. So it's important, I think, to include both sides. Obviously, there were allegations of abuse made. now you have Kevin Sullivan side where he is denying those allegations. But no doubt that relationship was over. And what happened was Nancy and Chris fell deeply in love. And it was around the same time that Chris became very focused on advancing his career. And Nancy became more focused on starting a family.

It seemed like everything was going good for both of them at this point. Well, they're in love. Yeah. I mean, they're they're wanting to start a family. Chris is, you know, about ready to explode probably in his career. Yeah, it does sound like everything is going good. She's out of a bad marriage, a bad relationship, according to her and with a guy who at this point in time, she seems happy with.

Yeah, exactly. Chris and Nancy's son Daniel was born on February 25, 2000. Now, Chris also had two children from his first marriage. Chris's son, David, has spoken to some media outlets. but his daughter and his first wife have made efforts to stay away from the media. Chris's oldest son David said in the documentary that his dad was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. But as soon as he got off the road, he was just dad.

That was it, no matter what. According to David, Nancy treated him like he was her son. They never used the words stepson or stepmom. That's pretty cool. I think it is too. if you can get to that place. I think it really is. Nancy and Chris got married on November 23rd, 2000.

And Chris's son, Daniel, was the best man at their wedding. Chris began working with World Wrestling Entertainment in 2000. And as you said, Gibbs, back then it was still called WWF. World Wrestling Federation, I believe is what it was. That's what I remember. So when I was watching it over at a friend's house, it was WWF. I don't remember WWE. So I must have not been watching it at all by that time.

Would it turn into that? Yeah. Which makes sense because I would have been 27 years old in 2000. I know I wasn't watching wrestling at the age of 27. So Chris was described as a rabid wolverine when he was wrestling. And that's pretty descriptive because Wolverines, when they're not rabbit, are extremely dangerous. I don't know if you ever watched like any of these nature shows. Yeah.

There's one animal you don't want to mess with. And that's a wolverine. I mean, there's a lot that you don't want to mess with. But Wolverines are nasty. Yeah, they hurt you, man. Unless they're the football players up north. Chris wanted to leave the WCW because he felt limited in his career growth. At this time, only the big.

biggest guys were given the main events. Chris was considered too short by some people. I mean, the guy was 5-11. Yeah. But, you know, if you think about some of these wrestlers, 6-4, 6-5, 6-9, Andre the Giant, there's some really big dudes in wrestling. Huge, man. Even the Rock, he's probably what, 6-4-6-5? He looks like a really tall dude. Yeah, I think he's like 6-4. Well, 5-11's not short. No, but if you're in basketball, it is. Well, that's true. If you're in pro wrestling where everybody's six, five, six eight, maybe it is. Yeah, that's true.

He and a few colleagues decided to leave and join the WWF. Now, one of Chris's biggest career accomplishments was the 2004 WrestleMania event. Chris Binwale won against Sean Michaels and Triple H in what was called a triple threat. match. Oh man, there's a team. I forgot about Sean Michaels and, of course, Triple H. I don't know any of them. Oh, Triple H. He's a, he's being like, uh, I think he actually works. He does. He's a big wig now. I think he's actually, in real life, married the daughter of the guy that Vince McMahon. Yeah. Yeah. I think he actually is like the son-in-law. I watched a documentary on wrestling like a few months ago for some, for whatever reason. And it was very, very interesting.

but Chris became a top wrestler and he was projected to be in the Hall of Fame one day. He was liked. He was respected by his peers. But he was also accused of some unprofessional workplace behavior like bullying. Ring announcer Justin Roberts wrote about an incident with Chris Benoit in his autobiography best seat in the house. He wrote that Chris and Jamie Noble once tackled him at an airport. And he was hurt so badly he couldn't walk. for a few days, but he also reported that Benoit was kind to him and checked on his father

when he was being treated for cancer. According to Wrestling Inc., professional wrestler the Miz, in 2006, said he was eating in the locker room and he spilled some crumbs on Chris's back. Chris told him, you're not allowed to dress in our locker room. I think you should just stay out of the locker room. And Chris kept him out of there for the next seven months. The Miz was originally from like MTV, um, an MTV show where they put everybody in the house together. Oh, I know what you're talking about. I can't think of the name, but that was a big show back in the day. That's how he got started before he went into wrestling.

But I do think this is important, right? Because there is a little bit of a dichotomy here where you have a lot of people saying, you know, this guy's a professional. He is meticulous. He's a perfectionist. He's a great guy. but you have some of the same people saying, well, he could be a real ass sometimes. He was a bully.

He did things that we didn't like. Yeah. Now, I think you could say that about a lot of people. You could. I also think if you really knew a lot of professional athletes, could probably say the same thing about them. Yeah. You know, a lot of these guys are not the same as they are in the Sprite commercials.

Yeah. You know. Spotlight too, right? Or, you know, Shaquille O'Neal in the general commercials. Although I think probably he's a pretty cool guy. Yeah, but they all, these guys are competitive. So to my way of thinking, they kind of have a little bit of a dark side too. Right.

When it comes to getting on people or, you know, rubbing people the wrong way. They can, I'm sure they can be very abrasive and maybe even bullying at, at times. But I agree. I think when the camera's on, they can be one person. when the camera's not on, they can be somebody totally different. I think you could say that about a lot of people. You can say that about a lot of people in entertainment. I've heard some really nasty rumors and stories about Ellen. You know, she's all happy, go lucky. Everybody loves her. But there are a lot of stories online about people who have had like really bad experiences with her,

like nasty experiences. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, again, I don't know if any of that's true. Well, I can say that you're as pleasant as you are to me on the podcast. You're the same off the podcast. It doesn't change, right? I'm going to give you the business either when the mics are rolling, just as I do as we're sitting at dinner. No difference. That's how we roll. As time passed, Chris and Nancy developed problems within their marriage. In 2003, Nancy requested a restraining order against Chris. She accused him of threatening her and breaking furniture, but she did eventually drop her request. And here, here's something that, you know, I've always wondered about. And this goes for wrestlers, professional athletes, you know, football players, anybody who is in like a very intense, violent sport.

Yeah. Boxers. MMA fighters. How do you turn that off? How do you turn it on and off? Yeah, I think it'd be kind of difficult, you know, depending on what happened that day at the gym or that day at the match. Or on the field. On the field, you know, depending on whatever you're doing. I mean, I don't know if you can just all of a sudden, like, take your uniform off and all of a sudden be this person. Well, because I know I, when I did work, I had really, really bad days at work. Yeah. And I know that I would come home and not be my normal self.

Right. And maybe take it out on my wife, my kids. I don't mean take it out in a really bad way. Just be in a nasty mood. Right. Yeah, yeah. And so I couldn't even turn that off. So I'm wondering you add in the violence.

I know it's a sport, but I just wonder if everybody's not able to turn it on and off all the time. Because I couldn't do it just in a workplace, office setting. It's definitely going to be emotional, right? I mean, if you have the big win, you're going to be pumped up. you know, if you have the loss that you thought you would win or you thought things should have went your way or maybe the storyline didn't break the way you thought it should have, you're not going to be happy and you might come back and be upset and not be able to shut it off.

I think the other thing is some of these professionals back then used to take, you know, steroids. Oh, well, yeah, which we know causes a little bit of rage. Absolutely. So if you're taking steroids to build up or even just for recovery of your joints, and stuff like that, it could have an impact on your mood too. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great point. Yeah.

I think as much as we talked about steroids and like baseball and football, I mean, I think it was rampant in wrestling. For sure. Because you had to be big. You had to be huge. Yeah. That's what really kind of sold the look. Yeah.

And I know you saw the movie The Wrestler too. And you saw how they went through those, you know, just make it through the match. You know, they needed something to get them through the match. match. Yeah. Sandra Tofelloni spoke about an incident between Nancy and Chris in the documentary. She said that Nancy called her to the house and also called Mike Durham, who was a pro wrestler who went by Johnny Grunge, Mike said, I'll go wrangle Chris.

I'll go wrangle Chris. Don't do anything rash. But Chris had hurt Nancy. Sandra said, I don't know whether it was intentional or accidental, but he hurt her. out of respect for the kids that he still has here. I won't go further into that. So we don't have all the details, but there's no doubt there was a fight and Chris hurt Nancy.

So according to Nancy, it sounds like Chris is doing what Kevin had done to her. Well, yeah. You know, it sounds like she's in another abusive relationship. And it was after this, right, that Nancy got the restraining order. against Chris. Sandra stayed at the house with Nancy and Chris moved into a hotel. At one point,

Chris called Sandra because Nancy wasn't answering her phone. He asked her to ask Nancy to let him back into the house so that he could talk to her. Nancy called Chris. He came over the next day and they were back together within just a few days. So whatever happened during that talk, they ironed some things out. Yeah. And they got back together. Well, I think people can be forgiving, especially when you have kids together. You try to find a way to forgive and hope that those type of incidents don't happen again.

Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe they never do. Yeah. Maybe sometimes it's a one-time thing. But I think often it happens again and again. Yeah. I think maybe you can forgive it once. I think it's probably hard.

to keep forgiving when it reoccurs. Well, obviously you and I don't know. Right. And what I will say is every situation is different. I think that's pretty safe to say. What we do know, because we've talked to a large number of women who have enlightened us on, you know, the fact that these things are not so cut and dry. And sometimes these relationships that turn abusive,

are very hard to get out of for some people. Yeah. Leading up to the murders, Chris and Nancy's relationship turned volatile. Nancy called her friend Vicki Guerrero a few times to talk about fights she was having with Chris. In one incident, while Chris and Nancy were driving to Vicki's house.

Chris got upset and busted their car windshield. That's some serious rage. Yeah, I think that's what we're starting to really see, right? this guy has a problem with rage that seemed to grow over time because either it wasn't there early on or nobody ever talked about it. Right. That would be intimidating, right? I mean, yeah, sure, he didn't hit you.

But because of the fight you were having, he took out a whole windshield. And I think in your mind, you think that could have been me. Well, and it has been. And it has been me in the past. Yes. So that would be very intimidating. not to mention the fact this guy's a professional wrestler. Right.

So he's big. He's strong. And I'm not sure it's all that easy to bust out a windshield. I think it would take some good strength. Let's go try it out on your truck. No, we're not doing any experiments today, especially where my truck is concerned. Nancy filed for divorce in May 2003. She said her marriage was irrevocably broken.

And she had received what she called crux. treatment. In their filing, she stated that Chris made over half a million dollars a year and asked for child support and permanent custody of Daniel. Chris sought joint custody, but Nancy later withdrew her complaint. We don't have the details behind her reasoning, but obviously this is a very up and down relationship. Right. And that's putting it mildly. You know, she's getting restraining order. She's kicking him out of the house. She's filing for divorce. She's filing for divorce. but for some reason she's changing her mind. I think she was in love.

No, that's probably one of the reasons and wants to make it work. Again, we don't know for sure, but I think that's a valid supposition. In November 2005, Chris's close friend Eddie Guerrero died of heart failure. Eddie was just 38 years old and it struggled with drug abuse and steroids in the years leading up to his death, it was after Guerrero's death that Chris considered leaving wrestling and starting his own wrestling school called Benoit Academy. And it was said that Eddie was very similar to Chris and personality. He was also considered one of the best wrestlers of all time. Chris and Eddie met in Japan. They were highly competitive in the ring. And I guess at first

Eddie didn't like Chris. But their intense fighting and competitiveness led to a gradual respect and eventually a strong friendship. These guys became best friends. And Chris was heartbroken when Eddie passed away. Being competitive against somebody else can sometimes do that. They can make you have respect. And kind of foster a friendship, which is strange because you might in the beginning hate somebody or dislike them because you view them as a rival and enemy.

But you're right. I've actually had that happen. It's kind of an interesting dynamic. Yeah. And I do remember Eddie and also Chris, and I know that they were both really solid, if not some of the best technical wrestlers. And I would imagine that's why a lot of people are saying that they were two of the best wrestlers of all time. You have bigger wrestlers, right? These weren't the two biggest wrestlers.

No, they weren't. The two biggest names. Some people are more well-known. more flamboyant, but it sounds like when you ask somebody a wrestler who was one of the best, these are two of the names that came up. After Eddie's death, Chris became more withdrawn. I mean, we talked about it, right? He was already kind of a quiet, reserve person. He didn't trust people easily, but he was very, very close to Eddie. And now he had lost his best friend. After Eddie's funeral, Chris flew to Europe to wrestle. Nancy lived with Eddie's wife for a month to help her

sometimes when Chris visited, Vicki Guerrero found him lying on what was Eddie's side of the bed, crying and holding Eddie's pillow. Chris would also sit in Eddie's home gym and just cry. He once told Vicky, I'm lost without Eddie being here. He was really distraught over Eddie's death. Yeah, I mean, I think these examples are even adding an extra layer to it. I mean, he was crushed to the point where he said. saying I'm lost without Eddie. But Chris was still professional at work. He was able to continue

performing. But it was said that he became distant with others. He was withdrawn, even more so than he normally was. Nancy told her sister that something was going on with Chris. She asked Sandra to keep an eye out and tell her if she noticed anything. And apparently Chris became focused on wrestlers whose children had been kidnapped. I'm not sure how often that happened, but he started becoming focused on it. He also started becoming focused on violent fan. So he began taking alternative routes and different cars to the gym. Just to try to avoid anything like that.

Yeah, he's definitely worried, but could it also be described as maybe some paranoia? He's becoming paranoid. And I think you could look at it that way as well. Sandra said on the dark side of the ring, he just didn't want to be places and be seen. There was a level of paranoia we had never, ever seen before. So I think she's confirming it. And it wasn't just her. Chris's friends noticed this paranoia.

According to Wrestling Inc., Sandra Tofoloni spoke with Chris Jericho on his podcast and said, what really became noticeable was a little bit more of like a sense of unsafeness. and paranoia for the family. He just would like be constantly checking the alarm at night, constantly be checking things and for himself. He used to be fairly laid back about stuff like that. There was never any issue. So when it did start happening,

I noticed immediately. I still kind of looked back on it. Was it a precursor to everything that happened? I don't know. So this is Nancy's sister, you know, talking obviously, later on a podcast saying, we noticed this, but we didn't make anything out of it, should we have? I mean, looking back at it, you're saying probably.

Yeah, but this is also something that you and I talk about quite a bit, which is like survivors grief, survivors guilt, whatever you want to call it, where I think you could look back at a lot of things and say, well, I should have noticed this or I should have taken these steps and you could really beat yourself up about for sure some of those things but knowing that he was so paranoid i mean that's definitely a problem you know for a relationship for just his own health well and it came on seemingly very suddenly kind of after eddie's death is what it seems like this wasn't a guy who was paranoid his entire life and had dealt with it it was like it creeped in it jumped into him and maybe it spiraled.

Nancy told her friends that she was really worried about Chris. Eddie's death was affecting him in different ways. He was not only sad and depressed, but he was irritable and he was very argumentative. He started to become angrier and angrier. And we've already talked about it. Some of it, he sounds like he had some anger issues before this.

And not just anger issues, he had become physical. Yeah, violent. Violent with Nancy. For a period of a few months, he became extremely withdrawn. He wouldn't talk to anyone. The family decided to buy him a journal

so he could write letters to Eddie. The thought was this would help him express his emotions. And it did seem as though he started to open up more towards others. Chris considered retiring in 2006. He took four months off to recover from injuries and the WWE offered him a backstage producing role. In the final year of their lives,

Nancy wanted Chris to leave wrestling. She didn't think it was healthy for him anymore to be wrestling and traveling so much because all of that, everything that had to do with wrestling reminded him of Eddie. I think that makes a lot of sense. Well, and I just think it really magnifies what Eddie's death. had done to him. It changed something in him. But Chris continued working and he and Nancy continued having marital problems. Chris and his family lived in Fayetteville, Georgia, in a very nice home.

They lived in a secluded neighborhood off a gravel road and their house was surrounded by a stone wall and an iron gate. Chris's neighbors told Fox News that the family lived a low-key lifestyle. One neighbor said, We would see Chris walking in his yard from time to time. He wasn't rude, but he wasn't really outwardly warm. Sounds like you. Yeah, I try not to be rude to my neighbors, but I'm not organizing block parties either. Nor will you ever. Nor will I ever.

I'll throw up a hand. I'll say, hey, I'll talk to, you know, a neighbor and say, how's things going? Or a finger. Or I'll throw up a finger if things are going badly. But I think people would say, you know, the same thing about me, maybe. Yeah. He wasn't rude, but he wasn't outwardly warm.

He wasn't going out of his way to come over and, you know, welcome somebody to the neighborhood, although I did welcome my new next door neighbor. Oh, yeah. When they first moved in. Yeah. What, just a little head nod? No, no, I actually went over and talked to him. Oh, okay.

Yeah. That's impressive. So I may be painting myself out too badly, but on June 23, 2007. Chris Benoit missed a live WWE Smackdown event in Beaumont, Texas. He was scheduled to wrestle at the Vengeance Night of Champions event in Houston, Texas on June 24, 2007.

He was replaced at the last minute due to personal reasons. No one was able to contact him after the early morning hours of June 24th. And WWE learned that Chris had sent some curious text messages to his co-opening. workers and requested a welfare check on June 25th, 2007. So obviously they were worried about him. Number one, he didn't show up. Right. And that was probably unlike him. I'm sure it was. And then, you know, they find out about these text messages. And those two things combined were enough to want a welfare check to be done. On the afternoon of Monday, June 25th, the police

entered the Fayetteville home and found the bodies of 40-year-old Chris Benoit, 43-year-old Nancy Ben-Wa, and 7-year-old Daniel Ben-Wa. Larry Alden was one of the detectives who responded to the welfare check. When he got to the house, Chris's neighbor was walking over. He asked her if she had seen Chris or his family. She said, it had been three or four days since she'd seen anyone. Apparently, there were two large dogs in the yard at the time. he asked the neighbor,

if she could put the dog somewhere so that they could do the welfare check. Makes sense, right? She was familiar with the dogs. She was able to safely approach them. Chris's neighbor jumped the fence and walked the dogs inside. It was taking her longer than expected.

And she suddenly ran out of the house screaming, Daniel's dead, Daniel's dead. And I think there are moments like this in a number of cases, right? Police are coming out to do a well, welfare check, something that they probably do very, very often. Right.

And, you know, 99% of the time, things are okay. Obviously, we know in this situation, it's not going to be part of that 99.9% of the time. Right. But then you also have this neighbor who just thinks, okay, I'm corraling the dogs. I'm just going to get them inside so that the police can do whatever they need to do. And then comes across little Daniel dead. Yeah. Wow. And then has to live with that knowledge and sight. Yeah. That picture for the rest of her life. So two officers entered the house through a side door with their weapons drawn.

They noticed the foul smell right away in the house. They went up the stairs to Daniel's bedroom, found his body. They found Nancy on the floor of the home office. Matthew Randazzo, author of Ring of Hell, spoke to the dark side of the ring. about the events of Friday, June 22nd. He said Chris had a barbecue with Daniel by the pool. That evening, he and Nancy got into an altercation. Chris tied up Nancy with duct tape and strangled her with a phone cord. And then Chris murdered his son Daniel on Saturday the 23rd. On Sunday the 24th, Chris made several internet searches.

One search was for a Bible story about the prophet Elijah and the resurrection of young boy. He made a second search about the fastest and most painless way to break your own neck. Chris Benoit then took a bottle of wine with him to the basement and killed himself. So we said it right up front, but this was just an absolutely tragic scene. Yeah. Three people dead, including a seven-year-old boy, Chris left a note in a Bible in the house with the statement, I'm preparing to leave this. serve. But the note wasn't found right away, right? It was found later. But right from the beginning, the police treated the case as a murder suicide. Detective Bo Turner told Atlanta Station W.A.G.A.

that they were treating it as a murder suicide, but nothing could be confirmed until the crime lab examined the scene. An autopsy was scheduled for the next day. But my thought here is that it probably wasn't that hard to figure out that this was a murder suicide. In response to the tragedy, W.W.E. canceled their raw wrestling event in Corpus Christi, Texas. They issued a statement on their website. Now, W.W.E wasn't aware of all the details when they held the memorial ceremony. And that makes it a little awkward. It sure does. When all of the facts come out later, because since then, the company has made efforts to distanced themselves from Chris Benoit.

And they did edit their website after, you know, some of the details of the tragedy came out. So when I started this one, I thought for sure this would be just a one episode case. But there's just so much information. There was no way to get it into one episode. Right. So in part two, we'll discuss the full investigation into the murder, suicide, possible motives and talk a little bit about the damaging effects of head injuries on professional

wrestlers. You know, we mentioned it early on that he had a serious head injury as a shot. He did. And then you talk about years and years of professional wrestling. Yeah, when your head's getting knocked around. And so that will definitely come into play. And I think we're seeing more and more information on that type of stuff come out, not just wrestling, but, you know, professional football. Boxing. Boxing, you know, rage incidents, dementia, people hurting themselves over what many people believe are traumatic brain injuries.

I think it's one of the reasons why a lot of people are not letting their kids play football like they used to when you and I were growing up. Everybody played football. Oh, for sure. No doubt. You're exactly right. People have pulled back and said, you know what? I don't want my kid playing that sport because I don't want to have to worry about that.

Yeah, why take the risk? I understand that. But when you and I were growing up, there wasn't even a second thought. Yeah, you could get hurt, but you could get hurt doing a lot of things. It wasn't, oh, you could get some type of long-lasting brain injury that's going to affect you for the rest of your life. When I played football, it was promoted to go helmet to helmet. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And when you played football, you didn't even wear face masks.

That's how old you are. But you're absolutely right. I mean, obviously today, all the way up to the NFL, everything has changed. For sure. The way that you tackle people, the way that you're allowed to tackle people, the way that you're taught from a young age now to tackle people is totally different. When you and I were younger playing pee-wee football, it was Helminolm. on helmet. That's how you, you did it or you put your helmet right in somebody's chest. You always

led with your helmet. Sure. Yeah. And now it's like, that's the worst thing. You don't want to do that at all. You can get trouble now. So we'll definitely be talking a lot about head injuries in part two. But that's it for our part one episode on Chris Benoit. Again, just an absolute tragedy. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, serum. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Cherie. I'm from 10. Tennessee. I stumbled upon your podcast while I was looking for another podcast. And I was to work, the sheriff's after. I listened to it on my way home. And there were a couple poems when I just left my ass off. One was where you were talking about pouring spoiled milk down the,

down the sink, and you said you're out. You couldn't that I just could not stop our and I have to say I love the way my commentator uptalks you kind of up talk when you talk and I kind of like that but I have to say I've been told I have the husky voice so I think I'm going to go with Gibby he sounds sweet and pleasant and soothing but I love the show and I love you guys keep your own time to gain thank you I am very soothing and you're also husky. I mean, I mean, you have a husky voice. Yes. You were husky as a kid and you wore huskies. I did. You had both of those things going on. But we appreciate the kind comments very much.

Hey, guys, this is Max in Atlanta. I just finished the Thomas Montgomery. That was a very, very good case. And I'd hook at the end, the girl being the mother, I tell you, that those chat rooms could be a problem. Back when they were hot and heavy back in the late 1990s in 2000, I was on some of those chat rooms who met some people, but nothing to that extent. It seems like both are already in the people. They both seem to be pedophiles. Well, keep your own time ticking. I love the show, as always. Hope everything's doing well. I hope Morph's doing okay down there in Florida with those hurricanes and you'd be very sorry about your mom. Take care, guys. Keep your own time ticket. Wow, it's been a while since we've heard from Max. Yeah, but always enjoy hearing from Max.

Yeah, glad you called in. I did really like the case last week, Thomas Montgomery. I think I mentioned on during the episode that I couldn't, I didn't think it was streaming anywhere. And I verified that it's not, which is kind of strange because there's so many streaming services right now. Right. You would think it would be on something. You can rent it on Amazon, which you can always do. But I have a hard time doing that when I pay for like five different streaming services. Now I got to pay $3.99 to rent the documentary. So you're cheap like me.

I felt cheap, yeah, when I made the decision not to. Yeah. I felt like. Oh, I feel every day. Oh, you feel every day all the time. Hey, Mike. Hey, Gary from John from Missouri. Hey, I got one for you.

I don't know if you've covered it. It's Stephanie. met murdered by Donald Gideon at Pitt's state. I've lived a long time listener of your show. I just thought maybe that was being interesting to check out. Anyway, keep yourself safe and keep their own time thinking. Well, that race sounded pretty cool. Yeah.

Yeah, so we'll definitely check it out. Gideon, that sounds familiar. It does. We haven't done that case, but for some reason, the name sounds familiar. So we'll definitely check it out. We had no mailbag. So that's it, buddy, for another episode of true crime all the time. Nothing in that mailbag.

Nothing in the mailbag. Man, I need some things. I need some twizzlers. You got no twizzlers, man. So for Mike, and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.