40 year old Chris Benoit was a famous WWE wrestler and family annihilator. The "Canadian Crippler", as he was known in the wrestling world, murdered his wife, Nancy, their 7 year old son, Daniel, then committed suicide during the 3 day weekend of June 22nd through the 25th of 2007.
On Friday Nancy lost her life. She was killed in a second story room; her limbs had been bound, a cord wrapped around her throat, and she was strangled. There were bruises on her stomach and back where Chris had presumably pressed his knee into her, and at some point she suffered a blow to the head. When she was deceased, Nancy was covered with a towel and a Bible was place near her body. Toxicology later proved that Vicodin and Xanax were in her system, but sources claim that these were her everyday medications.
It's believed that someone during Saturday night little Daniel was murdered in his bed. It's thought that Chris drugged his son with Xanax ahead of time, then suffocated him; many believe that Chris used his famous signature wrestling move, the Crippler Crossface, to end his child's life. As with his mother, a Bible was discovered in very close proximity to Daniel's corpse.
Throughout this weekend Chris had been in contact with his close friend and fellow wrestler, Chavo Guerrero. Chris had missed a show, which was very much out of character for him; Chris explained that both Nancy and Daniel both had a nasty case of food poisoning and he may need to take them to the hospital.
On Sunday, Chavo and a a few other wrestlers received text messages from Chris's phone. These messages named the Benoit family's full street address, stated that the garage door was open, and the dogs were chained up in the back yard.
Since I try to be as factually correct as humanly possible, I'm not real sure as to who initially discovered the bodies. Most sources state that the police were called to conduct a wellness check, but others say that the Benoit's neighbor, Holly Schrepfer, was sent to the home to check on the dogs thereby stumbling upon the crime scene. Chris had passed away from apparent suicide just after he sent those texts to his buddies. He'd gone into his workout room, stacked on 240 pounds, and rigged the weight machine to hang himself; the wrestler's neck had been broken. The home computer's search history showed that someone had recently researched "the quickest and easiest way to break a neck".
As for Chris's motive, some think that Chris murdered Daniel because he suffered from "Fragile X Syndrome", but doctors say that the boy did not have this condition. It's said that Daniel had needle track marks on his arms at the time of his death, that Chris had deemed Daniel small for his age so he was treating the 7 year old with growth hormone injections. It's also said that Daniel had been having a hard time in school, and was being held back a grade; it must be mentioned that the boy's teachers say this is absolutely not true. As for Nancy, it's rumored that there had been some recent problems in the Benoit marriage. The relationship had been a passionate one; at one time the couple had separated and Nancy had filed for divorce, but according to friends those troubled times had seemed to be behind them. Furthermore, the shape of Chris's brain definitely needs mentioning. The man had been a superb wrestler, willing to perform stunts in which few others would dare attempt. Due to this, Chris's brain had been severely damaged; he'd suffered multiple untreated concussions, a broken neck in '01, and the steroid abuse certainly hadn't helped his condition. During autopsy the athlete had ten times the level of testosterone in his system, and his brain was comparable to that of an 85 year old Alzheimer's patient. Matter of fact, had this tragedy not occurred, doctors say that Chris would've had maybe 10 months left to live.
Those close to the wrestler say that Chris had been acting increasingly strange before that tragic weekend. He'd been quoting scripture and seen with a rosary around his neck. The wrestler had not been a religious man, yet Bibles were found next to all 3 corpse; a note which read, "I'm preparing to leave this Earth" was discovered inside one Bible. He'd been having strange nightmares, and kept a diary in which he wrote to his recently deceased best friend, Eddie Guerrero. Chris had become paranoid, thought people were following him, he wouldn't even take his trash out to the curb for fear that someone would rifle through it. Chris wouldn't allow his son to play in the yard, he had began taking detours on his way home, and was adamant that Nancy not stay out late after dark. The man had been terrified that someone was watching him, planning something sinister against him.
For many, these are little signs that all was not well in Chris's mind; for others, it's proof that he truly had been in trouble. Maybe someone really had been following him, meant to do him harm. Some believe that Chris and his family were murdered, and yes it does sound preposterous, but there is some evidence which points towards it.
The most popular theory is that fellow wrestler Kevin Sullivan murdered the family, and he did have some pretty serious motive! Back in the day Kevin and Chris were very close friends who played adversaries in the ring; during this time, Kevin and Nancy had been married. You know how the wrestlers have their storylines? Well, the Chris/Kevin story eventually lead to Nancy, who played a character known simply as "Woman" in the wrestling industry, had been having an affair with Chris. Kevin, Nancy's then husband, was not only cool with this fantasy, but he helped to write the story! In order to make it more realistic, Nancy and Chris were seen hanging out alone, they were often purposely discovered out in public on romantic dates, etc. Well, eventually this pretend affair turned into the real deal; the pair fell in love. Nancy divorced Kevin and married Chris, understandably creating a rift between the three. Kevin always blamed his former friend for the disillusion of his marriage. So, knowing this, there are some things which do not sit right.
First, and this is chalked up to coincidence, but at 12:01 am on Sunday morning, before anyone was aware of the murders, Nancy's death was announced on a wiki page. This has been explained away as a silly fan prank, but it's still odd. More worrisome are the statements from Chavo, which have made many people question the whole thing. We've already discussed that he had been in contact with Chris throughout the weekend. He's stated that during an early weekend call with Chris, someone came to the door; Chavo listened to what he would later describe as a scuffle, then the call disconnected. A few hours later Chris contacted his good buddy to say that all was well, and he ended the conversation with "I love you Chavo". This unnerved Chavo; he said that Chris sounded tired, and he was concerned for his friend. Again, Chavo and Chris had been very close, they hung out all the time. One of Chris's final texts to Chavo read, "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215". Why would Chris send his best buddy his address when Chavo knew exactly where he lived? Though I can not confirm this, it is reported that some of these texts were sent after Chris was already dead. Another bothersome fact, there were empty beer cans found near Chris's corpse, but autopsy concluded that the wrestler had not been drinking. So, who drank all of that beer? And do you remember the neighbor lady, Holly Schrepfer? She claims to have seen another wrestler near the Benoit home during this weekend, a wrestler who had absolutely no reason to be there. If all of this weren't enough, these murders took place on the 10th anniversary of Kevin and Nancy's divorce!
Now I'm not giving my opinion on this case, just telling you what I found during my research. That said, one thing is for sure: it doesn't appear that police conducted a thorough investigation of the case. It was automatically deemed a family annihilator situation, and that was that; Nancy's family claims that the police had left behind suitcases of steroids; these definitely should've been seized during the a search of the home. If they missed illegal substances, what else didn't they pick up on?
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/24-reasons-that-will-prove-that-chris-benoit-is-innocent.453787849/
Out of this entire case, one fact chilled me to the bone when researching this case. You'll find very little mention of it, but young Daniel had a large kitchen knife tucked under his pillow at the time of his death. Why would a 7 year old boy be sleeping with a knife? Was he afraid, and if he was, of who? What did that child know, what had he witnessed during this weekend of hell? Had he been aware of his mama's murder, was he aware that he was next?
*There's much, much more to this, I could be here writing for a few more days but I wanna go ahead and post this. If you'd like to jump down this vast rabbit hole with me, here's a link to get you started. You gotta check the facts with links like these, but this one will get you started. Let me know what you think!
