14 Hours Before Police Found The Bodies, Chris Benoit's Wife Was Listed As Dead On Wikipedia
UPDATED
Previously: WCW/WWE Wrestler Chris Benoit And Family Found Dead
This story is becoming way too bizarre. Before I get into the whole thing, there's another update. Today, Police raided Benoit's doctors office.
Now for the Wikipedia entry. ***UPDATE 6/29/07 2:35PM*** They found the person who made the first edit. He said it was just coincidence and had no idea anything had happened.
Wikinews has learned through an investigation that anonymous edits on the Wikipedia article Chris Benoit were added about the death of his wife Nancy Benoit 14 hours before police entered the Benoit home to find the former professional World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Canadian wrestler and his family dead.
An anonymous edit from IP address 69.120.111.23 using the Internet service provider Optimum Online was made at 04:01 UTC on Chris Benoit's Wikipedia article. On a paragraph about an earlier fight: "However, Chris Benoit was replaced ... due to personal issues,...", the anonymous editor added " stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The edit was reversed just under one hour later with the comment: "Need a reliable source. Saying that his wife died is a pretty big statement, you need to back it up with something."
Then just one hour later after the first edit reversion, another anonymous edit by 125.63.148.173 using unwiredAustralia.com.au, a wireless Internet service provider, was made adding about the aforementioned personal issues: "which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy." That edit was reverted just under 20 minutes later, with the comment: "Saying 'several pro wrestling websites' is still not reliable information."
Further investigation shows that the IP address used to make the first edit is located in Connecticut, but the IP address is not linked to any computers or servers used by the WWE. The second edit was made by a computer in Australia from a wireless network.
Fayette County Sheriff deputy Lt. Tommy Pope stated that police found the family at about 2:30 p.m. ET, which is 18:30 UTC, on Monday when the WWE called police and asked them to do a "welfare check" after employees of WWE received calls and text messages from Chris Benoit. Early Saturday, Benoit sent repeated text messages that read "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215." Another text message reportedly said "The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open." The messages were sent around 4:00 a.m. ET.
Later, on Saturday afternoon, Chris Benoit placed a series of calls that explained why he missed his flight to Houston. The stories he told were mostly about his wife and son being sick with food poisoning and vomiting. Although, in one call he said that he and Nancy were at the hospital to be with Daniel who was hospitalized. Throughout he insisted that he would attend that live event in Houston.
When he missed the live event on Sunday, and the WWE couldn't get a hold of him, they contacted authorities. Police say that Benoit strangled his wife on Friday, smothered his son on late Friday or early Saturday, and then hanged himself inside his weight room on Sunday or Monday.
The Wikinews investigation is unable to conclude whether the anonymous editors had inside information about the death of Nancy Benoit.
This is not the first time Benoit's article has been edited to show false or unsourced information, as the article's edit history indicates a long history of promotional spam and vandalism. Around the time of the edits, the article contained a hidden warning to editors of the section mentioned, warning against adding rumours and speculations . For the time being, Benoit's article has been protected in an attempt to stop the addition of fraudulent information.
***UPDATE 6/29/07 3:30pm*** The archived Wikipedia page is now up. It shows the edit that was made 14 hours before Nancy Benoit's death.
On the June 11 edition of RAW, Benoit was drafted from SmackDown! to ECW as part of the 2007 WWE Draft, after losing a match to Bobby Lashley. Benoit won his ECW debut match teaming up with CM Punk and defeating Elijah Burke and Marcus Cor Von by disqualfication. With Lashley's draft to RAW, the ECW World Championship was vacated. Benoit then defeated Elijah Burke to be a contender for the vacated Championship and will face fellow contender CM Punk at Vengeance. However, Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.
***UPDATE 6/29/07***
In related news, FOXNews.com also has learned, through widely posted Web reports, that former pro wrestler Sherri Martel, who was found dead on June 15, was linked to former wrestler Kevin Sullivan — ex-husband of Nancy Benoit.
Martel, who had a reputation as one of the top managers in pro wrestling, was found dead at her mother’s home in near Birmingham, Ala., on June 15. She was 49.
Investigators, who have not yet determined Martel's cause of death, say foul play is not suspected but that Martel did not die of natural causes.
A former wrestler turned evangelist, shares his thoughts about Kevin Sullivan's part. There's a lot more than what I am posting here. So go to his website to read the rest. I'm not making a judgement on this info one way or the other. As bizarre as this story has been, anything is possible now.
The tragic deaths of Chris Benoit and his wife Nancy and son Daniel have shocked the wrestling world. The police are calling it a double-murder-suicide, but is it really? Let’s look at some facts. It has been 10 years exactly since Nancy divorced Kevin Sullivan to marry Chris Benoit. In the 1980’s Sullivan, along with his then-wife Nancy, were running a gimmick in wrestling of how they were Satanists, and Nancy was known as “The Fallen Angel.” She later became known as “Woman.” The trouble with the Satanists gimmick was it was for real, and was not a work, or fake. In the 1990’s Kevin Sullivan was the booker for WCW, and he scripted his wife Nancy into having an affair with Chris Benoit who was a member of the Four Horsemen. This made for a good angle, except, the acting became reality as Chris and Nancy actually fell in love and Nancy divorced Sullivan to marry Benoit.
Benoit left the WCW to go to work for the WWE which was then known as the WWF. It is a fact that Sullivan threatened Benoit and told him he would kill him. Yes, that was 10 years ago, but Kevin Sullivan is no dummy. He is known for being a calculating, cold-hearted individual. Today, according to a source close to me, Kevin Sullivan is a high ranking member of the Satanic Church. The police need to consider the possibility that Sullivan carried out these gruesome murders in order to have his revenge, which is what Satanists live for. He could have entered the home, with an accomplice or accomplices and held the Benoit’s at gunpoint, Sullivan could have then bound up Nancy, and made Benoit and his son watch as he strangled the life out of her. Then the next day after making Benoit and his son spend the day in agony, murdered Benoit’s little boy because of his hatred for the offspring of Benoit and Nancy. Then he could have made Benoit wait an entire day before killing him to by hanging him in the basement.
While we're doing conspiracies, I will note that the author of the above quote is based in Australia.
