Chris Benoit's Final Days

On June 25, 2007, the professional wrestling business changed forever when news broke that the bodies of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their son Daniel had all been found in the family home. Wrestling had seen its share of tragedy and premature death, but this was different. Active, major WWE stars had been found dead before their time before - such as Chris Benoit’s best friend Eddie Guerrero - but never alongside their loved ones.

The news led to widespread disbelief, confusion, and grief, before those feelings turned to horror. The revelation that Chris Benoit, respected by all and widely considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, a humble and hardworking man who, to the public's knowledge, had never put a foot wrong in either his professional or personal life, was the person responsible for all three deaths, shook the industry to its core.

The investigation into the deaths revealed the grisly facts about the double-murder suicide and the tempestuous life that Chris and Nancy led, with each revelation bringing with it a heightened sense of shock and accompanying scrutiny from the public, fans, and even government agencies.

As well as shattering the lives of those affected, the Benoit family tragedy almost destroyed the wrestling business. Even now, questions remain.

The Rise of the Rabid Wolverine

Christopher Michael Benoit was born on May 21, 1967, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and later grew up in Edmonton, Alberta.

The young Benoit was described as quiet, soft-spoken and easy-going by those who knew him best. Something of a loner who enjoyed spending time by himself, his first love was professional wrestling. Specifically, the Calgary-based Stampede Pro Wrestling territory.

After attending one of the promotion’s shows at the Victoria Pavilion in Calgary during his early teens, Benoit was hooked. He knew what he wanted to do with his life and he knew exactly who he wanted to be. None other than The Dynamite Kid.

Tom Billington was a compact, explosive performer who was lightyears ahead of the vast majority of his peers when it came to his style in the ring. He was also a troubled man who was prone to playing cruel practical jokes and intimidating people through threats of violence.

Benoit was drawn to Dynamite’s in-ring intensity and believability and soon began to idolise him. Part of that idolisation involved emulating Dynamite’s physical appearance and, before too long, Benoit was pumping iron in order to achieve the chiselled physique required for a career in the business.

Though he was still in high school, Benoit was dedicated to his vision and prioritised his training ahead of a social life.

After being a regular at the matches and then helping out as a member of the ring crew for Stampede, Benoit began his training in earnest, first in the ring before Stampede shows and then, eventually, at the legendary Hart family mansion.

He would take a Greyhound bus from Edmonton to Calgary every Friday after school and stay for the weekend, learning the tricks of the trade from one of wrestling’s most famous families. Benoit would later say that he owed everything he accomplished in his career to Stu Hart for giving him his first opportunities and helping to train him in his infamous ‘dungeon’ basement gym. This claim was likely not grounded in reality, however, as Benoit’s father Michael said Chris was predominantly trained by Mike Hammer while in Edmonton as well as one of Stampede's referees in Calgary. The two people most responsible for his training were Jerry Morrow and Angel Acevedo, aka the Cuban Assassin, who both worked for Stu. Over time, Benoit became something of an adopted member of the Hart family.

Once his training had been deemed sufficient, Chris Benoit made his professional wrestling debut on November 22, 1985, on a Stampede Wrestling show in Calgary. He teamed with Rick Patterson to defeat Karl Moffat and Mike Hammer in the second match on the card. It was an inauspicious debut for a performer who would rather quickly establish himself as one of the top in-ring talents in the entire industry.

The 18-year-old who very much resembled a young Dynamite Kid would continue wrestling for Stampede, gaining a cult following in the process, until the promotion closed its doors in 1989.

One of the highlights of his time in Stu Hart’s league was, undoubtedly, getting the opportunity to team with his idol. Prior to retiring and going back home to the United Kingdom, Billington gifted Benoit a pair of his wrestling boots. The torch had been passed. By the time the Stampede promotion shut up shop, however, Stampede was no longer Benoit’s main priority. On the recommendation of Stampede regular Allen ‘Bad News Brown’ Coage, Benoit had begun working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

He first spent a year refining his skills and paying dues in the company’s notoriously tough dojo, where he was expected to not only push himself physically during the brutal conditioning drills, but also act as a ‘young boy’, running errands for the roster’s veterans as well as doing menial tasks like sweeping the gym floor and cleaning the toilets.

It was an eye-opening, formative experience for him and it was in these early years while stationed overseas that Benoit began to solidify his reputation as one of the top prospects in the business, refining and perfecting his Dynamite Kid-esque moves and mannerisms.

Put under a mask as the Pegasus Kid, he routinely had the best match on the show alongside similarly hungry and revolutionary contemporaries like Jushin Liger.

It was while working for New Japan in the early 90s that Benoit met and formed an unbreakable bond with fellow ‘gaijin’ Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero. Not only would the trio (dubbed the Three Amigos) follow each other professionally from Japan, to ECW, to WCW and, eventually, to WWE, but Benoit relied upon his best friends as a support system to help him through hard times (and vice versa).

During these early globetrotting days, Chris Benoit was married to a Canadian woman named Martina, with whom he would have two children – a daughter named Megan and a son called David. That marriage would eventually deteriorate and end in divorce after Benoit fell in love with Nancy Sullivan.

Woman

Nancy Elizabeth Toffoloni was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 17, 1964. Her family settled in Florida and Nancy, a striking brunette, got work as a model, as well as a gig selling event programmes at local wrestling shows, while working as a call handler for an insurance company.

A fan of wrestling from an early age, she came to the attention of wrestler Kevin Sullivan after he spotted her during an ‘apartment wrestling’ photo shoot, where Nancy performed under the name ‘Para’.

It took several months for Sullivan to convince Nancy to join his act, but she eventually relented and enlisted in his oddball crew (alongside the likes of Luna Vachon), under the guise of ‘Fallen Angel’.

While on the road as one of Sullivan’s kayfabe satanists, Nancy fell in love with the so-called Prince of Darkness and ended up divorcing her first husband – a man named Jim Daus, who had been her high school sweetheart. After being together for seven or eight years, Nancy married Kevin Sullivan in 1992, taking his surname.

A tremendous valet who was utterly convincing in her psycho schtick, Nancy followed her new beau from territory to territory, which included a stint in WCW between 1989 and 1990. Re-christened ‘Woman’, Nancy first managed Sullivan and then the tag team Doom, before they left WCW and continued their nomadic existence on the independents and for outfits like Smoky Mountain Wrestling and ECW, where she lent her managerial expertise to The Sandman and Chris Benoit’s good friend from New Japan, 2 Cold Scorpio.

Before too long, Chris Benoit would make his way to WCW. Not far behind him was Nancy, following her husband, who at that time was working as both a wrestler and a member of the booking committee.

Though Kevin would help his wife get a job with Eric Bischoff’s organisation, things were not exactly peachy between the Sullivans at home. In fact, things hadn’t been stable for some time. Their marriage was on the rocks and the two of them working together would only serve to speed up its disintegration.

Volatile Beginnings

Nancy’s sister Sandra Toffoloni in later years claimed that the relationship between Kevin and Nancy was, at best, volatile. This included accusations of domestic abuse, with Sandra saying that incidents between the pair took place often and that, on one occasion in the mid-90s, a fight had left Nancy with a black eye.

Kevin Sullivan, for his part, has repeatedly refuted those allegations, and counter-claimed that Nancy had, in fact, stabbed him during one of their spats. According to him, that act landed Nancy in a Florida prison for three days, before Kevin bailed her out and neglected to press charges. For what it’s worth, police investigating the Benoit tragedy found that Nancy had kept records of abuse she had suffered which, they ascertained, took place during the relationship with Sullivan.

By the time Nancy came to WCW the couple had noticeably drifted apart, with Sullivan citing their age difference (he was 11 years her senior) as a possible reason why they grew more distant as time went on.

Come 1996 they weren’t spending as much time with one another. He was hanging out in the Florida Keys, while Nancy opted to spend her time at their house in Daytona. Their problems certainly predated Benoit’s arrival in WCW, but The Crippler would play an integral part in their union ending for good.

Benoit’s career trajectory in WCW looked promising, erasing any doubts he may have had following a disappointing spell there a few years earlier. He quickly went from cruiserweight fodder to Four Horsemen member, before Sullivan booked him in a feud against himself.

It started off simply enough, but the waters got murky quickly. In his pursuit to blur the lines between fact and fiction, Sullivan added his wife – who was working as a valet for the Horsemen – into the mix.

Per the storyline, Benoit stole Nancy away from Sullivan and began taunting him about it. Benoit and Nancy were shown on television cosying up to one another in intimate scenes and Chris made several shoot-style comments about Nancy’s marriage to Kevin.

To make the angle more convincing and keep kayfabe alive, Sullivan instructed Nancy and Benoit to travel together, eat together at restaurants on the road, stay at the same hotels and even hold hands in public.

Chris had expressed reservations about the storyline with Sullivan and Bischoff, because his then-wife Martina had just given birth to their daughter and things were already tense between the two of them at home.

Benoit didn’t want his wife becoming paranoid while she was at home looking after the newborn, as well as their son David, who was just a few years old at the time.

In a predictably shocking twist, fantasy soon became reality as Chris and Nancy developed genuine feelings for each other and began having an affair. Chris divorced his wife and Nancy divorced her husband. Chris and Nancy were officially an item.

All while this was going on, Benoit and Sullivan still had to work with each other in the ring, their matches taking on an air of heightened realism due to the circumstances.

Though Kevin in some ways blamed Chris for the breakup of his marriage, Benoit later attested that Sullivan was always professional and never took liberties with him in the ring.

At the 1997 Bash at the Beach, after about a year of butting heads on-screen, Benoit beat Sullivan in a retirement match. Kevin then quit being an active in-ring performer and began to focus on his responsibilities as a backstage creative force. Nancy left the company after the retirement match, while Chris continued to fight an uphill battle in the shark-infested WCW waters.

Despite being widely regarded as a phenomenal talent with enormous untapped potential, the undersized-for-the-time Benoit was never hugely in favour with the decision-makers and continually hit his head on the glass ceiling.

He achieved success in WCW, for sure, but he – along with Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and others of that ilk – knew their success had a pre-destined cap placed on it, regardless of how many great matches they had or how consistently they performed.

When Sullivan was given WCW’s head booker role in early 2000 following the departure of Vince Russo, Benoit and his cohorts wanted out. Chris, especially, was fearful of retaliation for the situation with Nancy.

In a bid to extend the olive branch and show that there were, in fact, no hard feelings and that he was willing to put business ahead of personal, Sullivan booked Benoit to win his first World Heavyweight Title by beating Sid Vicious at the Souled Out pay-per-view.

It was too little too late for the Rabid Wolverine, whose mind was by that point made up. He - along with Guerrero, Malenko and Perry Saturn - left WCW the day after the pay-per-view, with Benoit handing back the title belt and heading to WWE.

Living With Success & Tragedy

When Benoit was given his release - granted to him unconditionally after road agent Mike Graham had levied some violent threats toward him and his fellow Radicalz – Nancy was at home, heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child.

Daniel Christopher Benoit was born on February 25, 2000. With a new baby at home and his career looking on the up now that he was getting a push while under Vince McMahon’s employ, life was, all things considered, good for Chris Benoit. By all accounts, he was a dedicated father and husband who doted on his wife and son at this time.

Professionally, things continued to go from strength to strength. The Crippler was always involved in a storyline and even got the chance to headline a pay-per-view opposite The Rock in a WWE Title match at Fully Loaded.

He was having great matches and making great money – his downside guarantee was $400,000 per year, but with bonuses, merchandise and other compensation factored in, he made significantly more. He was doing it all alongside his best friends, too.

Capping off a great year, Chris and Nancy tied the knot on November 23. On the surface, it seemed as though everything was great for the couple. Nancy was retired and looking after Daniel, as well as managing her husband’s business affairs, while Chris’s career continued its upward path, save for a year spent on the sidelines while he recovered from major neck surgery.

That path led all the way to the main event of WrestleMania XX. On the Grandest Stage in front of a sold-out Madison Square Garden crowd, Chris Benoit reached the summit of the industry he had dedicated his life to, winning WWE’s World Heavyweight Title for the first and only time in his career.

As confetti rained down inside MSG and Benoit celebrated his triumph, Eddie Guerrero spontaneously joined him in the ring and embraced his best friend in a moment that in retrospect is one of the saddest images in professional wrestling history. Earlier in the night, Guerrero had retained his WWE Title in the show’s other main event.

For two men who had been continually told that they were too small or not flamboyant enough to make it to the top, it was vindication and, for two friends who had travelled the roads together for so many years, it was a truly special moment.

It was just reward for all their hard work, and an especially spiritual moment for Eddie, who had not long ago battled back from substance abuse issues that had temporarily cost him his WWE career, and almost cost him his life. When the show went off the air, Nancy and Daniel joined Chris in the ring, hugging and kissing him.

Judging by that storybook scene, you would have no reason to assume that there were any issues in Chris and Nancy’s marriage at the time. However, after the tragedy it came to light that Nancy had, in fact, filed for divorce less than a year earlier.

On May 12, 2003, Nancy filed for divorce from her husband. She alleged cruel treatment, citing the marriage as ‘irrevocably broken’. She also filed for a temporary protective order on May 15, which prevented Chris from seeing or contacting her or Daniel, while he was also ordered to pay $5,000 per month in child support.

Nancy told her attorney that Chris would often fly into a rage for no particular reason and that he had destroyed furniture in the house. She was seeking sole custody of Daniel.

This was not the first incident between the couple, either. It also transpired later that, in September of 1998, Chris and Nancy had an argument that led to Benoit leaving the house. Hours later, police officers found him drunk in his car sat outside of another person’s home. Benoit told the officers that he used to live in the house before his divorce and that he was just reminiscing. He was then booked on charges of DUI.

Other reports from after the tragedy noted that Chris and Nancy had minor periods of separation while Chris was recovering from his neck surgery in 2001. Nancy became alarmed that her husband was continuing to use anabolic steroids while he convalesced since, in her opinion, he had no justifiable reason to do so.

Chris, worried about losing size during his lengthy recuperation, felt as though he didn’t have a choice. His uptake in pain pill usage around this time was also a contentious issue between him and his wife.

In May of 2003, Nancy was genuinely fearful for her and Daniel’s safety and fled the home during one of Benoit’s outbursts. The divorce petition also claimed that Chris had threatened to strike her. The six-month protective order was granted and, for the next few months, Chris and Nancy were separated as divorce loomed.

Then on the day of a hearing to determine a longer protective order, however, they showed up to court holding hands and told their attorneys that they had patched things up. On August 19, Nancy dropped the divorce petition and had the protective order lifted. Their attorneys, for what it’s worth, made the Benoits promise to undergo professional counselling.

Whether they did or did not, is unknown, though Nancy would regularly confide in Julie Malenko, wife of Dean, who was Nancy’s therapist. Chris most likely confided in his best friend Eddie, the understanding, sympathetic, born-again Christian who was always available should Chris need someone to talk to.

It was said that Eddie knew Chris' temperament better than anyone and could talk him out of doing things that he may go on to regret. On November 13, 2005, in another of wrestling's greatest tragedies, Chris Benoit lost that support system.

That morning, Eddie Guerrero died in a Minneapolis, Minnesota hotel room, just hours before he had been due to perform at a combined Raw and SmackDown television taping.

He had been discovered by his nephew, Chavo Guerrero, passing away in his arms at the age of just 38. Eddie’s cause of death was listed as acute heart failure from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Past steroid, prescription pill, and alcohol abuse were listed as contributing factors.

When Chavo informed Benoit of Eddie’s passing over the phone he was met with a guttural wail of pure grief, an outpouring of unfiltered emotion that was uncharacteristic of Chris.

In the special Raw tribute episode that aired the following night, Benoit was clearly inconsolable, crying uncontrollably while stood on the stage during the 10-bell salute and completely breaking down while giving his video testimonial tribute.

The widely held belief by those in the inner circle of Chris Benoit is that Eddie’s death affected him so deeply that he was never quite the same afterwards. Falling into a severe depression, Benoit would write to Eddie in his journal as a means of coping, but close friends and family could see that he wasn’t taking it well at all and that no amount of time could seemingly heal the wound.

It probably didn’t help that he wasn’t given adequate time to process his grief. The day after Guerrero’s funeral - during which Chris Jericho recalled Benoit hugging him with incredible force before completely breaking down in painful sobs - the Crippler hopped on a plane and flew to Europe to meet up with the rest of the WWE crew touring the continent.

While Chris undoubtedly grew more withdrawn following the death of Eddie, he was no stranger to mourning. He and Nancy had both lost countless friends from the business over the years, most of them passing away young and in typically tragic circumstances.

In October of 1997, Benoit’s former Four Horseman stablemate Brian Pillman passed away of a heart attack, at the age of 35. In May of 1999, Owen Hart fell to his death from the catwalk of the Kemper Arena during WWE’s Over the Edge pay-per-view when his planned entrance went awry. He was 34.

Just a few months later, Brian Hildebrand - a beloved figure in the business who worked as a referee for WCW under the name ‘Mark Curtis’ - passed away from cancer, aged 37. In May of 2002, Davey Boy Smith died of a heart attack, at the age of 39.

Curt ‘Mr Perfect’ Hennig and Michael ‘Road Warrior Hawk’ Hegstrand both passed away in 2003, as did Stu Hart and, in particularly sad circumstances, Nancy’s close friend Liz ‘Miss Elizabeth’ Hulette. In September of 2004, Ray Traylor (AKA The Big Boss Man) died at 41.

It seemed like the Benoits were never too far away from visiting their next funeral.

This cycle of death didn’t stop with Eddie, either. On the contrary, Chris and Nancy continued to lose those who were close to them at an unrelentingly quick rate. In January of 2006, Victor ‘Black Cat’ Mar passed away of a heart attack at the age of 51. Mar had worked as a wrestler and foreign liaison for New Japan in the 1990s and was someone Chris considered his best friend in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Just a few weeks later, Mike ‘Johnny Grunge’ Durham died at the age of 39. The former member of the Public Enemy tag team lived in the same area as the Benoits and, as well as being their friend since the mid-90s, he played an important peacekeeping role in their rocky relationship. Whenever the couple would argue (which was often), Durham would be called in to act as a ‘buffer’, talking to them and making them laugh long enough that they would, inevitably, move beyond whatever it was they were fighting about. With him now gone, Chris and Nancy no longer had a trusted intermediary available, should a hostile situation arise.

It was clear that Chris Benoit desperately needed some time off away from the wrestling business. He had been going hard and fast for a long time and his battered body craved rest. He also needed time to properly process the huge amount of grief he was trying to cope with.

In May of 2006, he finally left the road and went home for four months, for what was referred to as a 'sabbatical'. Nancy had recently had major neck surgery – performed by Doctor Jay Youngblood, the same person who had fused Chris' neck in 2001 – so having Chris around the house to help was considered a blessing by her. Chris took the time to heal up some nagging injuries, and also underwent a minor procedure to repair a hernia.

There was also speculation at the time that Benoit had requested the sabbatical so that he could wean himself off the steroids and painkillers he’d grown to depend on, since WWE had recently introduced their Wellness Policy as a response to Eddie Guerrero’s premature death, but that was just hearsay and future evidence would seem to contradict any intention Benoit may have had of ‘getting clean’. The steroid and painkiller issue would become a much bigger one following the Benoit family tragedy a year later.

Though the sabbatical apparently did both Chris and Nancy well, with Chris remarking to friends that he felt recharged afterwards, Benoit was by no means fully recovered and something darker lurked beneath the veneer of renewed energy. In the months before the tragedy, Benoit began displaying signs of paranoia. He talked to friends and family about some unknown entity being out to get him and claimed that he and his family were being stalked.

He started to take different routes to routine destinations like his local gym and airport, lest he was being followed. He changed cars frequently and would constantly check the home’s security system.

He also didn’t let his son Daniel play outside unsupervised and asked that Nancy not leave the house alone after 6 pm. The issue of where Daniel would go to school was also raised, with Chris hesitant to enrol him until he was absolutely assured of his safety.

The family even moved house, from the Peachtree City area of Georgia to nearby Fayetteville, moving into a $900,000 gated mansion in a quiet suburb with a very low crime rate. Two large German Shepherd guard dogs patrolled the residence.

With regards to work, the 40-year-old Benoit was by this point clearly in the autumn of his career. He was one of the most respected wrestlers in the world and was still capable of performing at a very high level, but a newer, younger generation of stars were ready to take one of the top spots he had occupied for so long.

He was enlisted to help facilitate their rise up the card. Drafted to ECW in June of 2007, Benoit was to undertake a ‘player-coach’ role, helping out the new talent that were often placed on the show to get exposure before being promoted to Raw or SmackDown.

The plan was for Benoit to represent ECW as its champion, and he was booked to meet and beat CM Punk in a tournament final at the Vengeance pay-per-view on June 24. Chris Benoit would not fulfil that booking.

The consummate professional who never missed a match not showing up for such a major event was a red flag to many and panic set in. The reason why he didn’t make the show, or the non-televised live event the night before, was beyond comprehension.

On June 25, 2007, Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their son Daniel were all found dead in their home.

One Fateful Weekend in June

Chris Benoit’s last match took place on June 19, 2007, at an ECW television taping. Afterwards, he flew home and did what he usually did during his downtime - working out, tanning, catching up on sleep and running errands.

On the morning of Friday, June 22, Chris drove his son Daniel to horse riding camp at next-door neighbour Holly Schrepfer’s house, before driving 40 miles to visit his physician, Dr Phil Astin.

Benoit would see Astin every couple of months, for routine checkups and to replenish a long list of prescriptions. During their meeting, he complained about Nancy’s moodiness and wondered aloud if she was experiencing early-onset menopause. Unlikely, but Astin (who was also Nancy’s physician) said he’d look into it.

Astin later commented that Benoit showed no signs of rage or increased aggression but complained of increased feelings of depression and was prescribed the anti-depressant Zoloft, which would take a few weeks to fully kick in.

On his way out, Benoit signed autographs and took pictures with waiting patients and staff members. After he had left the doctor’s office, he spoke with frequent travel partner and close friend Bob Holly.

Holly asked how Chris and Nancy were getting on, to which Benoit replied that she was ‘acting like Hitler’ but that they were trying to work things out.

Holly was in nearby Atlanta for a meeting with an attorney and Chris had asked him to come and visit at his home half an hour away. Bob had declined, saying that it was rare time off for Chris and that he figured he’d want to spend it with his wife and son.

Holly later wondered, had he gone to the Benoit residence a couple of days earlier as planned, if things would have gone differently on Friday evening.

After speaking with Holly, Benoit met up with Ray Rawls, a previous WWE developmental prospect who worked as Rick Michaels. He was hired by WWE in 2004, on the recommendation of Benoit, not as a wrestler but as a tailor.

Rawls had been fired by WWE in late 2005 after he was convicted of exposing himself in front of a minor (something Rawls admitted to in court), but he retained a friendship with Benoit and made the tights that Chris wore for his matches, as well as gear for other WWE stars.

Rawls expressed deep gratitude for Benoit’s support, both financial and personal. Chris told Rawls that he himself lived in a glass house and therefore cast no stones.

On that afternoon, Benoit paid Rawls for a new order and drove home, where he spoke to travel partner Chavo Guerrero, whom he had grown increasingly close to following Eddie’s passing, and also spoke on the phone to Nancy, who was food shopping for that night’s cookout at a local supermarket.

Benoit called a local car dealership too to discuss selling one of his vehicles and ordered a call out from a pool service company. When the pool boys arrived later that afternoon, they observed Chris with Daniel outside grilling.

The day, to that point, had been unremarkable as the Benoit family went about their business. Things would take a drastic turn that evening.

Telephone records show that, at 9:25 PM, the Benoit house made a call requesting the number of the Fayetteville Police Department. The number issued was an obsolete, non-emergency one and, regardless, no attempt was made to call it.

Seven minutes later at 9:32 PM, the Benoit home called next-door neighbour Holly, did so again a minute later, and once more at 10 PM. The calls went unanswered, and no voice messages were left, but the generally held assumption is that Nancy, fearing that something bad was about to happen, made those calls.

Something bad did happen to Nancy Benoit that night. After getting into a fight with Chris in an upstairs office/family room where Nancy liked to watch television, her hands and feet were bound by tape and an electrical cord was wrapped around her neck. Chris placed a knee onto her back and pulled back hard on the cord, choking his wife to death.

The scene indicated that there had been a struggle and that Nancy had fought back, while blood on her head suggested that Chris may have struck it into the floor while she was bound. There were signs of trauma to Nancy’s body, including bruising. Nancy’s sister Sandra later divulged that Benoit had ‘brutalised’ Nancy in the process of killing her.

After killing her, Chris wrapped Nancy's body in a blanket and placed a bible next to it. Nancy was 43 years old.

The morning after, at 8:30 AM, Chris called Holly Schrepfer and left a voice message wondering if Daniel was due in horse camp that day. If he was, then Daniel couldn’t attend, Benoit said, because he was sick.

At some point in the hours after killing Nancy, Chris Benoit did the unthinkable and murdered his own son with some form of chokehold while he lay in his bed. Chillingly, investigators found a butcher knife (which was not used in the murders) under it.

Toxicology results showed that the seven-year-old had been sedated with Xanax - a drug not meant for child consumption - prior to the murder and that he was likely unconscious when it happened. Chris also placed a bible next to the body of Daniel.

Benoit then called and left a voicemail on the phone of wrestler Michael Parker at 1:57 PM. Parker had just been released by WWE following a tryout and Benoit was returning his call to talk about office politics. This message was preserved and, listening to it back, Benoit is clearly rambling and some of his words are slurred.

Over an hour later, at around 3 PM, Holly Schrepfer called Chris back and they spoke for approximately 10 minutes. During the call, Chris told his neighbour about how Daniel was suffering from very bad food poisoning and that he felt bad that he could do nothing for him. He also told her that Nancy had it, too, although hers was milder and that the pair wanted to lay low for a couple of days in order to recover. Holly would reflect after the fact that Chris was subtly trying to dissuade her from visiting the house and trying to see Nancy or Daniel.

About an hour after that call, at 4:02 PM, Benoit clicked on a Wikipedia entry on the Old Testament prophet Elijah after conducting a Google search. The story of the prophet Elijah, in short, concerns him pleading with God to restore the soul to a young boy’s dead body.

Throughout the day Chris Benoit was also in contact with his colleagues in WWE. He had been scheduled to perform at that night’s live event in Beaumont, Texas. Chavo Guerrero had agreed to pick Benoit up from the airport that afternoon and then drive him to the arena.

Benoit spoke with Chavo by phone and told him that he wouldn’t be able to make the show due to Nancy and Daniel being sick with suspected food poisoning.

During the call, Benoit told Chavo ‘I love you’, which struck Guerrero as odd. Chavo then called back and asked his friend if everything was okay before telling Benoit to make sure that he made it for the pay-per-view the next day.

At 6:10 PM, Chris called a member of WWE’s talent relations team and informed them that he would be unable to attend that night’s house show due to a family emergency. He told them that Nancy and Daniel were in the hospital throwing up blood. He was assured not to worry about missing the house show, but to make sure that he made it to the pay-per-view the next day. This is believed to have been the last voice communication anyone had with Chris Benoit.

Incredibly, Benoit had changed his flight for the house show to a later one that day, before conceding that he wouldn’t be able to make it on time. Was he actually considering making his obligation and wrestling in Beaumont, or was this done simply to buy himself some time and avert suspicion?

Between 3:51 and 3:58 AM on Sunday morning, Chavo and referee Scott Armstrong (another member of Benoit’s travel crew) received a series of strange text messages from the phones of both Chris and Nancy.

One read: “My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”.

The other: “The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open”. 

Chris was, in essence, trying to get word out that somebody needed to check on the house.

It is believed that in the immediate aftermath of sending these messages, Chris Benoit hanged himself by the cord of his lat-pulldown weight machine in the home’s basement gym after tying it around his neck and releasing a significant amount of weight – around 240lbs – hoisting him off the ground. He had previously Googled methods of breaking a person’s neck.

Chris Benoit was 40 years old.

WWE re-arranged Benoit’s flight for Sunday morning so that he could make the pay-per-view and attempted to contact him throughout Sunday. They also called various hospitals in the Atlanta area in order to pin him down, to no avail.

The pay-per-view went ahead as scheduled, with ECW announcer Joey Styles explaining to viewers at home that Chris Benoit would not be involved in his title match due to an unspecified family emergency.

By 11 pm on Sunday night, nobody in WWE had been able to get in touch with their former World Heavyweight Champion.

The following day, with concern for Benoit increasing, Talent Relations head John Laurinaitis became aware of the text messages that were sent to Guerrero and Armstrong and a welfare check was requested at the Benoit residence at around 12:45 PM.

The Fayetteville County Sheriff’s Department called WWE back a couple of hours later and informed them that they had found the bodies of Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit.

The entire WWE roster, as well as some special guests flown in for the occasion, were at the arena in Corpus Christi, Texas that evening. Some were dressed for a funeral, since that night’s episode was supposed to be a special ‘memorial’ one for the Mr McMahon character, who had met his untimely demise a couple of weeks earlier. A wreath stood in the ring and a casket sat on the arena’s stage.

Gathering his roster and crew around the ring at about 4 PM that afternoon, Vince McMahon informed them of the tragedy.

They were also informed that they were free to leave the arena if they wished and that while matches would be taped at the next day’s show, nobody was obligated to work it if they didn’t want to.

The planned show for that night was cancelled and, in its place, WWE instead ran a tribute to Chris Benoit, complete with Vince McMahon addressing the global audience, a commemorative music video, colleague testimonials, and some of the most significant matches and moments from his career.

At the time, it was rationalised, WWE didn’t know the horrific circumstances of the tragedy – though Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has insinuated that some in upper management must have been aware of the working theory investigators were working with.

Meltzer himself was, as were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who liaised with President of WWE Canada, Carl DeMarco, in informing Chris Benoit’s family north of the border about the tragedy.

To the majority of those in WWE who only knew that three bodies were found and not much else, the Chris Benoit they knew wasn’t capable of murder. Surely the explanation lay in something far less sinister, like a carbon monoxide leak.

The testimonial given by William Regal during the tribute show struck some people as odd and hinted that there may be more to the tragedy than meets the eye. Rather than gush about Benoit – who he had known and worked with closely for over a decade – Regal simply said that he was one of the best and most hard-working professional wrestlers ever and would refrain from commenting on anything else at the time. It was short and detached and somewhat eerie (especially in hindsight).

Industry insiders suspected that Regal, who didn’t live too far away from the Benoits, could have been privy to at least some of their marital issues and may have known more than others. Regal himself explained on his podcast in 2022 that he and Chris had not been close since the late 90s. Moreover, Regal's wife was good friends with Benoit's ex-wife Martina and flat out did not like Chris, making it known to her husband that she didn't want him near their house. Regal looked spooked on the night because he was genuinely shocked by news of the deaths. While he was on his way to record a tribute, though, Regal crossed paths with JBL, who said something along the lines of, "You don’t think he had anything to do with it do you?"

A clearly unnerved Regal realised that he didn’t know what had happened in that house and decided to cover his tracks by simply talking about Benoit. Others backstage that night also discussed the possible theory that Chris was responsible as rumours of strange text messages began to filter through the locker room.

As Raw went off the air that night, everyone in the world would know that police were investigating the incident as a double murder, suicide and that Chris Benoit was their only suspect.

Why?

When the horrible facts emerged and once the initial shock had worn off, Chris Benoit’s fans, friends, colleagues and family members all wanted to know one thing. Why? Why did Chris Benoit murder his wife and his son before taking his own life?

The rush to find that out as more and more of the harrowing details of the case were made public resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which professional wrestling had never seen before. A double murder, suicide featuring a famous person was always going to be big news, but the bizarre nature of the tragedy only sought to amplify the attention it was receiving.

For media outlets covering the tragedy, the first thing that was jumped on was the fact that large quantities of anabolic steroids were found in the Benoit residence. Chris Benoit had first started using anabolic steroids back in high school and his usage intensified throughout his professional career. There is no doubt that Benoit used the drugs to attain the size and definition favoured by the major league promotions he worked for.

Sources who knew Chris Benoit said that he was constantly taking steroids, and later human growth hormone, without any sort of prolonged break. As mentioned, he refused to stop using steroids even while he was recovering from major neck surgery and was thus unable to work out as normal, believing that kicking them cold turkey would cause his muscles to shrink.

Investigators found various types of steroids and HGH in the Benoit house, while the family of Nancy - who were staying at the residence for a brief period after the tragedy - also found more vials, needles, and prescriptions hidden in a suitcase and a walk-in closet.

The media, quick to sensationalise, speculated that the act was a result of ‘roid rage’, and that Chris had flown off the handle and killed Nancy in a frenzy.

Chris’s autopsy revealed that he had 10 times the amount of testosterone as a normal, healthy male of his age at the time of his death, indicating that he had taken them within a ‘reasonably short period of time’ before his death.

Benoit was receiving excessive quantities of steroids, mainly from prescriptions written by Dr. Astin. This was done under the pretext of ‘testosterone replacement therapy’. After constantly cycling on steroids for close to two decades, Benoit had severely damaged his own endocrine system and ability to naturally create testosterone. At the time of his death, Chris Benoit was also suffering from testicular failure.

Astin prescribed Benoit a 10-month supply of steroids every three to four weeks between May 2006 and May 2007.

Obviously, this was done so that Chris Benoit could maintain his hulking physique and not strictly as part of any TRT, which would only replace testosterone to normal levels, not boost those levels up to superhuman numbers. Astin was subsequently indicted and charged for over-prescribing controlled substances to not only Benoit, but others, like Johnny Grunge, who was prescribed large amounts of painkillers and muscle relaxers.

It is believed the drugs were a significant contributing factor towards Grunge’s death. In a strange coincidence Dr Aston passed away of a heart attack on June 24, 2022, exactly 15 years to the day since the tragedy. The doctor, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009, was 67 years old.

Benoit and Grunge were not Astin’s only famous patients, and many of the old WCW roster, including Lex Luger, used him to easily obtain the drugs. Some wrestlers would travel significant distances in order to see Astin, which included flying from out of state.

Chris Benoit was also ordering steroids illegally online, from a company called MedXLife, whose orders were filled through the Florida-based Signature Pharmacy. From Signature Pharmacy, he received nandrolone (a steroid better known as deca-durabolin) and anastrozole (an anti-oestrogen drug used to combat steroid side effects like gynecomastia) in February of 2006.

FedEx records show that he also had their products sent to an address in Walton Beach, Florida that July, as well as a hotel in San Antonio, Texas in late 2005, around the time he was touring the state with WWE.

An answering machine tape confiscated from the Benoit residence showed that investigators looking into MedXLife and Signature Pharmacy had contacted Chris about his business with them.

Once the WWE Wellness Policy was instituted in early 2006, Benoit was randomly tested along with the rest of the roster. He was tested four times between then and April 10, 2007, the date of his last test. His test results came back negative. WWE withheld the results of Benoit’s previous three tests, which were administered by Aegis Labs and overseen by Dr. David Black.

It was theorised by some that when Benoit was tested in April that he was, in fact, clean of the muscle-enhancing drugs and was attempting to get them out of his system, but that the physical and psychological effects of withdrawal prompted him to quickly get back on them. Others claimed that he must have cheated the test in some way.

When it came to cause or motive, a medical examiner was unable to say conclusively whether steroids played a role in the killings. What investigators did find out during the course of their investigation is that steroid issue was a major bone of contention between Chris and Nancy.

Records of text messages that Nancy had sent Chris in the weeks leading up to the tragedy show her repeatedly asking her husband to get off the juice.

On May 9, 2007, she wrote (texts cleaned up to correct typos): “Get off the crap you’re on. It’s making you passive aggressive and I don’t need the abuse”.

Later that month, she texted: “Get off the stuff. It’s obvious. I’m probably not the only one who can see and we both know the Wellness programme is a joke”.

At least once – in January of 2007 – Nancy had taken matters into her own hands and thrown out his stash, resulting in Chris leaving the home for a fortnight and staying in a hotel.

As well as altering Chris’s mood, the drugs also hampered his ability to perform in the bedroom, something Nancy complained about to Pam Clark (the wife of the late Brian Hildebrand) just days before the tragedy occurred. That two-hour phone call, which took place on June 18, revealed a lot about the problems the Benoits were going through.

Nancy spoke with Clark about not only Chris’s worsening mood swings, but also about her suspicions that Chris was having an affair with a WWE diva, citing the discovery of a second cell phone and her husband having phone conversations outside – something he had never done before – as evidence.

She detailed visiting backstage at a WWE house show two days earlier (in Dothan, Alabama) and felt as though people were walking on eggshells around her and knew something that she didn’t. Nancy had also told her mother-in-law, Margaret Benoit, that Chris wasn’t ‘doing the right thing’ while he was out on the road, intimating that he was cheating on her. Nancy told Pam Clark that she had planned to bring up the suspected infidelity to Chris sooner than later.

During the call, Nancy also claimed that Chris had been physically abusive towards her and that she was considering taking some time away from him, or perhaps leaving Chris for good and moving to Florida with Daniel, to be closer to her family. Dr. Astin would also disclose that Nancy asked him questions about raising Daniel by herself when she visited his office the day before her murder.

Nancy told Pam Clark that she had kept evidence of her husband’s alleged abuse and that, if anything ever happened to her, she wanted people to know that he did it.

A search of a safety deposit box in Nancy Benoit’s name did not reveal any evidence that Chris had been physically abusive towards her. The couple did argue frequently and would on occasion blow up in front of close friends in public. The list of things they fought about was long and varied.

Nancy wanted her husband, if not to quit wrestling altogether, then to at least consider spending more time at home, away from the road. After Eddie Guerrero died, they had discussed Chris leaving WWE and starting his own wrestling school, drawing up a business plan and even going so far as to have t-shirts made.

Rob Van Dam would remark in a blog post after the tragedy that Benoit had told him how much he respected Van Dam’s decision not to re-sign with WWE when his contract expired, telling him that ‘some of us don’t know when to get out’. Perhaps Chris too was feeling trapped by the business, since wrestling was the only thing he really knew how to do. He had never had another job in his life.

He certainly would be unlikely to find a form of environment that paid him so handsomely – to the tune of around $1 million per year, once royalties and things like pay-per-view bonuses had been added to his not-insubstantial downside.

Nancy would also criticise him for not spending enough time with his two other children from his first marriage, outside of sending for them to come and stay with them at their house twice a year.

During one of those visits, in March of 2007, Nancy and Chris fought loudly on several occasions, which included Nancy pushing and hitting him, upset that (among other things) her husband had failed to prepare for the visit and make any plans with the kids.

There was an issue over a $250,000 life insurance policy that Chris had taken out too, not in the name of Nancy and Daniel, but with his ex-wife and other children listed as the beneficiaries.

On May 26, 2007, Nancy texted the following to Chris:

“If you wanted your ex-wife to have your retirement fund, you would have given it to her 10 years ago at the divorce. If you wanted her to have more you wouldn’t have tried to hide your money. Now it’s the point, we are married. I come first”.

When Nancy asked Chris to change the policy so that she and Daniel would be listed as the beneficiaries instead, he refused.

To cope with all the stress caused by her failing marriage, Nancy had also begun abusing prescription medication and alcohol, though she had tried to cut back on her consumption in the final weeks of her life.

Evidently, the domestic situation in the Benoit house was declining rapidly. Around this time of increasing animosity, the Benoits also suffered further losses, adding to their perpetual state of bereavement.

On March 6, 2007, Bad News Brown, the man who got Chris Benoit to Japan in the mid-1980s, passed away at the age of 63. On June 15 - just a week before the tragedy - Sherri Martel, a close friend of Nancy’s in particular, also passed away from a drug overdose at age 49.

One theory that investigators posited was that, on the night of her murder, Nancy had told Chris that she was going to leave him and take Daniel with her, causing him to finally ‘snap’.

Alcohol and the cocktail of prescription medication at play could have also contributed to the heightened tensions in the house. Empty beer cans and a half-drunk bottle of wine were found in the home, though due to the stage of decomposition the bodies were in it was hard to get a reliable blood alcohol content reading.

Benoit tested negative for alcohol, but any alcohol he consumed on that Friday night would not have shown up by the time his autopsy was performed.

It was further theorised that Chris had possibly killed Daniel as he knew he was going to commit suicide (or else spend the rest of his life in prison) and didn’t want his son growing up knowing that his father had murdered his mother.

These are, of course, just theories. The truth is, we will never know for sure why Chris Benoit did what he did and there are multiple factors at play.

One note that the media picked up and ran with in their coverage of the tragedy was Daniel supposedly having the rare, autism-like condition Fragile X Syndrome, which some speculated put even more pressure on an already strained marriage. It later transpired that Daniel did not have the condition, as confirmed by Sandra Toffoloni, who was given a copy of his medical records after his death. Teachers at Daniel’s school also stressed that his physical and mental development was not slow and that he was a happy and healthy child.

Assistant DA Scott Ballard was also forced to make an apology for indicating that Daniel had track marks from needles on his arms, a false piece of information that caused some to ascertain that Chris had injected him with growth hormone.

To inventory every drug found in the residence would simply take too much time. Suffice it to say, they basically had the equivalent of a small pharmacy’s worth of painkillers, anti-depressants and muscle relaxers scattered throughout the property.

Toxicology reports showed that Nancy had hydrocodone and alprazolam in her system at the time of her death, though the levels were said to be in line with what could be considered ‘therapeutic’ and not excessive use. Toxicology reports for Chris Benoit showed that he had the same drugs in his body, also at therapeutic levels.

Sandra Toffoloni noted while speaking on Talk is Jericho in 2016 that she had observed, first-hand, excessive drug use from both her sister and brother-in-law.

In his discussions with investigators, Bob Holly revealed that he knew Chris drank and was taking Lorcet and Somas and discussed how Chris and Nancy had fought in the weeks prior to the tragedy, leading Chris to once again seek solace in a nearby hotel where, he told Holly, he had gotten ‘f*cked up’ on a combination of pills and booze.

Alongside ‘roid rage’, a broken marriage and drug and alcohol abuse, the issue of concussions and the state that Chris Benoit’s brain may have been in at the time of the tragedy was also brought up in the conversation when seeking an explanation for his actions.

As someone who not only hit his head for a living, but also wrestled a high-octane, often risky style, it was no shock to learn that Chris Benoit had suffered a nearly uncountable number of concussions – both diagnosed and undiagnosed – during his two-decade career.

At the behest of former WWE star Chris Nowinski – whose own in-ring career was shortened due to the effects of post-concussion syndrome – Chris Benoit’s brain was examined.

Post-wrestling, Nowinski had founded and headed up the Sports Legacy Institute (later renamed the Concussion Legacy Foundation), which was doing research on Chronic Traumatic Encepathology (CTE) and the long-term effects of head trauma on professional athletes.

Unsurprisingly, the results of the tests on Benoit’s brain showed that it had sustained damage severe enough to potentially cause early-onset dementia.

How much the head trauma played a role in altering Chris Benoit’s moods in the weeks and months leading to the tragedy, is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is that the CTE discovered had to have changed his personality and behaviour in some way.

Chris Benoit’s autopsy also revealed that he had enlarged organs, including a very enlarged heart. Sandra Toffoloni claimed the medical examiner told her family that, had the tragedy not occurred, that Chris was on his way to death within 10 months anyway.

In February of 2008, the Fayetteville County Sheriff’s Department released their report on the Benoit family tragedy. They concluded that Chris Benoit, acting alone, had murdered his wife Nancy on the evening of Friday, June 22, before killing his son, Daniel, hours later and then finally killing himself in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Their case was closed, but the tragedy would have long-lasting implications beyond the search for insight or answers.

Life After the Tragedy

Immediately after the tragedy, WWE went on the defensive, entering self-preservation mode. As Chris Benoit’s employer, they were instantly put under the microscope and bombarded with questions, usually about steroids and the role they may have played in the murders and how he was able to have the steroids – which resulted in his testosterone levels being 10 times the normal level – when the company had a wellness programme in place.

Among the first things WWE did once the facts of the tragedy became apparent, was to erase Chris Benoit. All mentions of his name were taken off the company website. Merchandise was cancelled, recalled or destroyed. Employees were instructed never to speak of his name again.

Opening the episode of ECW the day after the regrettable Raw tribute show had taken place, Vince McMahon issued a statement, saying that outside of his comments, there would be no mention of Chris Benoit’s name on that night’s show and dedicated it to everyone who had been affected by the tragedy.

Vince, Linda McMahon, and members of the WWE roster went on various programmes as a means of damage control or to combat critics, including ex-wrestlers like Marc Mero, but the scrutiny was unrelenting and public perception of professional wrestling, long thought of as the redheaded stepchild of mainstream entertainment, had taken a huge hit.

Things would not get better when investigations into MedXLife/Signature pharmacy revealed a host of other talent on the active roster had been buying performance-enhancing drugs online, often long after the wellness policy had been instituted. The resultant raft of suspensions and firings played havoc with WWE’s on-screen storylines but, really, that was not the big issue at stake.

The wellness policy had been criticised in the past for being too lenient and featuring loopholes that allowed talent (like Chris Benoit) to continue using and, in some cases, abusing drugs. With the spotlight shining on its shortcomings and a congressional investigation into WWE’s business practices looming, the company were forced to make changes to their drug-testing programme, tightening it up. Once the attention over the Benoit tragedy had passed, Congress lost interest.

The results of the testing on Chris Benoit’s brain, coupled with the increased awareness around the effects of CTE in general, played a significant role in WWE banning the use of prop (such as chair) strikes directly to the head. In general, the overall health of the roster and the backstage culture improved in the wake of the tragedy, which was viewed as a wake-up call. Wrestlers would still pass away prematurely, but not on WWE’s watch and not in such horrific circumstances.

On July 22, 2008, WWE officially became a PG-TV company, removing not just much of the violence from their content, but also things like blood and foul language.

The move, made in large part to appeal to a broader range of advertisers and with bolstering revenue as the driving force, also helped to soften the company’s image and rehabilitate their reputation as family-friendly entertainment.

To this day, the company refuses to acknowledge or actively promote Chris Benoit.

A WWE superstar for seven years and a major name in the industry before signing with Titan Sports, his legacy is a complicated one, but his horrific actions during the last weekend of his life preclude him from being celebrated by the publicly traded company. This policy will never change and Chris Benoit, as far as WWE are concerned, is persona non grata.

As WWE washed their hands of it all, the friends and family of Chris, Nancy and Daniel were left to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of the nonsensical and forgive the unforgivable.