R.I.P. Arturo Gatti

[hhascup]

JERSEY CITY, N.J.(AP)—The brother of boxer Arturo Gatti says the family may seek to exhume his body and have an autopsy conducted in Canada.

Joseph Gatti of Wyckoff, N.J. said Thursday that no one in the family believes the 37-year-old fighter committed suicide. They still suspect he was strangled by his Brazilian wife, Amanda Rodrigues.

Brazilian police ruled the death a suicide Thursday and a judge ordered Rodrigues’ release from jail just hours before a memorial Mass for Gatti in northern New Jersey.

Joseph Gatti, a former boxing champion like his brother, says the family is very disappointed in the Brazilian law enforcement community.

The memorial Mass was be held at St. John the Baptist, a Roman Catholic Church in Jersey City, which I just came back from

Thanks, Henry

[Ron Lipton]

I was a Criminal Investigator with the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office.

What is disturbing to me is that the initial reports kept mentioning a large kitchen knife and a bloody wound to the back of the sleeping champion's head.

What about that?

He hung himself with her purse straps and fell into a sleeping position in bed?
Am I missing something?

What the hell is going on here?

[diggity]

It's all bullshit. I hope his brother exhumes his body & gets some finality in this circus.

[hawk5ins]

THere is a lot of Bulshit going on about this.

The problem is, we don't what the bullshit is and what isn't.

NONE of us here no for sure whether or not the initial statements made by the police held any water or not.

The fact that the story has changed multiple times from there part adds to all of the confusion here.

We all lost a fighter who many of us became emotionally attached to.

But this all looked extremely sketchy from the beginning.

None of us know a valid accurate timeline and exactly what happpened. We have some irresponsible policeman speaking way out of turn and way too soon about what he "beleived" happened. His accusations and conclusions so soon after police were called to the scene, were utterly absurd and irresponsible.

Do I KNOW Gatti committed Suicide? I honestly have know Idea, if that is the case or if his wife killed him or if she had someone kill Gatti or someone assisted her in killing Gatti or if the bellboy killed Gatti.

NONE of us know. And becuase this was all so POORLY and amateurishly handled, I doubt any of us ever will.

Hawk

[diggity]

Yup thats about the thick of it. Even if he truly did kill himself, this is 3rd world kind of bullshit. Handled completely barbarically.

[Ron Lipton]

I would not want to travel anywhere outside the USA anymore, the way any kind of "Trouble" is handled is beyond belief, incompetence and administative lies with a policy which seemingly reflects that anything goes from A-Z.

The horror stories for tourists, Americans or otherwise in so many places fills the news all the time.

The blow to the back of his head piece of information existed from the beginning, did it not? Pictures of a bloody Kitchen knife, then the strangled by the purse straps.

He now supposedly HUNG HIMSELF, with purse straps that would take his full weight?

Between the death squads of the past, the attacks upon tourists on the beaches, the poverty, kidnappings of tourists for ransom including Mexico's drug gangs running amok, hotel room invasions for robbery and rape with obviously no real protection from any police.

Brazil is very beautiful but this investigation is as poorly handled as the opening of "In The Heat Of The Night," and its way past the time Gilespie begged Mr. Tibbs for some assistance.

Worse than Aruba if that is possible.

[gregbeyer]

if there are some shenanagans going on with the brazilian investigation... knife, no knife, hanging, not hanging, head wounds or not why wasn't his body autopsied when he returned to canada ? surely some of these questions could be answered.

if the body hung for several hours that would be evident in the condition of blood build up in the legs and the severity of ligature marks on the neck and throat. if there were a stab wound to the back of the head, well..... i had an uncle that hung himself and he evidently forgot to stick a knife in his head before he dropped. sorry to sound morbid but this is all so fishy.

why the photos of a knife and a purse strap if it has been decided he hung himself. how the hell would a purse strap be long enough to hang with ? it would have to be long enough to loop around the neck while also providing the length to make a sturdy knot as well as being long enough to provide drop length. the strap i saw in the photo was not the minimum 5 feet it would take to do that. i calculated that by using a belt measured around my neck and then adding the length it would take to tie a tight knot and remember if arturo were falling down drunk a tight knot would be difficult to perform.

this looks like a set up. if at the very least the cops are not complicit in a cover up after their initial statements it sounds to me like she stabbed him, choked him and then fretted for several hours before calling for help to stage a suicide.

does that make any sense ???

greg

[diggity]

here are a lot more details posted today on espn.com
wow
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/box...ory?id=4368620

[hhascup]

Police: Gatti hung himself from stairs
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Arturo Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column more than seven feet off the ground, Brazilian police said Friday as they released new details about the boxer's death.

Milena Saraiva, a police spokeswoman in the northeastern city of Recife, provided more information about Gatti's suicide a day after authorities reversed their stance on the case. Until Thursday, they insisted it was a homicide and the boxer's wife was tagged as the primary suspect.

"This case has been resolved. While the evidence at the scene first led us to think Gatti was murdered, the autopsy results and a detailed crime scene analysis simply pointed to a different outcome," Saraiva said.

On Thursday, a judge ordered the release of Gatti's wife, 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues, who had been held since July 12 in Recife. She and Gatti arrived with their 10-month-old son a few days before in the resort town of Porto de Galinhas, where they rented a two-level apartment.

Police ultimately concluded that Gatti hanged himself in the apartment early on July 11 from a wooden staircase column that was 7.3 feet off the ground. He stood on a stool and kicked it out from underneath him, police said. The autopsy report said Gatti was suspended for about three hours before his body fell to the floor.

Rodrigues said she was sleeping with the pair's son in an upstairs bedroom. She told police she went downstairs about 6 a.m. to get milk for the boy and saw Gatti's body on the floor, but assumed he was drunkenly sleeping. It was not until she went back downstairs at 9 a.m. that she discovered Gatti was dead and called police. Saraiva said no suicide note was found.

"The first investigators to arrive at the scene only saw his body on the floor and the bloodied strap near his body," Saraiva said. "They assumed his wife strangled him."

Saraiva said 17 witnesses told police that the pair got into a loud fight on a street near the beach in Porto de Galinhas the night before Gatti died. Saraiva said Gatti had seven cans of beer, along with two bottles of wine, over the course of dinner and partying at a bar.

Witnesses told police Gatti at one point picked up Rodrigues, who weighs about 100 pounds, by her chin with his right hand and tossed her to the ground.

Saraiva said at that point a security guard for a local hotel intervened, only to be punched in the face by Gatti. A small crowd that had gathered around the scene grew angry, with some throwing stones and even a bicycle at the boxer, the police spokeswoman said.

One stone hit Gatti in the back of the head, causing a wound that police originally said was caused by a small steak knife that was found near his body -- and which police showed off to reporters the day after Gatti's death.

The fracas eventually broke up, and Gatti and Rodrigues returned to the apartment in separate taxis.

In an telephone interview with The Associated Press as she walked out of jail Thursday, Rodrigues said Gatti may have killed himself because he feared she would leave him after their fight, one of many during a rocky two-year marriage.

"I believe that when we got home and he saw that he hurt me, he thought I would leave him, that I would tell him to just let me go, that I would separate from him," she said. "He did that in a moment of weakness. He was drunk, maybe he didn't know what he was doing, maybe he thought I would leave him the next day."

According to records at the Court of Quebec's criminal and penal division, Gatti was charged on April 16 for violating a restraining order that had been filed against him. Records didn't indicate who filed the restraining order, but Gatti's mother, Ida, confirmed it was Rodrigues who had taken one out against him.

Gatti, a Canadian who captured two world titles in his 16-year pro career, retired in 2007 with a record of 40-9.

Many of his friends and family have expressed disbelief at the suicide ruling, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement Friday that government officials will seek more information from Brazilian authorities on the Gatti investigation and its findings.

Thanks, Henry

[kikibalt]

http://myboxingfans.com/2009/07/phot...0%99s-funeral/

[hhascup]

http://myboxingfans.com/2009/07/phot...0%99s-funeral/

Yes, I was their last night. They had another one last Saturady and I was one of the speakers and rung the bell 9 times in celebration of him life.

[hhascup]

MONTREAL (AP) - Boxer Arturo Gatti's body was exhumed Friday to allow the Quebec coroner's office to perform a new autopsy at his family's request.

The development comes a day after Brazilian police classified Gatti's death as a suicide.

Until Thursday, police in the northeastern Brazil city of Recife considered it a homicide, with his wife as the prime suspect. Now, police say Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column more than seven feet off the ground.

Gilles Ethier, deputy chief coroner of the western part of the Province of Quebec, said Gatti's family had retained an American pathologist, who will assist with the autopsy Saturday morning at the Montreal morgue.

"Clearly, it's necessary for us to pursue the investigation," Ethier said. "Of course, it's a little more complex for the pathologist because the body has been embalmed."

Gatti's Montreal funeral was July 20.

Many of his friends and family have expressed disbelief at the suicide ruling, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement Friday that government officials will seek more information from Brazilian authorities on the Gatti investigation and its findings.

Ellen Haley, a spokeswoman for Main Events, the longtime promoter of Gatti's bouts, said in a statement "we do not believe that he took his own life."

She said members of the Gatti family, along with his boxing manager Pat Lynch, will carry out their own investigation. "We believe that once the results of that investigation are revealed, the truth will come to light and justice will be done," Haley said.

Gatti's wife, 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues, was released Thursday after being held since July 12 in Recife. She and Gatti arrived with their 10-month-old son a few days before in the resort town of Porto de Galinhas, where they rented a two-level apartment.

Milena Saraiva, a Recife police spokeswoman, provided more information Friday about Gatti's death.

Police ultimately concluded he hanged himself in the apartment early on July 11 from a wooden staircase column that was 7.3 feet off the ground. He stood on a stool and kicked it out from underneath him, police said. The autopsy report said Gatti was suspended for about three hours before his body fell to the floor.

Rodrigues said she was sleeping with the couple's son in an upstairs bedroom. She told police she went downstairs about 6 a.m. to get milk for the boy, saw Gatti's body on the floor and assumed he was drunkenly sleeping. It was not until she went back downstairs at 9 a.m. that she discovered Gatti was dead and called police. Saraiva said no suicide note was found.

"The first investigators to arrive at the scene only saw his body on the floor and the bloodied strap near his body," Saraiva said. "They assumed his wife strangled him."

Saraiva said 17 witnesses told police the couple got into a loud fight on a street near the beach in Porto de Galinhas the night before Gatti died. Saraiva said Gatti had seven cans of beer, along with two bottles of wine, over the course of dinner and partying at a bar.

Thanks, Henry

[Ron Lipton]

Incredible really. The information on this story has changed so much from the onset.

Who knows anymore what the real truth is. Just a horrible tragedy.
Hard to believe he would kill himself over one woman like that. Very bizzare.

[hhascup]

MONTREAL (AP)—A second autopsy performed at the request of former boxer Arturo Gatti’s family has not ruled out homicide in his death.

Michael Baden, the former chief pathologist for the New York State Police and host of the HBO cable TV show “Autopsy,” said Saturday that an autopsy performed by Quebec coroners found that an investigation by Brazilian authorities was incomplete.

The second autopsy came two days after Brazilian police classified Gatti’s death a suicide.

“There were definite injuries that had not been seen by the Brazilian authorities, but one needs a lot of additional information, including a toxicology which isn’t available yet, to come to a conclusion as to whether it’s homicide or suicide,” Baden said.

Until Thursday, police in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife considered Gatti’s death a homicide and held his wife Amanda Rodrigues as the prime suspect. Now, police say Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column more than seven feet off the ground.

Gatti’s family has rejected the conclusion that he committed suicide at an upscale resort in Brazil on July 11.

Following the autopsy, Baden said it was apparent that the Brazilian investigation was incomplete. Toxicology tests will take place in Montreal in the coming weeks.

“The family (and pathologist’s office) are waiting for results from the Brazilian police as to the scene of death and circumstances in Brazil before a final conclusion can be made,” Baden said. “But the pathologists here (in Quebec) did a super job at finding things, including injuries, that were missed in Brazil.”

Gatti, a Canadian who captured two world titles in his 16-year pro career, retired in 2007 with a record of 40-9.

Many of his friends and family have expressed disbelief at the suicide ruling, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement Friday that government officials will seek more information from Brazilian authorities.

Ellen Haley, a spokeswoman for Gatti’s longtime promoter Main Events, said in a statement that “we do not believe that he took his own life.” She said members of the Gatti family, along with his former manager Pat Lynch, will carry out their own investigation.

“We believe that once the results of that investigation are revealed, the truth will come to light and justice will be done,” the statement said.

Earlier this week, friends close to the Gatti family brought a computer to the Montreal police, claiming it had evidence of interest to his death. Montreal police have not searched the contents of the computer, and are making arrangements to have it sent to Brazilian authorities, Montreal police Constable Ian Lacoursiere said.

Gatti’s 23-year-old wife was released earlier this week after being held since July 12 in Recife. She and Gatti arrived with their 10-month-old son a few days before in the resort town of Porto de Galinhas, where they rented a two-level apartment.

“I am absolutely sure that the second autopsy will reconfirm that he committed suicide,” Rodrigues’s attorney, Celio Avelino, said by telephone.

Repeated calls to Rodrigues went unanswered.

Milena Saraiva, a Recife police spokeswoman, provided more information Friday about Gatti’s death.

Police concluded that he hanged himself in the apartment early on July 11 from a wooden staircase column that was about 7 feet off the ground. He stood on a stool and kicked it out from under him, police said. The autopsy report said Gatti was suspended for about three hours before his body fell to the floor.

Thanks, Henry

[StingerKarl]

If this is true, what kind of a person was this guy out of the ring?

His wife already had a restraining order placed on him for physical abuse, and if you see her, the little thing dosen't weigh a hundred pounds!

What kind of a person beats a little lady like that up?

The security guard should be commended for his heroism by putting himself in a life threatening situation, possibly saving her life from this drunken, out of control and deadly madman if these 17 witness statements are indeed true.

The crowd didn't stand by and let him get away with it, though.

Arturo Gatti: Second Autopsy a Go; Police Details
By Mark Vester

[jim glen]

Man could he have been that distraught... " without knowing", I somehow don't think so!

Jim.

[DscribeDC]

I was a Criminal Investigator with the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office.

What is disturbing to me is that the initial reports kept mentioning a large kitchen knife and a bloody wound to the back of the sleeping champion's head.

What about that?

He hung himself with her purse straps and fell into a sleeping position in bed?
Am I missing something?

What the hell is going on here?

I'm afraid I'm with Ron on this one...Gatti changes his will to leave everything to the wife...Three weeks later, while on vacation in the wife's backyard, he dies under mysterious circumstances. The wife is charged with murder, but everyone does a sudden about-face and sets her free to collect everything. Including $1 million in life insurance.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I have to believe hanging yourself is not easy, especially when you're shitfaced drunk. And why would you try to commit suicide by stabbing yourself in the back of the head with a steak knife? Wouldn't a public figure leave a suicide note? Could you hang for three hours without your wife realizing it? I haven't seen the purse strap, but I just can't imagine how you would use it to hang yourself...

Ron, you ever see anything like this?

This is all just too too fishy.

[TKO11]

This is just one guy's opinion, but it sounds to me like everything has been explained. He wasn't stabbed in the back of the head, the injury was from someone who threw a rock at him and hit him in the head after he threw his wife by the throat at the bar. They cops saw the wound on the body and assumed he had been stabbed because there was a steak knife on the floor nearby.

As far as "how can he hang for 3 hours without being seen", they explained that too - that he did it after she and the kid went to bed. The purse strap broke after three hours and when she came down at 6am and saw him lying sprawled on the floor she just figured he was pissy-ass drunk and passed out.

Like I said a few days ago, it sounds just like they had a drunk fight at the bar and in a regrettable fit of drunken depression Gatti said "Fuck it." It ain't like he's the first one to dosuch a dumb thing.

It sounds to me like people are dying to see a coverup and conspiracy in this - but from all official accounts, it just isn't there. A posh resort in Brazil isn't exactly Burma guys - and these cops would be highly motivated to get to the actual bottom of it. It would be incredibly bad for the tourist trade for the place to be seen as a home for bottom-feeders, so I personally find it extremely unlikely that anything hinky is going on in the investigation. Just an initial incorrect assumption coupled with some stupid comments to the media.

[jim glen]

TKO, I too have thought out reports in favour of a simple explanation and I'm sure many others have also... That conclusion and the more accurate discription of the event might prove to be true.

However it just seems so 'unlikely', because like Gatti's family we can't come to terms with a Gatti suicide. I also don't believe that people are just happy or wanting this little snipe of a wife to be found guilty, I don't believe that is the feeling of most of us!

I think most of us just think that the 'suspicious' circumstances suggest more here, perhaps much more. Whether his wife and/or others connected to her, or a robbery gone wrong or some other parties or reasons played a part in it.

It just seems so sudden and out of character and 'suspicious' that's all.

[hhascup]

Gatti Friends Outraged at Suicide Ruling

Here's a video that was taken last Thursday at the Mass in Jersey City for Gatti.

http://www.wpix.com/videobeta/watch/...9ad6&src=front

[DscribeDC]

TKO, just too many questions...

Why so soon after changing the will?

If he was going to kill himself, why thousands of miles from home?

Why not leave a note?

Why choose such a patently bizarre manner of suicide?

How do you mistake a bloody suicide by hanging for a passed-out drunk?

Why the sudden 180 on the theory of his death?

There are just way too many unanswered questions here. Let's see what the Canadian autopsy turns up...

Alternate theory: wife gets hubby to change will, wife convinces husband to second-honeymoon in her country (where she knows people), wife is already thinking of splitting and final fracas convinces her, boxer gets hammered, wife calls sketchy old boyfriend, wife and boyfriend do a number on boxer, wife promises payoffs to law enforcement once estate is probated, wife walks.

I hate to say it, but it has a certain logic to it.

[TKO11]

But does it make sense that if you were going to stage a suicide that you'd use a flipping purse as the hanging vehicle? That alone makes the idea of a staged event almost silly to me. If you were trying to make it look like he'd committed suicide, you would use a rope, and nothing else. And you would NOT make anything look suspicious, as her not discovering his body until many hours later does.

Why so soon after changing the will? I would chalk that up to coincidence (despite all the conspiracy theories about everything under the sun, coincidences actually do occur from time to time). Why no note? The guy was juiced - when you have a skin full of booze and are depressed beyond all hell for screwing up your marriage and for beating your wife in front of a crowd, a crowd which incidentally made it clear they hate you and physically assaulted you for your actions, you tend not to do things very rationally.

How do you mistake a hanging suicide for passed out? I think it's pretty obvious the way they described the scene - he hanged himself after she went to bed, and the purse strap broke after a few hours, spilling him onto the floor. When she came down a few hours later he was lying on his face on the floor. I can't speak for anyone else, but I grew up with an alcoholic father and finding his drunk ass laying on the floor on a Sunday morning was par for the course most of the time. And yes, I actually left him there most of the time too, until he woke up enough to drag his ass up himself.

Why did Arturo use a purse strap to hang himself? Because he was on vacation at a resort in Brazil. Other than that, the electric cord on the coffee maker was probably the most lethal hanging device in the suite. I would venture to guess that there weren't any lengths of nylon rope made readily available to resort guests just in case they felt particularly self-loathing at any given time. If he'd used a hanger would it have been less suspicious? How about his shoelaces? My guess is he saw it, said "that'll work" and did it before even thinking about it too hard.

Why the 180 on the theory of his death? I think it's clear that the cops rushed to judgement based on some faulty assumptions and once the forensic team saw what was what it showed their assumptions to be wrong. There wasn't anything (the purse strap, the wound to the head, why it took hours to figure out he was dead) that wasn't found to have a logical explanation.

"Wife promises payoffs once estate is probated"? Come on David - who would buy that? Six months from now she is in Canada, with her couple mill, and excuses herself to go back to Brazil with a manilla envelope full of $100s to hand over to the local police chief? A police chief who incidentally agreed to let her go because he trusts her to make her way back with his taste once the money rolls in?

As pretty much anyone that hangs out on the Off Topic board knows, I detest conspiracy theories. When it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, while it isn't impossible that it is actually a llama, odds are pretty overpowering that it's a duck. I believe that's the case here.

No matter what Mickey Roarke says, nobody was inside Gatti's head. But look at the circumstances... Here's a guy who is in a new marraige, one that is unhappy. He has recently made a huge change, forgoing the adulation that powered his get-up-and-go for the last 20 years. He assaults his wife, and a crowd of people rip him and throw shit at him and make him feel loike a shit. Now, with the ended career, busted marriage, feeling miserable and hated, probably like everything that means anything to him is now gone.... to think it's farfetched that he might have been suicidal is to ignore a lot of realities, I think. And being drunk makes it worse - when you're drunk self loathing is exxagerated by a factor of ten, and so is self-destructive behavior. In my opinion, it's all sad, and unfortunate and stupid, but it makes sense that it went down the way they are saying.

[DscribeDC]

You could be right. Who knows?

But there are any number of ways bribes or payoffs could be made. It would hardly be necessary for Amanda to fly to Brazil with an envelope full of Benjamins. Come on...That's just naive.

Also, I wonder how the cops mistook a wound caused by a thrown rock for a knife wound. How does that happen?

Not to be morbid, but doghouse boxing somehow got a copy of the crime scene photo. I'm curious why the cops say he kicked the stool over to hang himself, but in the photo it's still upright.

Why did the Brazilians only do a partial autopsy, even though the death was initially ruled a homicide?

I don't know the truth, and as GorDoom will attest, I am definitely not a conspiracy buff. But it will be interesting to see what autopsy II shows. They are already saying that the Brazilians overlooked bruises on the body...

[hagler04]

This is just one guy's opinion, but it sounds to me like everything has been explained. He wasn't stabbed in the back of the head, the injury was from someone who threw a rock at him and hit him in the head after he threw his wife by the throat at the bar. They cops saw the wound on the body and assumed he had been stabbed because there was a steak knife on the floor nearby.

As far as "how can he hang for 3 hours without being seen", they explained that too - that he did it after she and the kid went to bed. The purse strap broke after three hours and when she came down at 6am and saw him lying sprawled on the floor she just figured he was pissy-ass drunk and passed out.

Like I said a few days ago, it sounds just like they had a drunk fight at the bar and in a regrettable fit of drunken depression Gatti said "Fuck it." It ain't like he's the first one to dosuch a dumb thing.

It sounds to me like people are dying to see a coverup and conspiracy in this - but from all official accounts, it just isn't there. A posh resort in Brazil isn't exactly Burma guys - and these cops would be highly motivated to get to the actual bottom of it. It would be incredibly bad for the tourist trade for the place to be seen as a home for bottom-feeders, so I personally find it extremely unlikely that anything hinky is going on in the investigation. Just an initial incorrect assumption coupled with some stupid comments to the media.

I agree with TKO11. People unfortunately seem to be holding on to a fairytale perception to avoid what looks to be the truth. On also has to remember this man suffered an extreme amount of brain trauma from his boxing career so to me him suddenly 'snapping' makes absolute sense.

[diggity]

It very well could be the truth but it would have been easier to swallow had the investigation not been handled by a bunch of unprofessionals.

[hawk5ins]

misdirection aside to all of this:

Does ANYONE here have an issue with two grown adults being out at a Bar Drunk off their asses while thier 10 month old Child is alone in their hotel room sleeping. Again...10 month old child ALONE in a hotel room while the parents are out at a bar Drunk/drinking.

We probably will never know the full truth here on how Gatti Died (though I tend to beleive it was indeed a suicide carried out by a depressed, irrational, drunken Gatti) or if his wife did or did not have a hand in his death, but I think we can all conclude based on how BOTH acted as it pertained to their child, that NEITHER was an Angel that we should look upon as someone to be admired.

Gatti as a fighter, was a wonderful and exciting athlete to watch and cheer for.

As a human being, I think there are some things about him that are more than just a little questionable.

I would say that also applies to his wife as well.

Hawk

[gregbeyer]

one problem for me, though the new story seems plausible, is that the brazilian police (keystone cops) did not not at first report a fight in the bar, or the fact that she thought gatti was asleep on the FLOOR or a rock throwing incident until what ? 2 1/2 to 3 weeks after his death.

i hope baden can tell a stab wound from a rock throwing injury. of course maybe after the canadian autopsy the results willbe sealed...

greg

[DscribeDC]

Greg: I think if Baden finds any inconsistencies, they will be trumpeted in every available media outlet. No worries there.

I'm no expert, but the medical community must have so much data on hanging victims it's hard for me to believe that it could be mistaken for anything else.

Was the neck stretched? Were there signs of a struggle? Did blood pool in the lower extremities? Was the body moved post-mortem?

I am looking forward to the answers to these questions...

[PD99]

I've read that the Quebec Coroner noted injuries that were not referenced in the original autopsy and has duly requested ALL relevant paperwork from the Brazilian authorities so it will take a few wks before a conclusion is reached.

On one hand, one might conclude initial and gross police ineptitude. On the other, a later cover up.

Initially, at the scene, all that was noted was the bloodied purse strap, a knife and of course Gatti's body. Fast forward to the final conclusion, Gatti hung himself by a stair case column, kicking out a stool from beneath him, choking to death and eventually falling to the fall after the strap broke.

How was a now, presumably near by stool, (likely over turned) not noted in the first instance and how is the near by knife now somehow of no consequence (possibly used to cut off the purse strap if it wasn't one of those detatchable types - who knows)?

Imo, the use of the wife's own personal effect (purse strap) and not Gatti's (say an easily travelled and more sturdy trouser belt) is reasonably suspicious It certainly should not be discounted merely because it appears "too" suspicious to have been used in what might have otherwise been a heat of the moment murder.

I don't recall reading that the wife even suggested a suicide early in the piece - rather, didn't she suggest that someone else may've murdered Gatti? So much incomplete, fragmented and contrary bs flying around, it's hard to keep track of what was, what now isn't and what currently is.

Just on the child - and it's disturbing that the child was exposed to any of the altercations and left alone for any length of time but I also recall reading that, after the fracas, the child travelled back to the villa with Gatti (has this changed?), after which the child was then left alone (properly confirmed - not left with a third party?) when Gatti headed back to find his wife who apparently returned in the meantime.

I'm looking forward to a LOT more answers also, and this thing may well have a few more twists left in it yet.

[gregbeyer]

pd99,

yes ! the stool. great question. how was that missed.

greg