By Mark Vester
Three suicides are being investigated in the boxing world. The families of Arturo Gatti, Alexis Arguello and Edwin Valero are investigating their deaths. All three were ruled as suicides in the last year.
Gatti was found dead in a hotel room in Brazil nearly a year ago. Local police believed the there was foul play and arrested Gatti's wife, Amanda Rodrigues, for the crime. After several weeks of having her in custody, she was released when an autopsy ruled Gatti's death as a suicide.
A new autopsy, at the request of the family, was done by forensic pathologist Michael Baden. He raised doubts about Gatti's death being a suicide. He found that Gatti's Adam's apple was fractured, an injury more consistent with strangulation, and he wrote the ligature marks on Gatti's neck did not match with Rodrigues' purse strap, which Brazilian police ruled as the object Gatti used to hang himself.
Fabrizio Gatti spoke with the New York Daily News and said he and his family will continue their fight to prove Arturo was murdered. The family suspect his widow had a role in Arturo's death and they have an ongoing legal battle over his estate. Gatti's will was changed to leave everything to Rodrigues less than a month before the couple left to Brazil.
"For his kids, growing up, I don't want them to think, 'My father is a coward who left me to grow up all alone,'" says the boxer's anguished kid brother. "I'm going to find a way to prove it, that he didn't kill himself."
"Who deserves my brother's sweat?" Fabrizio says. "The kids, when they grow up. Not [Rodrigues]. She wants to live like a queen on other people's sweat."
Hall of fame former champion Alexis Arguello was said to have committed suiced last July by shooting himself in the chest at close range with a gun. He was found dead in his home by police in Managua. Arguello's son and daughter fight to prove that their father was murdered, likely as a result of a politcal killing. Arguello was the mayor of Managua.
Arguello's daughter says her father had a lot of makeup applied on his face for the funeral to cover up bruises on his face. She saw there was excessive makeup on him and began to wipe it off and the bruises on his face were revealed.
"If he killed himself why he was so abused? I have a picture that shows he had a cut on his nose. I asked Karla (the widow) and she said that when he shot himself he fell forward and hit his face on the floor or something, but when one is sitting on one side of the bed and you are shooting yourself with a 9mm pistol, one is not going to fall forward, he'll fall back from the impact of a bullet." were the comments of his daughter Dora Arguello, and his son, Alexis Arguello Jr., to Nicaragua Hoy.
In the case of Edwin Valero, he was arrested on April 18 for the murder of his wife, Jennifer Carolina, in a hotel located in the city of Valencia in Venezuela. The following day he was found hanging in cell. Valero's family don't believe the fighter killed himself. They believe someone within the police station in Carabobo killed him.
Valero's family requested the exhumation of his body and an autopsy was conducted. The family has been waiting for the results for a month. They continue to press for details on the findings but nobody in Venezuela is getting back to them. In the latest headlines, Valero's family is reaching out to president Hugo Chavez to assist them in their fight to get Valero's autopsy results. Chavez was a close friend of Valero.
Send News Tips and Comments To Mark Vester @ boxingvester@gmail.com
