Arturo Gatti's family still fighting for truth surrounding boxing champ's death

BY Larry Mcshane DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, July 4th 2010, 4:00 AM A year after boxer Arturo Gatti's bewildering death in Brazil, his brother rattles off a half-dozen reasons to suspect the gutsy ex-champion was murdered. And then Fabrizio Gatti slowly explains the single biggest reason to document - beyond any reasonable doubt - that the fearless fighter didn't hang himself on July 11, 2009. "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." This is the final bout of Arturo's storied career: a two-front posthumous battle waged by family and friends, with his 5-foot-2, 110-pound widow in the opposing corner. The first involves proving Gatti, a real-life "Rocky" renowned for his raw ring persona, did not use his wife's 48-inch purse strap to end his life. The second continues in a Canadian courtroom, where the Gattis are battling Amanda Rodrigues over Arturo's $6 million estate - left entirely to her in a will signed less than a month before his death. Though the family suspects that Rodrigues had a role in Gatti's death, the dark-haired beauty repeatedly proclaimed her innocence - to HBO, ESPN, the BBC and the Daily News. Brazilian authorities remain adamant that Gatti's death was a suicide, not a homicide. "You're never gonna convince me he wasn't murdered," counters Gatti's manager, Pat Lynch. "He was set up to be murdered that night." Rodrigues, 24, met Gatti while working at a New Jersey strip club. Their whirlwind romance preceded a volatile marriage. The warring couple were six weeks short of their second anniversary when they took a "second honeymoon" at a posh Brazilian seaside resort. Fabrizio Gatti says Rodrigues threatened his brother even before their departure, shouting at Arturo in a fight outside their mom's Montreal garage. "Come to Brazil!" a neighbor reportedly heard her scream. "You're going to see what I'm going to do to you!" Two-time titleholder Gatti, 37, turned up dead inside their hotel room in Porto de Galinhas, Brazil. The widow discovered the body - and was jailed on murder charges. But Rodrigues, beaming behind designer sunglasses, was freed on July 30 after authorities suddenly ruled the death a suicide. The new police version: A drunken Gatti - despondent over a fight with Rodrigues and their failing marriage - used her purse strap to hang himself, as his wife and son Arturo Jr. slept upstairs. "I want my good name back," she declared after the 180-degree swing that staggered Gatti's family, friends and fans. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/07/04/2010-07-04_in_this_corner__gatti_family_goes_to_mat_to_fight_wife_for_fortune.html#ixzz0sjaNj900