Arturo Gatti, Second Autopsy Points To a Hanging

[Drunken Cat]

There's a lot to be said about mental illness and depression as they relate to suicide, I agree with you there. But not every suicide is the direct result of mental illness.

Also, I wasn't making a judgment on anyone who has "taken that unfortunate step," as you put it. Suicide, by definition, is the ultimate form of quitting. Any negative connotation applied to this is someone else's judgment, not mine.

Speaking of Arguello, last time I checked there were su****ions of foul play in his alleged suicide as well.

Yes, and how quickly people forget.

The mere fact alone that he was mayor of Manugua, in a communist country where all information is state controlled supports that the case is at least su****ious. If it was a political assassination then such official reports must not be believed. Therefore, the entire case is inherently su****ious, being that there is no way to actually know if a cover up has occurred in Arguello's case.

[Danny Gunz]

Golden Boy Promotions probably drugged him and hung him... jk

Thats to bad it looks like he did commit suicide

[βetamax]

Can anyone actually believe this story? Because it doesn't take rocket science to figure out there was some form of cover up.

Let me get this straight? She came down at 6am to get a bottle & walked over him laying face down on the concrete floor & told the police & the press she thought he "drunkenly" slept? Who sleeps face down on a concrete floor- drunk or not. I am a woman, & I think I might have been just a little concerned for my husbands well being at that point, mad at him or not. And, am I incorrect in wondering how she missed the purse strap or the blood on the floor as well?
I don't know what kind of purses this woman had but my purse straps wouldn't hold a man up for 60 seconds. And by the looks of that one, i cast doubt on that whole theory.

If he was trying to commit suicide then why wouldn't he just take an overdose of this brazilian sleeping aid if it was sold over the counter?
And your telling me that almost 3wks. later after the 1st autopsy after all that they do to you- he still had this mystery drug in his system? That sounds like he had more than a small amount if it was still present- so how was he even functioning?

It amazes me that people aren't furious that Brazil is actually getting away with covering all this stuff up. I realize it'a third world country but come on how ridiculous is it that the story changes every day with these people? You don't put someone in jail for 3wks. from the beggining (while your investigating) unless your pretty sure they did it.

And I am going to say this for the record -One More tIme- The statement that was made by La Presse Of Canada is NOT an OFFICIAL statement by the cororner in Montreal or Dr. Badden. It is a statment made by an unknown source and pure bull**** & speculation. unfortunatley, every other paper is now copying that statement & saying that they heard this information.

I'm just asking- For one minute here does anything here sound right to you?
Arturo was my friend & he will be missed dearly & had he died by his own hand he wouldn't be missed any less. But He Didn't- wait for the facts - they will be released, being this patient sucks especially for his family.
You will get the truth & this is NOT it.

I agree. I'm not buying this "suicide" garbage for a second. It's an absolute joke.

[pfcwintergreen]

Gatti wasn't a quitter, and suicide is the ultimate form of quitting. Just my two cents.

This is a bit shallow isn't it? But if you're going to play psychiatrist by looking at his ring work,might you also notice that he fought recklessly and without regard for his health or future? Couldn't you speculate that, deep down, he may have had a sort of unconscious death wish?

Better yet, maybe he's just like every other human being who can't be explained and defined by his occupation.

[Doc Holliday]

This is a bit shallow isn't it? But if you're going to play psychiatrist by looking at his ring work,might you also notice that he fought recklessly and without regard for his health or future? Couldn't you speculate that, deep down, he may have had a sort of unconscious death wish?

Better yet, maybe he's just like every other human being who can't be explained and defined by his occupation.

True, all I know about Arturo Gatti is what I've seen him do in the ring and a quick biography here and there. I was just making a character observation about the man, and pointing out that suicide doesn't fit with what I know about him. But I’m not an expert on the case and I'm simply giving an opinion here. And since neither of us really knows what was going through his head, I can say your observations are just as shallow.

However, the facts of the case cast too much su****ion on the suicide theory. There is just too much that doesn’t add up to chalk it up to suicide because maybe Gatti secretly wanted to die all along.

[The Equaliser]

I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out why anyone can't see any reason why he wouldn't commit suicide...when all you have to do is do some research, uncover the stories, statement, interviews...that clearly show why he would:


He wasn't stabbed in the back of the head.
the injury was from one of the stones/rocks from the crowd who threw a rock at him and hit him in the head after he threw/pushed his wife by the throat at the bar. They cops saw the wound on the body and immediately assumed he had been stabbed because there was a steak knife on the floor nearby.
Plus - can you explain why, if a steak-knife was used, it would've been used once to make one solitary wound?
Get real.

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 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 piss-ass drunk and passed out.
Like the article states - they had a drunk fight at the bar and in a regrettable fit of drunken depression when he realised what he'd done and how bad things had gotten in thw town, Gatti just said "f*kc it."
It ain't like he's the first one to do such a dumb thing.

It really does seem 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 - and these cops would be highly motivated to get to the actual bottom of it, especially after they were foolish enough to jump to some conclusions of murder in the first 48 hours.
It would be incredibly bad for the Porto de Galinhas tourist trade for the place to be seen as a home for bottom-feeders, so I personally find it extremely unlikely that anything shady is going on in the investigation.
Just an initial incorrect assumption coupled with some ****** comments to the media.
But does it make sense that if you were going to 'stage' a suicide that you'd use a damn purse-strap as the hanging vehicle?
That itself makes the idea of a staged event almost ridiculous to me. If a murderer were trying to make it look like he'd committed suicide, they wouldn't use a purse-strap!! And you would NOT make anything look su****ious, as her not discovering his body until many hours later does.

Why so soon after changing the Will?
I would chalk that up to PURE 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 try to use a purse strap to hang himself?
Spontaneous decision - 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 su****ious? 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 guys - who would buy that? Really?
6 months from now she is in Belo Horizonte, with her couple million, and excuses herself to go back to Recife 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?
The same department that she's also suing?

I detest conspiracy theories.
When it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...the odds are pretty overpowering that it's a duck.
And that's the case here.

But look at the circumstances... here's a guy who is in a new marraige, one that is unhappy and maybe on it's last legs, hence the attempted reconcilliation and trips to Holland, France and Brazil - with the 2nd proposal in Paris.
He has recently made a huge change, forgoing the adulation that powered his get-up-and-go for the last 20 years. He now drunkenly assaults his wife, in public no less with his 11-month old baby there as well and a crowd of people rip him and throw stones at him and make him feel like a ****.
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.

So, the two separate autopsies now show and prove he wasn't beaten up, he wasn't restrained, he wasn't drugged and he wasn't strangled.

Oh, and I've got much more to say on this, so ask away and I shall glady enlighten you...

[airplane]

Curious...does anybody know what happened to the original lead investigator to this case?

Lead investigator Moises Teixeira

Surprisingly, he just disappeared from the face of the earth????

for those that are convinced that it was suicide..well i must say..you "GATTI-Believe!...you're wrong.

PFC wintergreen: willy bullet made a simplistic remark as a fan...how about the notion that Arturo would not want to quit on life because he was looking forward to raising his son more than anything you or anybody would ever fathom to imagine. maybe, in essence, Arturo died because he was willing to do whatever needed to be done in order to maintain a close relationship with his son....except suicide....maybe he did things that might have taken away several man-cards from his pride and some might have viewed him weak-minded towards Amanda, but when a man is faced with several dilemmas that a woman has the power to put him through to keep him from his son, well, damn, some might drink to suppress those horrible thoughts of him possibly never seeing his son again...but suicide....nah, he was too much of a father to just throw the towel in.

To ckrooster1 –you made a very interesting point regarding the whole timeline issue and how long it’s taken for the sleep drug in the blood issue to pop into the picture. Before the concept of the Brazilian sleep drug, Paulo alberes, the next lead investigator to take over the case after Moises, was apparently offended by the United States and Canadian’s doubts as to how the investigation was concluded…..well, by golly this is just one more thing, ummm, not in his favor

[ckrooster1]

I'M SURE YOU DO HAVE A LOT TO SAY... It is unfortunate for people reading that you have no real insight into the actual facts though. Your reading information from articles that don't even quote the actual source. Why would they have to hide it if it came from a reliable source?

[Ray*]

I believe he commited suicide and i hope people can move on now and let him rest in peace, Just because you watch someone on TV boxing it doesnt mean you know him personally, All this BS about he cannot commit suicide because he doesnt quit in the ring in just plain idiotic.

[ckrooster1]

Here you go...Told ya so....

The Quebec coroner's office vehemently denies a report that it has concluded boxer Arturo Gatti committed suicide.

It disputes a published story that it agrees with the Brazilian authorities who believe the former champion hanged himself.

The Quebec office has released a statement saying it has received only a portion of the documents it requested from Brazil.

It wants to dissociate itself from a story in Montreal's La Presse newspaper, which said it had obtained details of a second autopsy confirming suicide.

The coroner says that, given the complexity of the case, it might be months before it publishes its own findings.

Gatti's widow had expressed relief at the report in La Presse.

Amanda Rodrigues was initially suspected of killing her husband in July, but was quickly freed as Brazilian authorities determined Gatti committed suicide.

© The Canadian Press, 2009