Arturo Gatti’s death
CBC’s The Fifth Estate has learned that Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti exhibited suicidal tendencies years before his 2009 death in Brazil, just one of several discoveries casting doubts on a private investigation that concluded he was murdered.
Questions have swirled about whether the three-time world boxing champion hanged himself or was slain by his wife ever since his body was discovered on July 12, 2009, in the Brazil hotel room where he was vacationing with his wife (Amanda Rodrigues) and their infant son (Arturo Jr).
Brazilian authorities originally declared it murder and arrested Rodrigues in her husband’s death. She was held in custody for nearly three weeks before an autopsy determined Gatti had committed suicide by hanging himself with his wife’s purse strap.
Private investigators hired by Gatti’s friends, however, concluded in a 300-page report that Gatti was murdered.
But The Fifth Estate has discovered that key facts were missing from the report.
“There are three investigations going on here” – says The Fifth Estate’s Bob Mckeown. “The Brazilians ruled it was suicide, the investigators hired by Arturo’s friends said it was murder, and then there was ours. And we’ll tell you what neither of the others did. Then — murder or suicide — you can make up your own mind.”
In court documents filed in 2006, a former girlfriend Gatti was living with at the time stated that he had ‘attempted suicide by overdosing on cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs’ the year prior.
Hospital records from New Jersey, a state the Montrealer temporarily called home, say that Gatti arrived at an emergency department in an ‘unresponsive’ state, testing positive for cocaine and alcohol.
Arturo Gatti.
To look at them together it’s clear – Amanda Gatti lives for her 3-year-old boy, Arturo Jr.
“He’s everything I asked God for” – Amanda told “48 Hours Mystery” correspondent Erin Moriarty in her first American television interview. “Junior makes me complete.”
In no small part, she says, because he’s the spitting image of his father… a man they’re both learning to live without.
“The smile is the same…just like his daddy” – she said. “I miss my husband very much. I miss him when I go to sleep…I miss him when I wake up…”
It’s a loss made all the more difficult by the shadow of suspicion that surrounds Amanda.
In July 2009, Amanda was arrested for murder and held before investigators shocked the world with their findings: Arturo Gatti, world class fighter who never gave up in the ring, had committed suicide.
“I knew. I knew. I knew” – Amanda said in broken English. “My husband kill himself. Oh my God, my husband killed himself.”
But even today, more than two years after Arturo’s death, many of his friends, family and fans refuse to believe he took his own life.
By late 2006, Arturo Gatti had been crowned welterweight champion and amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune when, Amanda Rodrigues, then a struggling Brazilian immigrant, says they met walking dogs near his home in New Jersey.
She says she had no idea who he was: “I remember when I find out he was a fighter, I told him … ‘Oh… I thought you was even a movie star…but not a fighter…because he was so cute…’”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcK4k-rbFWQ
The season premiere of “48 Hours Mystery” covers the controversial death of world championship boxer Arturo “Thunder” Gatti – who passed away tragically in 2009 while on vacation in Brazil from what Brazilian authorities first said was murder but later concluded was a suicide.
CBS 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty covers the case and interviews various people close to the boxer and Gatti’s widow Amanda Rodrigues Gatti who many people close to Arturo Gatti believe had something to do with his death speaks out for the first time about her rocky relationship with Arturo. Also interviewed in this episode are “Irish” Micky Ward, best known for his trilogy with Gatti and close friend of the late boxer.
The question remains was Arturo Gatti’s death homicide or suicide?
Watch “48 Hours Mystery” on CBS Saturday, September 24, 2011 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.