July 13, 2020 • 62 mins
WWE Superstar Chris Benoit had it all. He was a world wrestling champion, a prosperous career, and a loving family.
Chris Benoit also had demons in his head from years of abuse in the name of sports entertainment. WWE Superstar Chris Benoit went from a loving family man and dedicated friend, to a reclusive violent wolverine that mimicked his WWE gimmick.
Chris Benoit, known in the WWE as the Canadian Crippler, became a Canadian killer when a fateful weekend he murdered his wife Nancy Benoit and son Daniel Benoit in a double murder suicide.
Listen to this special solo episode with Lady of Scarlet Brittney flying solo to discuss the tremendous wrestling career of WWE Superstar Chris Benoit and his tragic departure from best in the world to the most heinous real life heel in WWE history.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brittney Sherman (00:40):
Hey, Hey,
Sonia Meza-Leon (00:41):
Scarlett autos.
We are back and I am looking forwardto this episode in particular, because
number one, I get to take a little breakand sit back and listen to Brittany.
Tell me a story, whichis so exciting right now.
And the reason I'm excitedabout it is because she's, she
is excited about the story.
So, um, without further adohere is Brittany Sherman talking
(01:03):
to me about the black Dahlia.
Brittney Sherman (01:05):
Well, I told you I was going to throw you a
little bit of surprise and, um,
I guess I'll say without furtherado, I am not going to cover
the black doll yet tonight.
What I know, I know.
And this was a last minutedecision, like four hours ago.
(01:30):
I decided to change it up and.
Here's why I decided to change itbecause you believe you did that.
I, I know.
So the black doll yet is a topic that hasfascinated me for years when we started
doing this podcast, I, that was oneof the first topics I wanted to cover.
(01:52):
And as I really started investigatingand learning about the black Dalia, uh,
what I found is that the informationout there is pretty straight forward.
Every article I read, every podcastI listened to about it, it all
(02:14):
had the same information and noneof it was new information from
what's been around there forever.
And the most interestinginformation that is out there is
all subjective, conjecture about.
Who could be responsiblefor those killings.
And there's a lot of really interesting,fascinating narrative conversations
(02:38):
about the occult about devil worshipabout, uh, really, I don't see,
Sonia Meza-Leon (02:44):
I don't, I don't know much about the black Dahlia, so I was
so looking forward to you telling me
Brittney Sherman (02:48):
no, but here's the issue that I have with it.
All of that is just likepotentially made up.
Like there's no actual real information.
Like there's, it's not factual.
And there's another reason why Iwanted to switch it out because
this isn't factual information.
And a lot of it could be hyperbole.
(03:09):
Maybe it's factual.
If it is, it's like the mostunbelievable story in the world.
And it, at some point maybe I willget to it, but there's another reason
I wanted, I decided to change it upbecause I wasn't super confident because
the stories were just kind of all over.
And there wasn't real hardevidence to support it.
(03:30):
I wanted to talk about a topicthat I felt like I knew just about
everything there is to know about it.
Oh.
And I felt like I'm not going to go offbook per se, but something that I feel
like I can talk about without needingto, to take notes and read much about it.
(03:50):
So the topic I am actually goingto cover tonight is the Crispin
wad, double murder suicide.
What the
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:02):
fuck is that?
Brittney Sherman (04:05):
I
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:05):
can't believe you threw me for a loop.
I'm so excited.
I'm so excited because now Ireally don't have to say anything.
So
Brittney Sherman (04:13):
I almost, I almost texted you earlier to tell you, I,
I changed my mind, but I thought,no, I want to get your raw reaction.
And I'm so glad you
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:24):
didn't.
I'm so glad
Brittney Sherman (04:25):
you didn't.
That's awesome.
Uh, so, okay.
So black Dalia depths, I think, well,black Dahlia side, but that's a topic
I think I'm going to still continue togo to, I'm going to learn more about,
because it is interesting, but becausethere's so much like, well, maybe it's
this, or maybe it's that, or maybe it'sthis, or maybe it's that, or who knows.
(04:46):
Maybe it's this completely differentthing or until I can feel like I get
like some real narrowing down, thisis more of the likely situation.
That's kind of why I wantedto put it off to the side.
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:58):
Okay.
So we're still going to talk aboutthe black Dahlia in the future, but
Brittney Sherman (05:01):
not right now.
Exactly, exactly.
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:04):
Fair enough.
Let's go
Brittney Sherman (05:05):
roll with it.
All right.
So, um, black delegate aside,uh, we are talking about the.
Double murder, suicide.
Uh, Nancy, Daniel, and Chris Benwah.
That took place between June22nd and June 24th, 2007.
(05:30):
And based on your response, I think,you know what we're talking about?
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:35):
I is
Brittney Sherman (05:36):
this, the wrestling guy is the wrestling guy.
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:39):
Oh my God.
You totally threw me for a loop.
I don't know anything about this.
So you are going to
Brittney Sherman (05:43):
have to tell me this.
All right.
Well, feel free to jump in withquestions, but, um, so w you know,
I should probably take a deep breathhere because we're, we're kind of being
lighthearted and laughing and joking.
Uh, this is, uh, this isan extremely tragic story.
And, uh, this is one that as, as I said,at the top, I know very, very well.
(06:08):
And I feel comfortable with not tosay that I know everything about it,
but I want to take you through notjust the crimes, but really the key
points and life of Chris and Nancy.
Benwah leading up to thefateful weekend in June of 2007.
(06:31):
So Chris Ben wall is a Canadian, wasa Canadian professional wrestler.
Uh, he was considered a, uh, hewas, he was a stellar standout,
one of the best in the world.
He was a world champion, professionalwrestler, uh, air quotes.
(06:52):
If you want with world champion,uh, he, he wrestled all over
the world from Mexico to Japan.
Canada.
And of course in the United States,he got his start in the eighties in
stampede wrestling, which is knownfor, uh, wrestling fans out there.
(07:13):
And even those who might not bewrestling fans, uh, it was run
by Stu Hart, the father of Bret,the Hitman Hart and Owen Hart.
And it's where the Britishbulldogs came from.
And B it was the, uh, the premierwrestling territory in Canada.
And from his roots in Canada, hethen went to, uh, wrestle in Mexico
(07:40):
where he teamed with who would becomehis best friend, Eddie Guerrero.
Uh, Eddie Guerrero was achampion Lucia Liberi wrestler.
Uh, he comes from a long lineof, uh, Lucia Libris wrestlers,
the Guerrero family, his.
Uh, nephew Chapo.
(08:01):
And you he's like a coupleof years younger than him.
Uh, his, uh, uncle Chapo, Sr.
And, uh, Eddie was also known aroundthe world, but Chris really gained
his biggest popularity when hewent to Japan and wrestled as the
(08:22):
Pegasus kid and Japanese wrestling isknown for its more realistic style.
It is hard-hitting, uh, theydon't pull the punches per se.
The, uh, the hits on the mat are brutal.
The kicks are real.
(08:43):
The holds are meant to hurt that chokeholds are meant to choke you out.
Uh, it's called hardstyleand Chris took the.
To heart and, uh, Russell wrestledhard and he largely mimicked his
wrestling style after a, anotherwrestler who he met and idolized in
(09:10):
Canada, in stampede wrestling, whoalso went onto the WWF dynamite kid
who was part of the British bulldogs.
And one of dynamite kids, signaturemoves was a top rope diving head butt
onto a promo opponent laying on the mat.
And that
Sonia Meza-Leon (09:30):
wasn't that like the Jimmy, the snicker?
No, he did like this flying squirrel kind
Brittney Sherman (09:34):
of thing.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what a flyingsquirrel is, but he does splash.
Yes.
But so imagine instead of a splash andlanding on your belly, you are leading
with your head and you're landing on your.
So he's why who did that?
So that's what Crispin law tookup after dynamite kid who learned
(10:00):
that move from Harley race andHarley race was Oop to terrible.
These are all porn.
These sound like all porn, butHarley race was a, he was like
a king of Southern wrestling.
Literally his, he wentby a king Harley race.
He, uh, you know, he told afterhe did it for years, he told
everyone don't ever do it.
(10:21):
It's gonna mess up your head.
Then Tom Billington, thedynamite kid started doing it.
And dynamite told Ben watt don't do this.
Ben watt did it and madeit his signature move.
It looks as bad as it sounds if not worse.
Uh, he, his goal was to dive headfirstand tried to connect with the neck
(10:44):
shoulder head area of his pronoun.
So, well, Chris was learning the ropesin Canada and Japan, Nancy Benwah.
His future wife was becoming astaple of Southern wrestling in
the NWA and Florida championshipwrestling your territory song now.
Sonia Meza-Leon (11:12):
I think that the last time I watch wrestling, I
think dusty Rhodes was involved.
Well, this
Brittney Sherman (11:17):
would have been me.
Rick flares would have been thedusty Rhodes Ric flair time.
And so this is the mid to late eighties.
Nancy is getting involvedand she joins a stable.
They're called a group of wrestlers ledby Kevin Sullivan and Kevin Sullivan.
Is this a character?
(11:39):
He portrays a character.
Who's a cult leader, devil worshipperand Nancy goes by the name fallen
angel a as one of Kevin's fault.
Well quickly life imitates art and Nancyhaving fallen in love and get married.
(12:01):
So, uh, now we have Nancy Sullivanand Kevin Sullivan married and they
go in, go from Florida championshipwrestling to Georgia wrestling, which
would become the WCW world championship.
In the nineties, Crispin walking backfrom Japan, and then he signed a long-term
(12:22):
contract with WCW in 1995, as a premierfeatured wrestler at this time, WCW
was famous for, they had whole Cogan.
They had macho man, Randy Savage soon,the, a NWI was going to be famous.
And you had guys like Crispin woah andEddie Guerrero that were very small.
(12:45):
They're under six foot they're, uh, theyfirst were considered cruiser weights,
which are guys I don't, I don't knowwhat the standard is, but like under
220 pounds or something like that, smallguys, I said a cruiser, like, what is it
referring to a little guy, little guy.
Yeah.
I think it's a backtick Ithink it's a boxing term also.
I think, I know, I know there'sI know there's a UFC division
(13:08):
called cruiserweight also.
Uh, but essentially Eddie and, and Chriswere, uh, were premiere cruiser weights.
They knew each other from workingwith each other previously and they
found a lot of frustration becausethey routinely would steal the show by
putting on the best performance, butwere never considered top caliber guys.
(13:31):
So later in the nineties, KevinSullivan became head Booker.
Remember, Kevin is married to Nancyand head Booker means he essentially
decides the creative for the show anddecides to write a storyline where
his real life wife Nancy gets into arelationship with Chris and the storyline.
(13:57):
Is that Kevin B.
Living up to his psychotickind of Satanist type character
is too much for Nancy.
And so she seeks the consultationor support or whatever.
Yeah.
That's what
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:12):
she's looking for.
His consultation.
I'm sure he has a big consultation.
Hey, quick, wait.
So back up, hold on a
Brittney Sherman (14:20):
second.
Kevin Sullivan was here, wrestler.
He was a wrestler, but he wasalso like a behind the scenes guy.
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:25):
I feel like he was like, from that Sullivan, wasn't there like
a Sullivan family that was like Gordy.
No, that was Gordon soul.
Was it Gordon Sullivan?
That was
Brittney Sherman (14:33):
Gordon.
There was an announcer.
Right.
So
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:36):
right.
Sorry.
Okay.
Got it.
That's the guy.
I remember the littlecoma where he was so cute.
My dad loved that guy.
He had like these big glasses
Brittney Sherman (14:44):
and
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:44):
he was always standing between these wrestlers who were spitting
Brittney Sherman (14:48):
all over him.
He had such a distinct.
Yeah, I liked that guy.
Uh, so, uh, all right.
Sorry.
I digress.
So, so Kevin writes this narrativeof Nancy and Chris are starting to
have a, an on-screen relationshipbecause, uh, Kevin is on a line
(15:13):
and Nancy can't take it anymore.
And they start to shoot these vignetteswhere, um, you know, Nancy is starting
to fall for Chris at the same time.
Chris is going through a divorce of hisown will when she know it, lo and behold,
Life imitates art and they're spendingso much on screen-time together that
(15:35):
they develop a relationship off screen.
And, uh, ultimately Nancy leaves heavenfor Chris and this, uh, As oftentimes does
in wrestling when real life of interactswith wrestling, it bleeds onto the screen.
(15:56):
And so Chris and Kevin have thislike blow off, aha, no holds barred,
violent match to, uh, end it all.
And I don't think it was explicit,but you know, the, the idea
of being winner gets Nancy.
Now Kevin Sullivan would goon to say, at this point there
(16:20):
was actually no hard feelings.
That was all character because he andNancy had been separated for eight months.
Anyway, there are others thatargue this and say, no, in fact,
Nancy's sister is one of them all.
Nancy's sister was at a showone night, but Nancy was not.
(16:40):
And Kevin and Chris got into areal life backstage fight and Kevin
was asking her to ride with him.
Chris said, no, come with me.
And, uh, Nancy was on the phone,told her sister no, get in the
car with Chris at the time.
(17:02):
Nancy was so married with Kevin.
Chris took Nancy sister to see Nancyand Nancy was battered and bruised,
and she claims that it was fromKevin abusing her Kevin denies these
allegations for what it's worth there.
You have it with the, uh, the start.
(17:23):
The tumultuous start of the Crispin wall.
Nancy Sullivan relationshipNancy gets pregnant, has a son.
They got married.
Their son was the best man.
They're living a happy life, but Chris isstill frustrated with his position in WCW.
And Kevin Sullivan nowis kind of running WCW.
(17:47):
And Kevin sees Chris as his topguy to lead WCW into the future.
So decides to make himtheir world champion.
And Chris wins the world title andquits in the same night and takes Nancy
(18:07):
with him along with his best friend,Eddie Guerrero, and two other guys
named Perry, Saturn and Dean Malone.
And they show up the next night on numberone, competitor WWF as the radicals.
And now this is the next bigmoment in Crispin was life.
(18:30):
He is promised a lot of success in WWF.
Uh, he is seen as the, a plus player inthe group of four and he is excited and
proud to be, uh, to be beyond WCW andbeyond the confines of Kevin Sullivan.
(18:54):
So at this point, WWF isstill, still favoring.
The big hulking dyes that youalways saw in eighties and
nineties wrestling and well, Chris.
Any standard had an impressive physique.
(19:16):
He still was a short guy and couldn'tstand up to the real big top strong guys.
So like many wrestlers do it is highlysuggested that Chris started on steroids.
And if he didn't start on them,he was continuing on them.
(19:37):
Despite the quote unquote ban on theuse of steroids, he would have a, a, a
pretty successful run in WWF over thecourse of the first few years he was in
what would be considered the mid card.
He was not a, a top guy, but he was stilla successful, uh, he fought through a
(20:00):
lot of injuries because he fought throughthe injuries and didn't take the time
off like you should have he developed.
A pain killer habit.
Then in 2005 a night, that probablywas the linchpin point for Crispin
(20:20):
was before he took his family's life.
Eddie Guerrero, his best friendfor the last 10 years was found
dead in a hotel room by Eddie'snephew Chapo, Chris was destroyed.
He became a, a different person.
He would go to work.
He did his business and left.
(20:43):
There was no friendly interaction.
There was no, uh, the, the personality,if not the person in Crispin wall
was gone, he was destroyed because ayear and a half before Eddie's death,
Chris and Eddie shared the spotlight.
(21:04):
With confetti falling down at the, uh,pinnacle moment of WrestleMania 20.
And that's a moment that the two of themalways fought to achieve, and they were
able to share the spotlight at the endof the night together in Madison square
garden, which is considered the, uh, thegreatest venue in sports, indoor sports.
(21:26):
I guess you could say it's worth noting.
Eddie was 38 at the time of his death.
His official cause of death was, uh, acardiac arrhythmia leading to arrest.
He was clean.
He did not have drugs in his system,but he had a long storied use of drug
(21:50):
use that is believed to have led to the.
Essentially overworking of his heartand his, even though he was clean at the
time, his heart couldn't take it anymore.
So in the immediate aftermathof Eddie's death, Eddie's wife,
Vicky Guerrero was inconsolable.
And knowing that Eddie and Chris wereso close, Nancy spent a week at the
(22:15):
Guerrero's house, helping the kids,helping Vicky and getting, essentially
getting the family back to normal.
And while she was doing that, noone was there to support Chris.
And so Chris went into a tremendous,terrible deep depression at one point,
Nancy filed for a restraining order andfiled for divorce called Vicky for hell
(22:41):
Vicki, called a neighbor to step in.
And the neighbor steppedin Chris and Nancy.
Pretended to be amicable.
And within 48 hours of filingfor a restraining order, the
divorce was called off and Chrisand Nancy were back together.
Also during this time, Nancy andVicki got together and thought as a
(23:04):
way of trying to help Chris get bythis, get through the death of Eddie.
They will give him a journal.
And Chris wrote lettersto Eddie in his journal.
So in June of 2007, crisp.
His personality wascontinuing to deteriorate.
Uh, he had never fully gottenover the death of Eddie.
(23:27):
He had, he was continuing to struggleand he was put in this tournament to
compete for the vacated ECW championship.
He was in the finals against the Dresslerknown as cm, punk, and they were going
to wrestle Sunday, June 24th, 2007at the pay-per-view called vengeance.
(23:54):
The way the story goes is on June22nd, Friday, Chris and Nancy
Benwah were outside by their pooland they had an argument and Chris
was never someone who drank and.
Did drugs after the death of Eddie grill,he became a drinker, not what you might
(24:18):
consider a heavy drinker, but enoughthat it was uncharacteristic for Chris.
So on the night of the 22nd of June,both Chris and Nancy had been drinking,
it is suggested that they had anargument, a half drank a bottle of
(24:38):
wine, which really isn't that muchwas not, not at all, not in my house.
I mean, yeah, it's really not that much.
So, you know, maybe,maybe there was more that.
Thrown away or something, but it wasfound outside and it is suggested
based on the evidence that would befound later that Chris tied Nancy's
(25:01):
arm, her wrists and ankles behindher, carried her to their bedroom.
Nilda on her back, strangled her andChris's signature finishing move was
called the crippler cross face wherehe would wrench someone's neck back
until they tapped out or submitted.
(25:24):
So it's not that he did that move toher, but what he did is he took ligature,
yanked it around her neck, pulledit so hard that the pressure between
the, uh, ligature on her neck and hisknees on her back called her, caused
(25:44):
her back to break and she suffered.
Sonia Meza-Leon (25:48):
What the fuck.
Why did he wait, hold on.
So
Brittney Sherman (25:53):
he pretty much talked tighter.
That's pretty much right.
I mean, well not, he did not hear wristsand ankles together, but tied, tied her
wrists together and her ankles together.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Behind her.
She couldn't, she couldn't fight back.
Sonia Meza-Leon (26:10):
Why did he do
Brittney Sherman (26:10):
that?
Why?
Because she's so shecouldn't defend herself.
I mean, not that he needed to know, but Imean, why in general, why did he kill her?
We'll get to that.
Get to that.
So that was on Friday night onSaturday, Chris was supposed to go
to what's known as a house show,uh, which is a wrestling show.
It's not televised.
(26:31):
It's usually in front of a smallercrowd and he called Chavo Eddie's
cousin, Eddie's nephew, excuse me,and said, Hey, I'm not going to make.
Nancy and Daniel have food poisoningand I'm in the hospital with them.
Nancy's throwing up blood.
(26:52):
I can't make it tonight, but I'll make itto Houston for the pay-per-view tomorrow.
Okay, cool.
Take care of your family.
You know, we'll deal with it thenearly in the morning on a Sunday, the
24th as well as a WWE referee, BradArmstrong get very strange text messages.
(27:24):
They are identical and theysay, this is my address.
The dogs are out by the pool.
The gate is open from Chris.
Who did they wait?
Who got the Javo Guerrero at east nephew?
And Brad Armstrong, a WWE referee.
(27:45):
Oh, I know that name.
Okay.
Yeah.
Brad
Sonia Meza-Leon (27:49):
Armstrong.
I know.
I mean my limited knowledge of wrestling.
Uh, okay.
So
Brittney Sherman (27:55):
what happens?
Uh, Chapo didn't think it thought itwas weird, but didn't think much of it.
He essentially replied to thetext message and thought, okay.
You know, I'll pick you up atthe airport in a few hours.
Cause he was expected to pick him upat the Houston airport for the event
that night we never heard from Korea.
Chris Don never confirmed his flight.
(28:16):
And so throughout the day,everyone started wondering
where Chris is, where Chris is.
Uh, someone said that they had a, anotherconversation that Chris said that, uh, now
his son was vomiting blood and in the ER,which is actually contradictory, he said
the day before that Nancy was vomitingblood and in the ER and Chris was with
(28:39):
them, but he'll catch a later flight.
So don't worry about it.
Well, they still couldn'tget ahold of him.
It was getting close tothe start of the show.
And so someone from WWE security calledthe local police, uh, in Chris's hometown
and said, can you go to a welfare check?
(29:00):
It's from one of our wrestlers,Chris Benwah, the police gets.
They don't know what they're going to see.
The dogs are out just likethe text messages said, and
the dogs are, uh, curtailed.
They're fine.
And, uh, you know, move to theside officers, get in the house
(29:22):
and they find Nancy's body facedown in the bed, tie it up.
Like we discussed witha Bible next to her.
Now Chris was never one to, he wasnever a religious guy, but any turned
to religion after he started to getclean and he started to get his best
(29:44):
friend, Chris involved in religion.
Chris was never, still, neverfollowed it, but started to read
some passages and start to findhis way through Christianity.
I guess you could say, Hmm.
The police then continuetheir way through the house.
(30:04):
And they come to Daniel's bedroom.
Daniel, seven years old.
He is face down in a pillow,under a pillow on his bed dead.
Now, strangely there's also a knife nextto Daniel's bed, but there is no evidence
that the knife was used against Daniel.
(30:28):
So now there's obviously a doublemurder and they still have not
found the person that they weresent to try and find in the house.
Chris.
So now they're concerned that theyhave a violent person possibly still
in the house and they draw theirguns and they start looking for him.
So they look throughout the house,they go down to the basement where
(30:52):
Chris has a gym, a home gym, andthey see Crispin tie tied up around.
With Jim chord and hanging from the topof a gym unit that is being supported
(31:12):
or pulled down by excessive weights.
Uh, so he snapped hisneck and killed himself.
The, uh, the WWE superstars were conin formed of the, the, uh, Vince the
findings, I guess you could say, justbefore that show went on the air.
(31:34):
I don't know how they went through withthe show, but they did the next day.
And investigation continues that night.
Now Monday night, June 25th, WWE goeson the air with a tribute show to
Crispin wall because at this point,Say that they have been informed that
(31:56):
the three of them have died, but theyhave not been told holiday have died.
Now, this is obviously it's a,it's a point of controversy because
this is more than 24 hours later.
And it's pretty amazing that the policewould not have reported their findings
26 hours earlier or whatever it was.
So WWE goes on the airwith a tribute show.
(32:18):
You've got all sorts of superstarscrying, talking about how great he was.
They show his best moments as a wrestler.
It's a, it's a reallygreat, beautiful show.
WWE claims that two hours into thethree-hour show is about when they found
out the true matters of the, the eventsof the death that Chris actually was
(32:42):
responsible for killing his wife andchild, and then taking his own life.
Wait,
Sonia Meza-Leon (32:47):
hold on a second.
What so ho how he may not know that andwhy didn't they check into it before they,
I mean, what he was, he killed himself.
Two people died that couldn'thave killed themselves.
He was the only likely suspect.
How did they not know thatbefore they did some kind
Brittney Sherman (33:04):
of like the thoughts was carbon monoxide poisoning because
they hadn't, they claim, and thisis supported by a lot of people.
They thought that it could have beencarbon monoxide poisoning or some
sort of freak accident that killed allthree of them that they didn't know,
Sonia Meza-Leon (33:25):
her hands were tied
Brittney Sherman (33:27):
and her feet, they didn't have that information yet.
Oh my God.
Sonia Meza-Leon (33:31):
Now what the, what a mess there.
Well, what happened?
So what happened?
They halfway through, whatdid they, did they stop?
Did they, we
Brittney Sherman (33:38):
finished the show.
Um, now you might be familiar witha wrestler named Chris Jericho.
He's a pretty famous guy.
I guess maybe not.
Okay.
Uh, no.
Well, he says he was watching that show.
I don't know if he was, I don't knowif it was with WWE at the time or not,
but he said he was watching that showand he said that he has a hard time
(33:59):
believing that WWE didn't know becauseduring one of their, like, what are
the wrestler videos paying tribute?
There was almost likea, a cryptic message.
That pretty much, it was somethinglike, I used to think that I would never
(34:19):
trust anyone else more with my family.
And he just thought that is areally strange thing for someone
to say what, who said that, uh,it, I'm not cording that exactly.
But, uh, another wrestler bythe name of, I think you get
went by William Regal at the.
Sonia Meza-Leon (34:38):
And why would he say something like that?
Was he saying it about, aboutcrisp Anwar or was he just
Brittney Sherman (34:44):
saying it in general saying it about Crispin and water?
So that's the question.
Why would he phrase itin such a weird way?
Chris Jericho feels like some people knewsomething and they just weren't saying it.
So WWE goes off year.
The news starts to flood with the factsof what actually happened the next night.
(35:07):
They have another show and WWE chairman,Vince McMahon, who ran the previous show
starts the show saying we did what wethought was the right thing to do since
that time new evidence has come to light.
This is the last you will hear.
Crispin was namedmentioned on this program.
(35:30):
And Crispin was name has neverbeen mentioned on WWE Everest.
Sonia Meza-Leon (35:37):
But don't you think that's, I mean, I'm, I think that's,
I don't know, I guess the right thingto do, but I mean, think about the
underlying reasons behind his behavior,which is probably that, you know,
prefrontal lobe damage from wrestling.
And then I, I mean, we all knowthe Vince of men is an opportunist.
(35:57):
So any time that he can overdrawdrum dramatize something
to his benefit, he does.
So making a statement like that,I mean, he didn't have a choice,
but I mean, yes, I feel like thatthat in and of itself was an act.
I agree with whoever said that they knew,
Brittney Sherman (36:12):
um, I, I, I don't disagree with you.
The Vincent man is an opportunist,but I think when you're talking about
a murder, that's a different thing.
That's a different level.
When you're talking about events happeningin the world, in the media, Even your
own people that can kind of be writtenoff as a period in life or something.
(36:35):
Yes, he's absolutely an opportunist,but now it's talking about getting
involved in a murder investigation andI think that's, I personally, that's
my opinion of the difference, I,
Sonia Meza-Leon (36:49):
I guess, but how was he getting involved in a murder?
I mean, how, I mean, sure.
They reported too quickly withoutgetting their facts straight, but
I'm not sure that that meant thatthey participated in any way in the
Brittney Sherman (37:01):
murders.
No, no, no.
I agree.
But I think that they wanted todo everything that they could to
distance themselves from Chris.
He, he was completely removed.
Now.
You, they, you can.
You can look all over WWE.
You will not find his name anywherelike his wrestling matches.
(37:25):
You can still find on theirstreaming network, but if you
search for Crispin wall on thestreaming network, it comes up empty.
It's only if you know where to look,will you be able to find them because
they're part of a larger program.
Uh, but more importantly, let's talkabout exactly what you just said.
That pre frontal lobe damage dueto the activity, the profession,
(37:48):
the livelihood that he was in.
And let's talk about that divinghead, but that he did thousands.
Upon thousands of times, there was onewrestler whose name is Chris Nowinski,
who retired from wrestling to get intoneuroscience after he had six concussions.
(38:10):
And he asked Chris at onepoint in his career, how many
concussions have you had increases?
I can't even tell, I can't count how many.
So there is no doubt that he hadtremendous brain damage so much so that
his brain was autopsied afterwards.
It had severe CTE, which we allknow is what's found largely
(38:33):
in a lot of NFL players now.
And it's actually suggested that the rateof CTE and early death of wrestlers could
be doubled that of NFL players suggestedI have heard that said I don't have
the confirmed science to back that up.
(38:55):
So I want to emphasize that.
Sonia Meza-Leon (38:57):
But this is a surprise me because they don't have any gear on
that's protecting them and they bangeach other on the head with folding
Brittney Sherman (39:02):
chairs.
That's exactly right.
And after that and after me, soafter Crispin Wawa, they outlawed
exactly the act that you justsaid, bang each other on the head.
I swear.
Absolutely.
They definitely did.
They, uh, they got rid of like allowingthat diving head butt or allowing
(39:22):
that head first type of contact.
They had a drug policy previouslyand after Crispin law, they
strongly started to inform.
And in addition to the CTE, Chris hada, uh, a posthumous blood tests done
to check for drugs in his system.
(39:43):
He had some alcoholic system because therewere half drank, bottled wine found all
around the house, not just by the poolwhere Nancy was probably killed or at
the very least tied up, but no illegaldrugs, no real prescription drugs, no
steroids, but he had 10 times the normalamount of testosterone in his body.
(40:08):
And if you listen to a WWE attorney, hewill tell you that that's not uncommon
for someone getting over steroids isusage because steroids decrease the
amount of testosterone in your body.
And when you stop using the steroids,you need to replenish your loss to stop.
(40:30):
Others will tell you that is a wayto get around using steroids by
increasing your testosterone levels.
Huh?
Interesting.
All right.
The way the services of Nancy and Danielwere attended only by one WWE participant
(40:50):
Jim Ross, who was a talent relationsguy and onscreen play by play guy.
He was asked to leave.
Crispin wa had a private service only withhis surviving son, David from a previous
marriage and Chris, his ex wife, uh, animmediate family in the time after the
(41:15):
murders, that diary that he was given.
So he.
Right to Eddie was found and read, andit had some very telling signs in there.
And it would almost read likesomeone whose mental capacity
and sanity was deteriorating.
Even as much saying, as Iknow, I'll be seeing you soon,
(41:39):
I'm coming to be with you.
So he said,
Sonia Meza-Leon (41:43):
so you feel like that he, he obviously had this planned?
Brittney Sherman (41:47):
Yes, absolutely.
This was not
Sonia Meza-Leon (41:49):
high.
The why?
Like how do you have it planned andthen kill your wife and your son too?
Well, like why?
Because that seems like to me that wassomething, I mean, maybe it was planned,
but like why, you know, kill yourself.
Brittney Sherman (42:02):
Why kill them?
Well, a hundred percent.
Exactly.
So he, uh, not only did he haveterrible CTE, he had the brain
of an 85 year old Alzheimer's.
So he clearly was not inthe right mental capacity.
He leading up to that time in the 18months between Eddie's and Chris's death.
(42:24):
Chris was exhibiting more violentbehavior, more erratic behavior.
He wasn't himself, whether or nothe intended to take that action.
The weekend of June 22nd to the 24th,or it was something that snapped in him
that weekend that led him to choose.
Then maybe he was planningon just killing himself.
(42:47):
Maybe he had some sort of demonstalking to him in his diseased brain.
We'll never know exactly what caused it.
It was a hideous, disgusting murder.
And.
Changed wrestling forever.
Um, as I said, there are nomore chair shots to the head.
(43:08):
There are no more what are calledpile drivers, where you throw a
guy straight down on his head.
There's no more diving headbuttsor leading with your head.
There are stricter drug policies, butregardless three people, two completely
innocently, including a seven year old boylost their life due to what many people
(43:31):
will argue was negligence in the waythat a business worked for generations.
And the only way that Chrisfelt like he could succeed.
Sonia Meza-Leon (43:41):
I mean, don't you think that still exists in
the world of wrestling though?
I think it
Brittney Sherman (43:44):
definitely does.
I think that there are otherwrestling companies out there.
Absolutely.
That still do it.
I think that.
I think that WWE triesto do the right thing.
I think that they say the rightthings, but whether or not they're
actually doing the right things,it's hard to tell here, I'm going to
Sonia Meza-Leon (44:05):
ask you this.
What do you, what do youthink about Vince McMahon as a
Brittney Sherman (44:08):
person?
Uh, as a, as an individual personor as a businessman, those are,
they are, that's why I'm asking.
Um, it's hard to say because they'redifferent, but they're also kind of the
same because he's business as businessethics drive his personal ethics.
(44:29):
And if it's right for his business, itwill compromise his personal ethics.
But I think it's sort of verse
Sonia Meza-Leon (44:38):
two, I think more so your bill, your personal
ethics should drive your business.
They should, but I don'tthink they shouldn't
Brittney Sherman (44:43):
change because their money, I agree.
They shouldn't change because of money.
But I think with a lot of shrewdbusinessmen, and I'm not saying that
in women, and I'm not saying this.
To protect them or support them.
I don't think that'sthe way that it works.
Uh, you mean hit for him or him.
And I think a lot of people, I don'tthink he's unique in that situation.
(45:05):
I think there are a lot of businesspeople that operate that way.
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:09):
I guess I would just say that in his business, he's in the
business of exploitation of people.
And so I guess maybe bynature, that is the case.
I mean, it's, uh, he, he at times willexploit his himself to help prophets.
Brittney Sherman (45:29):
Yeah.
I was just going to say, it's, it's hispeople, but he'll do it himself too.
He will put himself outthere for better or worse.
Yeah.
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:37):
He's very much, uh, um, uh, you know, he's, he's
very visible in that industry.
Um, and as part of what he does, Imean, he's, he's one of the characters.
Brittney Sherman (45:46):
He is a character.
Yeah.
He, uh, he was one of theirbiggest characters for a few years.
That's
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:52):
crazy.
That's so sad.
I don't understand why youwould, what was, so go back.
How the boy was seven.
How did he
Brittney Sherman (45:59):
die?
Uh, the, he was, oh, good question.
Uh, he was heavily drugged with Zabbixand suffocated most likely with a pillow.
Oh,
Sonia Meza-Leon (46:12):
really?
Yes.
So he had the die at the hands of his
Brittney Sherman (46:16):
father?
Yeah.
No.
And that's the thing.
So Nancy was killed on Friday night.
Daniel is most, most likelykilled on Saturday morning.
And Chris stayed in the houseuntil probably mid morning,
Sunday until he killed himself.
Sonia Meza-Leon (46:39):
That's crazy.
So what the heck was he?
I mean, he must've been insome kind of state of mind.
Can you imagine what he was like walking
Brittney Sherman (46:46):
around his house?
He exactly.
I, uh, I just, I can't, I mean, I canonly imagine some sort of psychosis, like
I CA I can't imagine any other way thatyou could be, and he's, you know, leaving
voicemails and, and sending text messages,but, you know, he, even, he even talked on
the phone though, to a couple of people.
(47:07):
I, you know, they, they, they claimthat he sounded like he was in distress.
Like you was, you know, disturbed, butI just, I can't, I can't imagine what
the, for over 24 hours, he walked aroundthe house with his dead wife and son.
Sonia Meza-Leon (47:29):
Yeah.
I mean, what happened?
I mean, he killed his wife, obviously.
And then what on Friday night?
And then he probably realized that bySaturday morning, his son would find
out that his wife was no longer livingand he didn't really have a choice.
Brittney Sherman (47:47):
So.
He probably felt like myson's going to find out.
And I either turned myself in andhe probably wasn't the right state
of mind and did what he, the worstpossible took the worst possible route.
Um, it's just, it's, it's so sad.
And you want to, you know, youwant to talk about Vince McMahon
(48:07):
and, and how he exploits them.
Chris had an older son, Davidfrom, from a previous marriage,
as I mentioned, WWE did not oncereach out to David to support him.
They did not reach out toNancy's family to support them.
And it wasn't until last year, 2000,19, 12 years after the horrific
(48:36):
events that David and Nancy.
Got together again forthe very first time.
And that was at the behest of ChrisJericho who arranged for the two
of them to meet and get together.
Sonia Meza-Leon (48:53):
That's terrible.
That is a horrible story.
No,
Brittney Sherman (48:56):
it's thank you, Brittany.
I'm sorry.
I brought you down, butyou brought me down.
It's
Sonia Meza-Leon (49:00):
okay.
Yeah, no, I pay it's.
No, I know.
I mean, it's hard to talkabout these subjects are
Brittney Sherman (49:07):
lighthearted.
No, they're not at all.
It's it's really tragic, uh, youknow, to, to cover my sources.
Um, vice TV day, a a docu series calledthe dark side of the ring and they did
a two-part episode specific to Crispinwall, the, uh, the podcast, something
(49:28):
to wrestle with Bruce Prichard, a sportsillustrated article, like a pedia.
Um, there's I, uh,What's happened in 2007.
So I've read a lot andwatched a lot since that time.
But these are the ones that I particularlyrecently focused on that that kind of
gave me the most fresh information.
Sonia Meza-Leon (49:48):
Do you feel, do you guys, do you feel like that?
Um, I mean, I'd like to thinkthat the WWE, as well as the NFL
is taking, you know, head traumaseriously, um, you feel like, cause
you still watch wrestling, I think.
Do you feel like thatthere's some progress there?
I mean, cause they don'twear any protection.
Brittney Sherman (50:04):
Just like I said, you know, they got rid of
chair shots, they got rid of ahead to head or head first impact.
They, I think have gotten rid of bloodor intentional bleeding sometimes
that happens just on accident.
But most of the times when we seeblood in wrestling, it's intentional.
(50:24):
Uh, so I think that's out loud.
So I think they are taking those.
I think they are taking them seriously.
Uh, their, their drug policyhas gotten much more stringent
and most of these things are adirect result of crisp and law.
And they might not tellyou that it was direct.
They might tell you that it was,those were policies that were in
(50:46):
place, but they were just very laxand became more stringent, but most
people will tell you it's directlybecause of the Crispin wall murders.
Hmm.
Sonia Meza-Leon (50:57):
So back to the drugs.
Do, do you mean like illegal drugs or?
Well, I mean, I guess Icould still be steroids.
What kind of drugs are they testing for?
What?
I mean, I would say that most ofthose folks should probably be smoking
marijuana because they're probablylike what, what kind of drugs are you?
Brittney Sherman (51:15):
Are, is there, are there specific or just time.
I don't know, I don't, Ihaven't read their drug policy.
I don't even know if it's availableto be read, but if you hear people
talk about it, it's pretty stringent.
Marijuana is on that list.
Steroids are definitely on that list.
Uh, anything that could be evenconsidered a slight performance enhancing
(51:39):
drug or illegal drug, uh, cocaine,I think painkillers are all allowed,
assuming that they're prescribed.
I would hope to God that they're allowedbecause the amount of damage those bodies
go through, I can't imagine why theywouldn't be allowed, but I have really no
idea, but I've heard it's very stringent.
Sonia Meza-Leon (51:58):
That's crazy about pot because,
Brittney Sherman (52:00):
well, but hang on a second, but also hanging
out in the second they are.
I think they're incorporated, Ithink in Connecticut, that's where
their headquarters are, but they.
A national and even global company.
So they're on the road exceptfor right now all the time.
(52:23):
So you're going potentially from one stateto the next to the next night, after night
after night, it pot's legal in one state.
It's illegal the next day.
You kind of have to have aknock across the board policy.
I would think.
Sonia Meza-Leon (52:36):
Yeah, I guess I just think it's kind of silly.
I mean, and by the way, anybody whosays that pod is a performance enhancing
drug has, cause it's not enhancing whenMichael Phelps got in trouble for pot.
I was like, this is like, It did not.
I mean, seriously, like you,he would be so much faster if
(52:56):
he smoked or he didn't smoke.
So God bless him, you know,like actually maybe gave those
other guys a fighting chance.
I mean, I think it's just silly.
Um, I think that there's somethingabout the NFL policy that's changing
now and being able to use cannabis,or maybe they're using CBD.
Something has to change.
I mean, these guys, well, Ithink CBD is talking about
Brittney Sherman (53:15):
getting hooked on narcotics.
Well, CBD is legal in the entirecountry, but there are going to be
a lot of people that are going totell you that CBD and other narcotics
are not on the same playing field.
Sonia Meza-Leon (53:29):
They aren't CBD.
Doesn't have any kind ofhallucinogenic qualities at all.
It's
Brittney Sherman (53:33):
really just CBD also.
So does not providelargely the same relief.
Sonia Meza-Leon (53:40):
Oh, are you saying that it does?
Uh, well maybe, I guess you mean,you're saying that CBD doesn't
provide the same relief that
Brittney Sherman (53:47):
TB, the THC does?
No, I'm saying CBD doesn't froma pain standpoint, no pain.
Um, THC doesn't touch pain.
I'm saying THC doesn't touch painat the level that an oxycodone does.
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:00):
No, of course.
Brittney Sherman (54:01):
Oh my God, that you can't, you can't say that you can take
CBD over other prescription narcotics.
They're not the same.
They don't do the same thing.
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:13):
No, no, no.
I would agree with you.
I mean, certainly beyond a certainpoint CBD or THC is not going to help.
Yeah, yeah, no it's but if it can, I mean,if it can help a bit, I would say, you
know, I mean, I considered marijuana tobe effective for pain between anything
more than a Tylenol can take care of, butless than like, you know, a Vicodin, like
(54:38):
there's like a tiny little sweet spotwhere it's like, just enough, think if
Brittney Sherman (54:41):
you get a strong enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's probably true.
Yeah.
If you get a strong enough, you know,
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:46):
Yeah.
I mean, some of that stuff ispretty, pretty hard, but it's
Brittney Sherman (54:49):
true.
So, uh, well that was very interestinglittle conspiracy theory to wrap this up.
Oh, as you were talking about is howis it possible that the WWE didn't
know about these events beforehandthe night between Daniel's murder and
(55:10):
Chris's suicide Wikipedia reported thatCrispin wall was going to be replaced
in his championship match with JohnMorrison because of an illness in the
family that hadn't been reported yet.
Also that night, that post was deleted byWikipedia and then a, another post came
(55:36):
up, reporting the deaths of his family.
That first post came from.
Stanford Connecticut.
The home of the WWE headquarters.
The second post came from somewhere inAustralia, both posts were flagged and
deleted by Wikipedia for not meetingtheir standards of qualification.
(56:02):
Of course, there's a question ofhow did those posts ever make it up
there and you can still see them?
I think because, uh, you can do likea historical edit or historical read
or something of Wikipedia posts.
Hmm.
Sonia Meza-Leon (56:19):
I mean, I, I would not be surprised at the
Brittney Sherman (56:21):
WWE new it's.
Um, you know, it's hard to imagine thatthey didn't know if they knew some it's
hard to imagine that they would moveforward with a tribute show if they did.
Sonia Meza-Leon (56:35):
I know, think about what that meant, you know, think
about, think about their priorities.
And, but I mean, here, what I don'tunderstand is how would they not know?
They knew that he hung himself.
They, they claim that he knew theother two knew that they knew that
other two other people died in thehouse, unless someone else came in
and killed those other two people.
I mean, crystal, you know what I mean?
(56:56):
Like,
Brittney Sherman (56:56):
I don't know that they, they claim they did not know
that he hung himself and it's possiblethat it was a triple homicide.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:07):
Oh, Hmm.
Interesting.
I'm going to go read Wikipedia right now.
All right.
Interesting.
That was a good one.
Brittney Sherman (57:15):
Britain is tragic story of the murders of Nancy and Daniel
Benwah and the suicide of Crispin wall.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:27):
Hmm.
That
Brittney Sherman (57:28):
was sad.
But I'm planning.
I got you.
One that you are not familiar with.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:35):
I knew a little bit about it, but I didn't
follow wrestling that much.
Um, but I mean, I knewit was a sad situation.
I didn't know the extent, um, about,you know, the conditions of his wife and
then his little boy, that's just really
Brittney Sherman (57:48):
sad.
It's horrible.
And
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:51):
I mean, I think that what you said too, you know, back
to the, the brain damage, um, youknow, we have to take that seriously
and I'm glad that there was evidenceshowing, you know, that, that there
was something behind his actions.
Absolutely.
I agree.
We'd love to hear from you guys as well.
You know, if you have suggestions or youwant to hear us talk about certain things,
Brittney Sherman (58:11):
feel free to share.
You know, some of the things that we findparticularly important is to support other
independent podcasters and in a way tobranch out and connect with others and
support the independent podcast community.
Uh, we have a couple, uh, littleshout outs that we want to provide.
(58:32):
So I have a couple
Sonia Meza-Leon (58:33):
of shout outs that I would love to do some
folks that I've worked with in thepast and had communication with.
And I find quite lovely.
Um, the first would be, um,music city, 9 1, 1 Brandon Hall.
You guys should take a listen.
I, um, I he's a 9 1, 1 dispatcher fromNashville, Tennessee, very entertaining.
I love his approach and I cannotstop listening to his voice.
(58:57):
And the other podcast that I'd like togive a shout out to his meanwhile at the
studio, it's going guys in my hometown,you know, who created a podcast, um,
environment in a recording studio there.
And, um, they're doing really great.
So I did some, I sat in with them acouple of times and we had some fun.
So please take a listento their trailer as well.
(59:18):
Meanwhile, at the station.
Brittney Sherman (59:21):
Check out a couple other podcasters that support us and
we want to give them some support.
Hey fellow Scarlet, true crime listeners.
I'm CC the host of a new true crimepodcast, sooner state, true crime as
(59:41):
a born and bred Oki I'll cover casesbased in my wonderful home state of
Oklahoma, the term sooner actuallyrefers to cheaters in the land run.
My state's very first true crime.
New episodes are released twice amonth in apple podcasts and most
podcasts ups or visit our website,anchor.fm/crime state to listen now.
(01:00:02):
So come away with me to my crime stateon the sooner state true crime podcast,
and please stay sooner safe out there.
Y'all
hi everyone.
I'm Ariel Cooksey host of now.
When violent acts occur, we tend tothink the predators are monsters,
(01:00:25):
Charlene or human could do such things.
But if we're honest, onlyhumans commit malicious crime.
And if you're like me, you want to knowwhy to find out, join me at malice,
wherever you listen to podcasts by.
Hey, y'all I'm Brandon Hall.
(01:00:46):
I'm one of the hosts of music city,nine 11, a podcast about the good,
the bad, and the dark side of nine 11.
Dispatching me and my co-hostsare 9 1 1 dispatchers.
With over 60 years of experience.
Join us as we play 9 1 1calls and discuss them.
Oh, did I mention that we get.
9 1 1, what's your emergency
(01:01:41):
You can find us on Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram at music city
nominal one, and we're downloadableon every podcast platform.
We want to give a shout out to the pod allthe time podcast network that we Scarlet
TCP are proud members of other members
Sonia Meza-Leon (01:02:00):
of the pot, all the time podcast network.
Creative intuitive, another digitalcitizen history of a haunting
round and round the podcast.
Real AKA truth podcast, ruck up podcast,random unnamed podcast, suburban folk,
three peas in a podcast, Ross sex podcast.
(01:02:22):
I think we're doing it
Brittney Sherman (01:02:23):
podcast.
Just so if you like what you'rehearing from Scarlet TCP, check out
these other shows that members ofthe pod all the time podcast network.
Alrighty, thank you.
Scarlett autos, stay healthy, stay safe.
We are the ladies of Scarlet.
(01:02:45):
Keep killing it
Sonia Meza-Leon (01:02:46):
later.
Hey, Hey,
Sonia Meza-Leon (00:41):
Scarlett autos.
We are back and I am looking forwardto this episode in particular, because
number one, I get to take a little breakand sit back and listen to Brittany.
Tell me a story, whichis so exciting right now.
And the reason I'm excitedabout it is because she's, she
is excited about the story.
So, um, without further adohere is Brittany Sherman talking
(01:03):
to me about the black Dahlia.
Brittney Sherman (01:05):
Well, I told you I was going to throw you a
little bit of surprise and, um,
I guess I'll say without furtherado, I am not going to cover
the black doll yet tonight.
What I know, I know.
And this was a last minutedecision, like four hours ago.
(01:30):
I decided to change it up and.
Here's why I decided to change itbecause you believe you did that.
I, I know.
So the black doll yet is a topic that hasfascinated me for years when we started
doing this podcast, I, that was oneof the first topics I wanted to cover.
(01:52):
And as I really started investigatingand learning about the black Dalia, uh,
what I found is that the informationout there is pretty straight forward.
Every article I read, every podcastI listened to about it, it all
(02:14):
had the same information and noneof it was new information from
what's been around there forever.
And the most interestinginformation that is out there is
all subjective, conjecture about.
Who could be responsiblefor those killings.
And there's a lot of really interesting,fascinating narrative conversations
(02:38):
about the occult about devil worshipabout, uh, really, I don't see,
Sonia Meza-Leon (02:44):
I don't, I don't know much about the black Dahlia, so I was
so looking forward to you telling me
Brittney Sherman (02:48):
no, but here's the issue that I have with it.
All of that is just likepotentially made up.
Like there's no actual real information.
Like there's, it's not factual.
And there's another reason why Iwanted to switch it out because
this isn't factual information.
And a lot of it could be hyperbole.
(03:09):
Maybe it's factual.
If it is, it's like the mostunbelievable story in the world.
And it, at some point maybe I willget to it, but there's another reason
I wanted, I decided to change it upbecause I wasn't super confident because
the stories were just kind of all over.
And there wasn't real hardevidence to support it.
(03:30):
I wanted to talk about a topicthat I felt like I knew just about
everything there is to know about it.
Oh.
And I felt like I'm not going to go offbook per se, but something that I feel
like I can talk about without needingto, to take notes and read much about it.
(03:50):
So the topic I am actually goingto cover tonight is the Crispin
wad, double murder suicide.
What the
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:02):
fuck is that?
Brittney Sherman (04:05):
I
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:05):
can't believe you threw me for a loop.
I'm so excited.
I'm so excited because now Ireally don't have to say anything.
So
Brittney Sherman (04:13):
I almost, I almost texted you earlier to tell you, I,
I changed my mind, but I thought,no, I want to get your raw reaction.
And I'm so glad you
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:24):
didn't.
I'm so glad
Brittney Sherman (04:25):
you didn't.
That's awesome.
Uh, so, okay.
So black Dalia depths, I think, well,black Dahlia side, but that's a topic
I think I'm going to still continue togo to, I'm going to learn more about,
because it is interesting, but becausethere's so much like, well, maybe it's
this, or maybe it's that, or maybe it'sthis, or maybe it's that, or who knows.
(04:46):
Maybe it's this completely differentthing or until I can feel like I get
like some real narrowing down, thisis more of the likely situation.
That's kind of why I wantedto put it off to the side.
Sonia Meza-Leon (04:58):
Okay.
So we're still going to talk aboutthe black Dahlia in the future, but
Brittney Sherman (05:01):
not right now.
Exactly, exactly.
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:04):
Fair enough.
Let's go
Brittney Sherman (05:05):
roll with it.
All right.
So, um, black delegate aside,uh, we are talking about the.
Double murder, suicide.
Uh, Nancy, Daniel, and Chris Benwah.
That took place between June22nd and June 24th, 2007.
(05:30):
And based on your response, I think,you know what we're talking about?
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:35):
I is
Brittney Sherman (05:36):
this, the wrestling guy is the wrestling guy.
Sonia Meza-Leon (05:39):
Oh my God.
You totally threw me for a loop.
I don't know anything about this.
So you are going to
Brittney Sherman (05:43):
have to tell me this.
All right.
Well, feel free to jump in withquestions, but, um, so w you know,
I should probably take a deep breathhere because we're, we're kind of being
lighthearted and laughing and joking.
Uh, this is, uh, this isan extremely tragic story.
And, uh, this is one that as, as I said,at the top, I know very, very well.
(06:08):
And I feel comfortable with not tosay that I know everything about it,
but I want to take you through notjust the crimes, but really the key
points and life of Chris and Nancy.
Benwah leading up to thefateful weekend in June of 2007.
(06:31):
So Chris Ben wall is a Canadian, wasa Canadian professional wrestler.
Uh, he was considered a, uh, hewas, he was a stellar standout,
one of the best in the world.
He was a world champion, professionalwrestler, uh, air quotes.
(06:52):
If you want with world champion,uh, he, he wrestled all over
the world from Mexico to Japan.
Canada.
And of course in the United States,he got his start in the eighties in
stampede wrestling, which is knownfor, uh, wrestling fans out there.
(07:13):
And even those who might not bewrestling fans, uh, it was run
by Stu Hart, the father of Bret,the Hitman Hart and Owen Hart.
And it's where the Britishbulldogs came from.
And B it was the, uh, the premierwrestling territory in Canada.
And from his roots in Canada, hethen went to, uh, wrestle in Mexico
(07:40):
where he teamed with who would becomehis best friend, Eddie Guerrero.
Uh, Eddie Guerrero was achampion Lucia Liberi wrestler.
Uh, he comes from a long lineof, uh, Lucia Libris wrestlers,
the Guerrero family, his.
Uh, nephew Chapo.
(08:01):
And you he's like a coupleof years younger than him.
Uh, his, uh, uncle Chapo, Sr.
And, uh, Eddie was also known aroundthe world, but Chris really gained
his biggest popularity when hewent to Japan and wrestled as the
(08:22):
Pegasus kid and Japanese wrestling isknown for its more realistic style.
It is hard-hitting, uh, theydon't pull the punches per se.
The, uh, the hits on the mat are brutal.
The kicks are real.
(08:43):
The holds are meant to hurt that chokeholds are meant to choke you out.
Uh, it's called hardstyleand Chris took the.
To heart and, uh, Russell wrestledhard and he largely mimicked his
wrestling style after a, anotherwrestler who he met and idolized in
(09:10):
Canada, in stampede wrestling, whoalso went onto the WWF dynamite kid
who was part of the British bulldogs.
And one of dynamite kids, signaturemoves was a top rope diving head butt
onto a promo opponent laying on the mat.
And that
Sonia Meza-Leon (09:30):
wasn't that like the Jimmy, the snicker?
No, he did like this flying squirrel kind
Brittney Sherman (09:34):
of thing.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what a flyingsquirrel is, but he does splash.
Yes.
But so imagine instead of a splash andlanding on your belly, you are leading
with your head and you're landing on your.
So he's why who did that?
So that's what Crispin law tookup after dynamite kid who learned
(10:00):
that move from Harley race andHarley race was Oop to terrible.
These are all porn.
These sound like all porn, butHarley race was a, he was like
a king of Southern wrestling.
Literally his, he wentby a king Harley race.
He, uh, you know, he told afterhe did it for years, he told
everyone don't ever do it.
(10:21):
It's gonna mess up your head.
Then Tom Billington, thedynamite kid started doing it.
And dynamite told Ben watt don't do this.
Ben watt did it and madeit his signature move.
It looks as bad as it sounds if not worse.
Uh, he, his goal was to dive headfirstand tried to connect with the neck
(10:44):
shoulder head area of his pronoun.
So, well, Chris was learning the ropesin Canada and Japan, Nancy Benwah.
His future wife was becoming astaple of Southern wrestling in
the NWA and Florida championshipwrestling your territory song now.
Sonia Meza-Leon (11:12):
I think that the last time I watch wrestling, I
think dusty Rhodes was involved.
Well, this
Brittney Sherman (11:17):
would have been me.
Rick flares would have been thedusty Rhodes Ric flair time.
And so this is the mid to late eighties.
Nancy is getting involvedand she joins a stable.
They're called a group of wrestlers ledby Kevin Sullivan and Kevin Sullivan.
Is this a character?
(11:39):
He portrays a character.
Who's a cult leader, devil worshipperand Nancy goes by the name fallen
angel a as one of Kevin's fault.
Well quickly life imitates art and Nancyhaving fallen in love and get married.
(12:01):
So, uh, now we have Nancy Sullivanand Kevin Sullivan married and they
go in, go from Florida championshipwrestling to Georgia wrestling, which
would become the WCW world championship.
In the nineties, Crispin walking backfrom Japan, and then he signed a long-term
(12:22):
contract with WCW in 1995, as a premierfeatured wrestler at this time, WCW
was famous for, they had whole Cogan.
They had macho man, Randy Savage soon,the, a NWI was going to be famous.
And you had guys like Crispin woah andEddie Guerrero that were very small.
(12:45):
They're under six foot they're, uh, theyfirst were considered cruiser weights,
which are guys I don't, I don't knowwhat the standard is, but like under
220 pounds or something like that, smallguys, I said a cruiser, like, what is it
referring to a little guy, little guy.
Yeah.
I think it's a backtick Ithink it's a boxing term also.
I think, I know, I know there'sI know there's a UFC division
(13:08):
called cruiserweight also.
Uh, but essentially Eddie and, and Chriswere, uh, were premiere cruiser weights.
They knew each other from workingwith each other previously and they
found a lot of frustration becausethey routinely would steal the show by
putting on the best performance, butwere never considered top caliber guys.
(13:31):
So later in the nineties, KevinSullivan became head Booker.
Remember, Kevin is married to Nancyand head Booker means he essentially
decides the creative for the show anddecides to write a storyline where
his real life wife Nancy gets into arelationship with Chris and the storyline.
(13:57):
Is that Kevin B.
Living up to his psychotickind of Satanist type character
is too much for Nancy.
And so she seeks the consultationor support or whatever.
Yeah.
That's what
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:12):
she's looking for.
His consultation.
I'm sure he has a big consultation.
Hey, quick, wait.
So back up, hold on a
Brittney Sherman (14:20):
second.
Kevin Sullivan was here, wrestler.
He was a wrestler, but he wasalso like a behind the scenes guy.
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:25):
I feel like he was like, from that Sullivan, wasn't there like
a Sullivan family that was like Gordy.
No, that was Gordon soul.
Was it Gordon Sullivan?
That was
Brittney Sherman (14:33):
Gordon.
There was an announcer.
Right.
So
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:36):
right.
Sorry.
Okay.
Got it.
That's the guy.
I remember the littlecoma where he was so cute.
My dad loved that guy.
He had like these big glasses
Brittney Sherman (14:44):
and
Sonia Meza-Leon (14:44):
he was always standing between these wrestlers who were spitting
Brittney Sherman (14:48):
all over him.
He had such a distinct.
Yeah, I liked that guy.
Uh, so, uh, all right.
Sorry.
I digress.
So, so Kevin writes this narrativeof Nancy and Chris are starting to
have a, an on-screen relationshipbecause, uh, Kevin is on a line
(15:13):
and Nancy can't take it anymore.
And they start to shoot these vignetteswhere, um, you know, Nancy is starting
to fall for Chris at the same time.
Chris is going through a divorce of hisown will when she know it, lo and behold,
Life imitates art and they're spendingso much on screen-time together that
(15:35):
they develop a relationship off screen.
And, uh, ultimately Nancy leaves heavenfor Chris and this, uh, As oftentimes does
in wrestling when real life of interactswith wrestling, it bleeds onto the screen.
(15:56):
And so Chris and Kevin have thislike blow off, aha, no holds barred,
violent match to, uh, end it all.
And I don't think it was explicit,but you know, the, the idea
of being winner gets Nancy.
Now Kevin Sullivan would goon to say, at this point there
(16:20):
was actually no hard feelings.
That was all character because he andNancy had been separated for eight months.
Anyway, there are others thatargue this and say, no, in fact,
Nancy's sister is one of them all.
Nancy's sister was at a showone night, but Nancy was not.
(16:40):
And Kevin and Chris got into areal life backstage fight and Kevin
was asking her to ride with him.
Chris said, no, come with me.
And, uh, Nancy was on the phone,told her sister no, get in the
car with Chris at the time.
(17:02):
Nancy was so married with Kevin.
Chris took Nancy sister to see Nancyand Nancy was battered and bruised,
and she claims that it was fromKevin abusing her Kevin denies these
allegations for what it's worth there.
You have it with the, uh, the start.
(17:23):
The tumultuous start of the Crispin wall.
Nancy Sullivan relationshipNancy gets pregnant, has a son.
They got married.
Their son was the best man.
They're living a happy life, but Chris isstill frustrated with his position in WCW.
And Kevin Sullivan nowis kind of running WCW.
(17:47):
And Kevin sees Chris as his topguy to lead WCW into the future.
So decides to make himtheir world champion.
And Chris wins the world title andquits in the same night and takes Nancy
(18:07):
with him along with his best friend,Eddie Guerrero, and two other guys
named Perry, Saturn and Dean Malone.
And they show up the next night on numberone, competitor WWF as the radicals.
And now this is the next bigmoment in Crispin was life.
(18:30):
He is promised a lot of success in WWF.
Uh, he is seen as the, a plus player inthe group of four and he is excited and
proud to be, uh, to be beyond WCW andbeyond the confines of Kevin Sullivan.
(18:54):
So at this point, WWF isstill, still favoring.
The big hulking dyes that youalways saw in eighties and
nineties wrestling and well, Chris.
Any standard had an impressive physique.
(19:16):
He still was a short guy and couldn'tstand up to the real big top strong guys.
So like many wrestlers do it is highlysuggested that Chris started on steroids.
And if he didn't start on them,he was continuing on them.
(19:37):
Despite the quote unquote ban on theuse of steroids, he would have a, a, a
pretty successful run in WWF over thecourse of the first few years he was in
what would be considered the mid card.
He was not a, a top guy, but he was stilla successful, uh, he fought through a
(20:00):
lot of injuries because he fought throughthe injuries and didn't take the time
off like you should have he developed.
A pain killer habit.
Then in 2005 a night, that probablywas the linchpin point for Crispin
(20:20):
was before he took his family's life.
Eddie Guerrero, his best friendfor the last 10 years was found
dead in a hotel room by Eddie'snephew Chapo, Chris was destroyed.
He became a, a different person.
He would go to work.
He did his business and left.
(20:43):
There was no friendly interaction.
There was no, uh, the, the personality,if not the person in Crispin wall
was gone, he was destroyed because ayear and a half before Eddie's death,
Chris and Eddie shared the spotlight.
(21:04):
With confetti falling down at the, uh,pinnacle moment of WrestleMania 20.
And that's a moment that the two of themalways fought to achieve, and they were
able to share the spotlight at the endof the night together in Madison square
garden, which is considered the, uh, thegreatest venue in sports, indoor sports.
(21:26):
I guess you could say it's worth noting.
Eddie was 38 at the time of his death.
His official cause of death was, uh, acardiac arrhythmia leading to arrest.
He was clean.
He did not have drugs in his system,but he had a long storied use of drug
(21:50):
use that is believed to have led to the.
Essentially overworking of his heartand his, even though he was clean at the
time, his heart couldn't take it anymore.
So in the immediate aftermathof Eddie's death, Eddie's wife,
Vicky Guerrero was inconsolable.
And knowing that Eddie and Chris wereso close, Nancy spent a week at the
(22:15):
Guerrero's house, helping the kids,helping Vicky and getting, essentially
getting the family back to normal.
And while she was doing that, noone was there to support Chris.
And so Chris went into a tremendous,terrible deep depression at one point,
Nancy filed for a restraining order andfiled for divorce called Vicky for hell
(22:41):
Vicki, called a neighbor to step in.
And the neighbor steppedin Chris and Nancy.
Pretended to be amicable.
And within 48 hours of filingfor a restraining order, the
divorce was called off and Chrisand Nancy were back together.
Also during this time, Nancy andVicki got together and thought as a
(23:04):
way of trying to help Chris get bythis, get through the death of Eddie.
They will give him a journal.
And Chris wrote lettersto Eddie in his journal.
So in June of 2007, crisp.
His personality wascontinuing to deteriorate.
Uh, he had never fully gottenover the death of Eddie.
(23:27):
He had, he was continuing to struggleand he was put in this tournament to
compete for the vacated ECW championship.
He was in the finals against the Dresslerknown as cm, punk, and they were going
to wrestle Sunday, June 24th, 2007at the pay-per-view called vengeance.
(23:54):
The way the story goes is on June22nd, Friday, Chris and Nancy
Benwah were outside by their pooland they had an argument and Chris
was never someone who drank and.
Did drugs after the death of Eddie grill,he became a drinker, not what you might
(24:18):
consider a heavy drinker, but enoughthat it was uncharacteristic for Chris.
So on the night of the 22nd of June,both Chris and Nancy had been drinking,
it is suggested that they had anargument, a half drank a bottle of
(24:38):
wine, which really isn't that muchwas not, not at all, not in my house.
I mean, yeah, it's really not that much.
So, you know, maybe,maybe there was more that.
Thrown away or something, but it wasfound outside and it is suggested
based on the evidence that would befound later that Chris tied Nancy's
(25:01):
arm, her wrists and ankles behindher, carried her to their bedroom.
Nilda on her back, strangled her andChris's signature finishing move was
called the crippler cross face wherehe would wrench someone's neck back
until they tapped out or submitted.
(25:24):
So it's not that he did that move toher, but what he did is he took ligature,
yanked it around her neck, pulledit so hard that the pressure between
the, uh, ligature on her neck and hisknees on her back called her, caused
(25:44):
her back to break and she suffered.
Sonia Meza-Leon (25:48):
What the fuck.
Why did he wait, hold on.
So
Brittney Sherman (25:53):
he pretty much talked tighter.
That's pretty much right.
I mean, well not, he did not hear wristsand ankles together, but tied, tied her
wrists together and her ankles together.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Behind her.
She couldn't, she couldn't fight back.
Sonia Meza-Leon (26:10):
Why did he do
Brittney Sherman (26:10):
that?
Why?
Because she's so shecouldn't defend herself.
I mean, not that he needed to know, but Imean, why in general, why did he kill her?
We'll get to that.
Get to that.
So that was on Friday night onSaturday, Chris was supposed to go
to what's known as a house show,uh, which is a wrestling show.
It's not televised.
(26:31):
It's usually in front of a smallercrowd and he called Chavo Eddie's
cousin, Eddie's nephew, excuse me,and said, Hey, I'm not going to make.
Nancy and Daniel have food poisoningand I'm in the hospital with them.
Nancy's throwing up blood.
(26:52):
I can't make it tonight, but I'll make itto Houston for the pay-per-view tomorrow.
Okay, cool.
Take care of your family.
You know, we'll deal with it thenearly in the morning on a Sunday, the
24th as well as a WWE referee, BradArmstrong get very strange text messages.
(27:24):
They are identical and theysay, this is my address.
The dogs are out by the pool.
The gate is open from Chris.
Who did they wait?
Who got the Javo Guerrero at east nephew?
And Brad Armstrong, a WWE referee.
(27:45):
Oh, I know that name.
Okay.
Yeah.
Brad
Sonia Meza-Leon (27:49):
Armstrong.
I know.
I mean my limited knowledge of wrestling.
Uh, okay.
So
Brittney Sherman (27:55):
what happens?
Uh, Chapo didn't think it thought itwas weird, but didn't think much of it.
He essentially replied to thetext message and thought, okay.
You know, I'll pick you up atthe airport in a few hours.
Cause he was expected to pick him upat the Houston airport for the event
that night we never heard from Korea.
Chris Don never confirmed his flight.
(28:16):
And so throughout the day,everyone started wondering
where Chris is, where Chris is.
Uh, someone said that they had a, anotherconversation that Chris said that, uh, now
his son was vomiting blood and in the ER,which is actually contradictory, he said
the day before that Nancy was vomitingblood and in the ER and Chris was with
(28:39):
them, but he'll catch a later flight.
So don't worry about it.
Well, they still couldn'tget ahold of him.
It was getting close tothe start of the show.
And so someone from WWE security calledthe local police, uh, in Chris's hometown
and said, can you go to a welfare check?
(29:00):
It's from one of our wrestlers,Chris Benwah, the police gets.
They don't know what they're going to see.
The dogs are out just likethe text messages said, and
the dogs are, uh, curtailed.
They're fine.
And, uh, you know, move to theside officers, get in the house
(29:22):
and they find Nancy's body facedown in the bed, tie it up.
Like we discussed witha Bible next to her.
Now Chris was never one to, he wasnever a religious guy, but any turned
to religion after he started to getclean and he started to get his best
(29:44):
friend, Chris involved in religion.
Chris was never, still, neverfollowed it, but started to read
some passages and start to findhis way through Christianity.
I guess you could say, Hmm.
The police then continuetheir way through the house.
(30:04):
And they come to Daniel's bedroom.
Daniel, seven years old.
He is face down in a pillow,under a pillow on his bed dead.
Now, strangely there's also a knife nextto Daniel's bed, but there is no evidence
that the knife was used against Daniel.
(30:28):
So now there's obviously a doublemurder and they still have not
found the person that they weresent to try and find in the house.
Chris.
So now they're concerned that theyhave a violent person possibly still
in the house and they draw theirguns and they start looking for him.
So they look throughout the house,they go down to the basement where
(30:52):
Chris has a gym, a home gym, andthey see Crispin tie tied up around.
With Jim chord and hanging from the topof a gym unit that is being supported
(31:12):
or pulled down by excessive weights.
Uh, so he snapped hisneck and killed himself.
The, uh, the WWE superstars were conin formed of the, the, uh, Vince the
findings, I guess you could say, justbefore that show went on the air.
(31:34):
I don't know how they went through withthe show, but they did the next day.
And investigation continues that night.
Now Monday night, June 25th, WWE goeson the air with a tribute show to
Crispin wall because at this point,Say that they have been informed that
(31:56):
the three of them have died, but theyhave not been told holiday have died.
Now, this is obviously it's a,it's a point of controversy because
this is more than 24 hours later.
And it's pretty amazing that the policewould not have reported their findings
26 hours earlier or whatever it was.
So WWE goes on the airwith a tribute show.
(32:18):
You've got all sorts of superstarscrying, talking about how great he was.
They show his best moments as a wrestler.
It's a, it's a reallygreat, beautiful show.
WWE claims that two hours into thethree-hour show is about when they found
out the true matters of the, the eventsof the death that Chris actually was
(32:42):
responsible for killing his wife andchild, and then taking his own life.
Wait,
Sonia Meza-Leon (32:47):
hold on a second.
What so ho how he may not know that andwhy didn't they check into it before they,
I mean, what he was, he killed himself.
Two people died that couldn'thave killed themselves.
He was the only likely suspect.
How did they not know thatbefore they did some kind
Brittney Sherman (33:04):
of like the thoughts was carbon monoxide poisoning because
they hadn't, they claim, and thisis supported by a lot of people.
They thought that it could have beencarbon monoxide poisoning or some
sort of freak accident that killed allthree of them that they didn't know,
Sonia Meza-Leon (33:25):
her hands were tied
Brittney Sherman (33:27):
and her feet, they didn't have that information yet.
Oh my God.
Sonia Meza-Leon (33:31):
Now what the, what a mess there.
Well, what happened?
So what happened?
They halfway through, whatdid they, did they stop?
Did they, we
Brittney Sherman (33:38):
finished the show.
Um, now you might be familiar witha wrestler named Chris Jericho.
He's a pretty famous guy.
I guess maybe not.
Okay.
Uh, no.
Well, he says he was watching that show.
I don't know if he was, I don't knowif it was with WWE at the time or not,
but he said he was watching that showand he said that he has a hard time
(33:59):
believing that WWE didn't know becauseduring one of their, like, what are
the wrestler videos paying tribute?
There was almost likea, a cryptic message.
That pretty much, it was somethinglike, I used to think that I would never
(34:19):
trust anyone else more with my family.
And he just thought that is areally strange thing for someone
to say what, who said that, uh,it, I'm not cording that exactly.
But, uh, another wrestler bythe name of, I think you get
went by William Regal at the.
Sonia Meza-Leon (34:38):
And why would he say something like that?
Was he saying it about, aboutcrisp Anwar or was he just
Brittney Sherman (34:44):
saying it in general saying it about Crispin and water?
So that's the question.
Why would he phrase itin such a weird way?
Chris Jericho feels like some people knewsomething and they just weren't saying it.
So WWE goes off year.
The news starts to flood with the factsof what actually happened the next night.
(35:07):
They have another show and WWE chairman,Vince McMahon, who ran the previous show
starts the show saying we did what wethought was the right thing to do since
that time new evidence has come to light.
This is the last you will hear.
Crispin was namedmentioned on this program.
(35:30):
And Crispin was name has neverbeen mentioned on WWE Everest.
Sonia Meza-Leon (35:37):
But don't you think that's, I mean, I'm, I think that's,
I don't know, I guess the right thingto do, but I mean, think about the
underlying reasons behind his behavior,which is probably that, you know,
prefrontal lobe damage from wrestling.
And then I, I mean, we all knowthe Vince of men is an opportunist.
(35:57):
So any time that he can overdrawdrum dramatize something
to his benefit, he does.
So making a statement like that,I mean, he didn't have a choice,
but I mean, yes, I feel like thatthat in and of itself was an act.
I agree with whoever said that they knew,
Brittney Sherman (36:12):
um, I, I, I don't disagree with you.
The Vincent man is an opportunist,but I think when you're talking about
a murder, that's a different thing.
That's a different level.
When you're talking about events happeningin the world, in the media, Even your
own people that can kind of be writtenoff as a period in life or something.
(36:35):
Yes, he's absolutely an opportunist,but now it's talking about getting
involved in a murder investigation andI think that's, I personally, that's
my opinion of the difference, I,
Sonia Meza-Leon (36:49):
I guess, but how was he getting involved in a murder?
I mean, how, I mean, sure.
They reported too quickly withoutgetting their facts straight, but
I'm not sure that that meant thatthey participated in any way in the
Brittney Sherman (37:01):
murders.
No, no, no.
I agree.
But I think that they wanted todo everything that they could to
distance themselves from Chris.
He, he was completely removed.
Now.
You, they, you can.
You can look all over WWE.
You will not find his name anywherelike his wrestling matches.
(37:25):
You can still find on theirstreaming network, but if you
search for Crispin wall on thestreaming network, it comes up empty.
It's only if you know where to look,will you be able to find them because
they're part of a larger program.
Uh, but more importantly, let's talkabout exactly what you just said.
That pre frontal lobe damage dueto the activity, the profession,
(37:48):
the livelihood that he was in.
And let's talk about that divinghead, but that he did thousands.
Upon thousands of times, there was onewrestler whose name is Chris Nowinski,
who retired from wrestling to get intoneuroscience after he had six concussions.
(38:10):
And he asked Chris at onepoint in his career, how many
concussions have you had increases?
I can't even tell, I can't count how many.
So there is no doubt that he hadtremendous brain damage so much so that
his brain was autopsied afterwards.
It had severe CTE, which we allknow is what's found largely
(38:33):
in a lot of NFL players now.
And it's actually suggested that the rateof CTE and early death of wrestlers could
be doubled that of NFL players suggestedI have heard that said I don't have
the confirmed science to back that up.
(38:55):
So I want to emphasize that.
Sonia Meza-Leon (38:57):
But this is a surprise me because they don't have any gear on
that's protecting them and they bangeach other on the head with folding
Brittney Sherman (39:02):
chairs.
That's exactly right.
And after that and after me, soafter Crispin Wawa, they outlawed
exactly the act that you justsaid, bang each other on the head.
I swear.
Absolutely.
They definitely did.
They, uh, they got rid of like allowingthat diving head butt or allowing
(39:22):
that head first type of contact.
They had a drug policy previouslyand after Crispin law, they
strongly started to inform.
And in addition to the CTE, Chris hada, uh, a posthumous blood tests done
to check for drugs in his system.
(39:43):
He had some alcoholic system because therewere half drank, bottled wine found all
around the house, not just by the poolwhere Nancy was probably killed or at
the very least tied up, but no illegaldrugs, no real prescription drugs, no
steroids, but he had 10 times the normalamount of testosterone in his body.
(40:08):
And if you listen to a WWE attorney, hewill tell you that that's not uncommon
for someone getting over steroids isusage because steroids decrease the
amount of testosterone in your body.
And when you stop using the steroids,you need to replenish your loss to stop.
(40:30):
Others will tell you that is a wayto get around using steroids by
increasing your testosterone levels.
Huh?
Interesting.
All right.
The way the services of Nancy and Danielwere attended only by one WWE participant
(40:50):
Jim Ross, who was a talent relationsguy and onscreen play by play guy.
He was asked to leave.
Crispin wa had a private service only withhis surviving son, David from a previous
marriage and Chris, his ex wife, uh, animmediate family in the time after the
(41:15):
murders, that diary that he was given.
So he.
Right to Eddie was found and read, andit had some very telling signs in there.
And it would almost read likesomeone whose mental capacity
and sanity was deteriorating.
Even as much saying, as Iknow, I'll be seeing you soon,
(41:39):
I'm coming to be with you.
So he said,
Sonia Meza-Leon (41:43):
so you feel like that he, he obviously had this planned?
Brittney Sherman (41:47):
Yes, absolutely.
This was not
Sonia Meza-Leon (41:49):
high.
The why?
Like how do you have it planned andthen kill your wife and your son too?
Well, like why?
Because that seems like to me that wassomething, I mean, maybe it was planned,
but like why, you know, kill yourself.
Brittney Sherman (42:02):
Why kill them?
Well, a hundred percent.
Exactly.
So he, uh, not only did he haveterrible CTE, he had the brain
of an 85 year old Alzheimer's.
So he clearly was not inthe right mental capacity.
He leading up to that time in the 18months between Eddie's and Chris's death.
(42:24):
Chris was exhibiting more violentbehavior, more erratic behavior.
He wasn't himself, whether or nothe intended to take that action.
The weekend of June 22nd to the 24th,or it was something that snapped in him
that weekend that led him to choose.
Then maybe he was planningon just killing himself.
(42:47):
Maybe he had some sort of demonstalking to him in his diseased brain.
We'll never know exactly what caused it.
It was a hideous, disgusting murder.
And.
Changed wrestling forever.
Um, as I said, there are nomore chair shots to the head.
(43:08):
There are no more what are calledpile drivers, where you throw a
guy straight down on his head.
There's no more diving headbuttsor leading with your head.
There are stricter drug policies, butregardless three people, two completely
innocently, including a seven year old boylost their life due to what many people
(43:31):
will argue was negligence in the waythat a business worked for generations.
And the only way that Chrisfelt like he could succeed.
Sonia Meza-Leon (43:41):
I mean, don't you think that still exists in
the world of wrestling though?
I think it
Brittney Sherman (43:44):
definitely does.
I think that there are otherwrestling companies out there.
Absolutely.
That still do it.
I think that.
I think that WWE triesto do the right thing.
I think that they say the rightthings, but whether or not they're
actually doing the right things,it's hard to tell here, I'm going to
Sonia Meza-Leon (44:05):
ask you this.
What do you, what do youthink about Vince McMahon as a
Brittney Sherman (44:08):
person?
Uh, as a, as an individual personor as a businessman, those are,
they are, that's why I'm asking.
Um, it's hard to say because they'redifferent, but they're also kind of the
same because he's business as businessethics drive his personal ethics.
(44:29):
And if it's right for his business, itwill compromise his personal ethics.
But I think it's sort of verse
Sonia Meza-Leon (44:38):
two, I think more so your bill, your personal
ethics should drive your business.
They should, but I don'tthink they shouldn't
Brittney Sherman (44:43):
change because their money, I agree.
They shouldn't change because of money.
But I think with a lot of shrewdbusinessmen, and I'm not saying that
in women, and I'm not saying this.
To protect them or support them.
I don't think that'sthe way that it works.
Uh, you mean hit for him or him.
And I think a lot of people, I don'tthink he's unique in that situation.
(45:05):
I think there are a lot of businesspeople that operate that way.
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:09):
I guess I would just say that in his business, he's in the
business of exploitation of people.
And so I guess maybe bynature, that is the case.
I mean, it's, uh, he, he at times willexploit his himself to help prophets.
Brittney Sherman (45:29):
Yeah.
I was just going to say, it's, it's hispeople, but he'll do it himself too.
He will put himself outthere for better or worse.
Yeah.
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:37):
He's very much, uh, um, uh, you know, he's, he's
very visible in that industry.
Um, and as part of what he does, Imean, he's, he's one of the characters.
Brittney Sherman (45:46):
He is a character.
Yeah.
He, uh, he was one of theirbiggest characters for a few years.
That's
Sonia Meza-Leon (45:52):
crazy.
That's so sad.
I don't understand why youwould, what was, so go back.
How the boy was seven.
How did he
Brittney Sherman (45:59):
die?
Uh, the, he was, oh, good question.
Uh, he was heavily drugged with Zabbixand suffocated most likely with a pillow.
Oh,
Sonia Meza-Leon (46:12):
really?
Yes.
So he had the die at the hands of his
Brittney Sherman (46:16):
father?
Yeah.
No.
And that's the thing.
So Nancy was killed on Friday night.
Daniel is most, most likelykilled on Saturday morning.
And Chris stayed in the houseuntil probably mid morning,
Sunday until he killed himself.
Sonia Meza-Leon (46:39):
That's crazy.
So what the heck was he?
I mean, he must've been insome kind of state of mind.
Can you imagine what he was like walking
Brittney Sherman (46:46):
around his house?
He exactly.
I, uh, I just, I can't, I mean, I canonly imagine some sort of psychosis, like
I CA I can't imagine any other way thatyou could be, and he's, you know, leaving
voicemails and, and sending text messages,but, you know, he, even, he even talked on
the phone though, to a couple of people.
(47:07):
I, you know, they, they, they claimthat he sounded like he was in distress.
Like you was, you know, disturbed, butI just, I can't, I can't imagine what
the, for over 24 hours, he walked aroundthe house with his dead wife and son.
Sonia Meza-Leon (47:29):
Yeah.
I mean, what happened?
I mean, he killed his wife, obviously.
And then what on Friday night?
And then he probably realized that bySaturday morning, his son would find
out that his wife was no longer livingand he didn't really have a choice.
Brittney Sherman (47:47):
So.
He probably felt like myson's going to find out.
And I either turned myself in andhe probably wasn't the right state
of mind and did what he, the worstpossible took the worst possible route.
Um, it's just, it's, it's so sad.
And you want to, you know, youwant to talk about Vince McMahon
(48:07):
and, and how he exploits them.
Chris had an older son, Davidfrom, from a previous marriage,
as I mentioned, WWE did not oncereach out to David to support him.
They did not reach out toNancy's family to support them.
And it wasn't until last year, 2000,19, 12 years after the horrific
(48:36):
events that David and Nancy.
Got together again forthe very first time.
And that was at the behest of ChrisJericho who arranged for the two
of them to meet and get together.
Sonia Meza-Leon (48:53):
That's terrible.
That is a horrible story.
No,
Brittney Sherman (48:56):
it's thank you, Brittany.
I'm sorry.
I brought you down, butyou brought me down.
It's
Sonia Meza-Leon (49:00):
okay.
Yeah, no, I pay it's.
No, I know.
I mean, it's hard to talkabout these subjects are
Brittney Sherman (49:07):
lighthearted.
No, they're not at all.
It's it's really tragic, uh, youknow, to, to cover my sources.
Um, vice TV day, a a docu series calledthe dark side of the ring and they did
a two-part episode specific to Crispinwall, the, uh, the podcast, something
(49:28):
to wrestle with Bruce Prichard, a sportsillustrated article, like a pedia.
Um, there's I, uh,What's happened in 2007.
So I've read a lot andwatched a lot since that time.
But these are the ones that I particularlyrecently focused on that that kind of
gave me the most fresh information.
Sonia Meza-Leon (49:48):
Do you feel, do you guys, do you feel like that?
Um, I mean, I'd like to thinkthat the WWE, as well as the NFL
is taking, you know, head traumaseriously, um, you feel like, cause
you still watch wrestling, I think.
Do you feel like thatthere's some progress there?
I mean, cause they don'twear any protection.
Brittney Sherman (50:04):
Just like I said, you know, they got rid of
chair shots, they got rid of ahead to head or head first impact.
They, I think have gotten rid of bloodor intentional bleeding sometimes
that happens just on accident.
But most of the times when we seeblood in wrestling, it's intentional.
(50:24):
Uh, so I think that's out loud.
So I think they are taking those.
I think they are taking them seriously.
Uh, their, their drug policyhas gotten much more stringent
and most of these things are adirect result of crisp and law.
And they might not tellyou that it was direct.
They might tell you that it was,those were policies that were in
(50:46):
place, but they were just very laxand became more stringent, but most
people will tell you it's directlybecause of the Crispin wall murders.
Hmm.
Sonia Meza-Leon (50:57):
So back to the drugs.
Do, do you mean like illegal drugs or?
Well, I mean, I guess Icould still be steroids.
What kind of drugs are they testing for?
What?
I mean, I would say that most ofthose folks should probably be smoking
marijuana because they're probablylike what, what kind of drugs are you?
Brittney Sherman (51:15):
Are, is there, are there specific or just time.
I don't know, I don't, Ihaven't read their drug policy.
I don't even know if it's availableto be read, but if you hear people
talk about it, it's pretty stringent.
Marijuana is on that list.
Steroids are definitely on that list.
Uh, anything that could be evenconsidered a slight performance enhancing
(51:39):
drug or illegal drug, uh, cocaine,I think painkillers are all allowed,
assuming that they're prescribed.
I would hope to God that they're allowedbecause the amount of damage those bodies
go through, I can't imagine why theywouldn't be allowed, but I have really no
idea, but I've heard it's very stringent.
Sonia Meza-Leon (51:58):
That's crazy about pot because,
Brittney Sherman (52:00):
well, but hang on a second, but also hanging
out in the second they are.
I think they're incorporated, Ithink in Connecticut, that's where
their headquarters are, but they.
A national and even global company.
So they're on the road exceptfor right now all the time.
(52:23):
So you're going potentially from one stateto the next to the next night, after night
after night, it pot's legal in one state.
It's illegal the next day.
You kind of have to have aknock across the board policy.
I would think.
Sonia Meza-Leon (52:36):
Yeah, I guess I just think it's kind of silly.
I mean, and by the way, anybody whosays that pod is a performance enhancing
drug has, cause it's not enhancing whenMichael Phelps got in trouble for pot.
I was like, this is like, It did not.
I mean, seriously, like you,he would be so much faster if
(52:56):
he smoked or he didn't smoke.
So God bless him, you know,like actually maybe gave those
other guys a fighting chance.
I mean, I think it's just silly.
Um, I think that there's somethingabout the NFL policy that's changing
now and being able to use cannabis,or maybe they're using CBD.
Something has to change.
I mean, these guys, well, Ithink CBD is talking about
Brittney Sherman (53:15):
getting hooked on narcotics.
Well, CBD is legal in the entirecountry, but there are going to be
a lot of people that are going totell you that CBD and other narcotics
are not on the same playing field.
Sonia Meza-Leon (53:29):
They aren't CBD.
Doesn't have any kind ofhallucinogenic qualities at all.
It's
Brittney Sherman (53:33):
really just CBD also.
So does not providelargely the same relief.
Sonia Meza-Leon (53:40):
Oh, are you saying that it does?
Uh, well maybe, I guess you mean,you're saying that CBD doesn't
provide the same relief that
Brittney Sherman (53:47):
TB, the THC does?
No, I'm saying CBD doesn't froma pain standpoint, no pain.
Um, THC doesn't touch pain.
I'm saying THC doesn't touch painat the level that an oxycodone does.
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:00):
No, of course.
Brittney Sherman (54:01):
Oh my God, that you can't, you can't say that you can take
CBD over other prescription narcotics.
They're not the same.
They don't do the same thing.
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:13):
No, no, no.
I would agree with you.
I mean, certainly beyond a certainpoint CBD or THC is not going to help.
Yeah, yeah, no it's but if it can, I mean,if it can help a bit, I would say, you
know, I mean, I considered marijuana tobe effective for pain between anything
more than a Tylenol can take care of, butless than like, you know, a Vicodin, like
(54:38):
there's like a tiny little sweet spotwhere it's like, just enough, think if
Brittney Sherman (54:41):
you get a strong enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's probably true.
Yeah.
If you get a strong enough, you know,
Sonia Meza-Leon (54:46):
Yeah.
I mean, some of that stuff ispretty, pretty hard, but it's
Brittney Sherman (54:49):
true.
So, uh, well that was very interestinglittle conspiracy theory to wrap this up.
Oh, as you were talking about is howis it possible that the WWE didn't
know about these events beforehandthe night between Daniel's murder and
(55:10):
Chris's suicide Wikipedia reported thatCrispin wall was going to be replaced
in his championship match with JohnMorrison because of an illness in the
family that hadn't been reported yet.
Also that night, that post was deleted byWikipedia and then a, another post came
(55:36):
up, reporting the deaths of his family.
That first post came from.
Stanford Connecticut.
The home of the WWE headquarters.
The second post came from somewhere inAustralia, both posts were flagged and
deleted by Wikipedia for not meetingtheir standards of qualification.
(56:02):
Of course, there's a question ofhow did those posts ever make it up
there and you can still see them?
I think because, uh, you can do likea historical edit or historical read
or something of Wikipedia posts.
Hmm.
Sonia Meza-Leon (56:19):
I mean, I, I would not be surprised at the
Brittney Sherman (56:21):
WWE new it's.
Um, you know, it's hard to imagine thatthey didn't know if they knew some it's
hard to imagine that they would moveforward with a tribute show if they did.
Sonia Meza-Leon (56:35):
I know, think about what that meant, you know, think
about, think about their priorities.
And, but I mean, here, what I don'tunderstand is how would they not know?
They knew that he hung himself.
They, they claim that he knew theother two knew that they knew that
other two other people died in thehouse, unless someone else came in
and killed those other two people.
I mean, crystal, you know what I mean?
(56:56):
Like,
Brittney Sherman (56:56):
I don't know that they, they claim they did not know
that he hung himself and it's possiblethat it was a triple homicide.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:07):
Oh, Hmm.
Interesting.
I'm going to go read Wikipedia right now.
All right.
Interesting.
That was a good one.
Brittney Sherman (57:15):
Britain is tragic story of the murders of Nancy and Daniel
Benwah and the suicide of Crispin wall.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:27):
Hmm.
That
Brittney Sherman (57:28):
was sad.
But I'm planning.
I got you.
One that you are not familiar with.
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:35):
I knew a little bit about it, but I didn't
follow wrestling that much.
Um, but I mean, I knewit was a sad situation.
I didn't know the extent, um, about,you know, the conditions of his wife and
then his little boy, that's just really
Brittney Sherman (57:48):
sad.
It's horrible.
And
Sonia Meza-Leon (57:51):
I mean, I think that what you said too, you know, back
to the, the brain damage, um, youknow, we have to take that seriously
and I'm glad that there was evidenceshowing, you know, that, that there
was something behind his actions.
Absolutely.
I agree.
We'd love to hear from you guys as well.
You know, if you have suggestions or youwant to hear us talk about certain things,
Brittney Sherman (58:11):
feel free to share.
You know, some of the things that we findparticularly important is to support other
independent podcasters and in a way tobranch out and connect with others and
support the independent podcast community.
Uh, we have a couple, uh, littleshout outs that we want to provide.
(58:32):
So I have a couple
Sonia Meza-Leon (58:33):
of shout outs that I would love to do some
folks that I've worked with in thepast and had communication with.
And I find quite lovely.
Um, the first would be, um,music city, 9 1, 1 Brandon Hall.
You guys should take a listen.
I, um, I he's a 9 1, 1 dispatcher fromNashville, Tennessee, very entertaining.
I love his approach and I cannotstop listening to his voice.
(58:57):
And the other podcast that I'd like togive a shout out to his meanwhile at the
studio, it's going guys in my hometown,you know, who created a podcast, um,
environment in a recording studio there.
And, um, they're doing really great.
So I did some, I sat in with them acouple of times and we had some fun.
So please take a listento their trailer as well.
(59:18):
Meanwhile, at the station.
Brittney Sherman (59:21):
Check out a couple other podcasters that support us and
we want to give them some support.
Hey fellow Scarlet, true crime listeners.
I'm CC the host of a new true crimepodcast, sooner state, true crime as
(59:41):
a born and bred Oki I'll cover casesbased in my wonderful home state of
Oklahoma, the term sooner actuallyrefers to cheaters in the land run.
My state's very first true crime.
New episodes are released twice amonth in apple podcasts and most
podcasts ups or visit our website,anchor.fm/crime state to listen now.
(01:00:02):
So come away with me to my crime stateon the sooner state true crime podcast,
and please stay sooner safe out there.
Y'all
hi everyone.
I'm Ariel Cooksey host of now.
When violent acts occur, we tend tothink the predators are monsters,
(01:00:25):
Charlene or human could do such things.
But if we're honest, onlyhumans commit malicious crime.
And if you're like me, you want to knowwhy to find out, join me at malice,
wherever you listen to podcasts by.
Hey, y'all I'm Brandon Hall.
(01:00:46):
I'm one of the hosts of music city,nine 11, a podcast about the good,
the bad, and the dark side of nine 11.
Dispatching me and my co-hostsare 9 1 1 dispatchers.
With over 60 years of experience.
Join us as we play 9 1 1calls and discuss them.
Oh, did I mention that we get.
9 1 1, what's your emergency
(01:01:41):
You can find us on Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram at music city
nominal one, and we're downloadableon every podcast platform.
We want to give a shout out to the pod allthe time podcast network that we Scarlet
TCP are proud members of other members
Sonia Meza-Leon (01:02:00):
of the pot, all the time podcast network.
Creative intuitive, another digitalcitizen history of a haunting
round and round the podcast.
Real AKA truth podcast, ruck up podcast,random unnamed podcast, suburban folk,
three peas in a podcast, Ross sex podcast.
(01:02:22):
I think we're doing it
Brittney Sherman (01:02:23):
podcast.
Just so if you like what you'rehearing from Scarlet TCP, check out
these other shows that members ofthe pod all the time podcast network.
Alrighty, thank you.
Scarlett autos, stay healthy, stay safe.
We are the ladies of Scarlet.
(01:02:45):
Keep killing it
Sonia Meza-Leon (01:02:46):
later.
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