Pat Lynch’s gut told him there was no way Arturo Gatti committed suicide by hanging himself in a Brazilian hotel room in 2009.
But even Lynch was blown away at the mountain of scientific and forensic evidence that shows the former boxing champion was likely murdered by strangulation.
That’s the findings of a 10-month investigation revealed during a press conference Wednesday in North Bergen, N.J.
Commissioned by Lynch, who served as Gatti’s manager, a virtual “Dream Team” of experts in the fields of medicine, forensic profiling, federal law enforcement, science and forensic animation, spent nearly three hours yesterday using pictures, charts, animation, physics and basic common sense to prove not Gatti could not have hung himself as Brazilian authorities concluded, but was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head and then strangled to death.
“This is not a suicide,” said Dr. Stanley Zydlo, who has more than 50 years of experience in forensic examination. “It’s a homicide.”
Gatti became one of the most popular personalities in boxing with his warrior mentality and bloody brawls. A native of Canada, he made a home in Jersey City and drew sellout crowds to his bouts in Atlantic City while winning world titles as a junior welterweight and welterweight.
But two years after retiring from the sport, the 37-year-old was found dead by his wife Amanda Rodrigues Gatti, on the morning of July 11, 2009, on the kitchen floor of a condo they had rented in the resort town of Porto de Galinhas, Brazil.
Their 10-month old son Arturo Jr. was also in the condo.
His wife was initially held as a suspect in his death, but was released when Brazilian scientific police surmised Gatti used a purse strap to hang himself from a staircase in the condo.
Lynch couldn’t live with that result and his team of impartial experts concluded otherwise.
Among their findings
· Gatti’s body was found on the floor lateral to the staircase with his head under the breakfast bar. If he had fallen when the strap broke as Brazilian police said, he would have fallen forward.
· There was a blunt force laceration to the back of Gatti’s head that caused the pool of blood around his body. Yet there was no blood on the staircase or on the breakfast bar except for two bloodied hand towels on the counter.
· The purse strap was found an unreasonable distance from Gatti’s body as was a bar stool, which could have been the only mechanism high enough for Gatti to lift himself up to the staircase.
· The blunt force injury to his head was most likely inflicted by another party in the condo while Gatti was clothed in only his underwear, which was how his body was found.
· There is no evidence the body was suspended from the stairs; no marks, no fibers left in the wood, no blood on the walls from the head injury, no marks on his body from the pressure of hanging against the stairs.
· The purse strap was actually 47 inches long, too large to keep Gatti’s head from slipping through it and it could only support a little less than 70 pounds for only four or five seconds.
· The marks on Gatti’s throat were not consistent with a hanging, but more like those found in strangulation.
The investigators and experts stopped short of accusing Gatti’s wife of a crime, but retired FBI special agent Stephen Moore called the investigation by Brazilian police “inexplicable,” and Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, an expert forensic pathologist, called the autopsy in Brazil “horribly incomplete.”
Moore said, “It’s inconceivable what they say happened, happened.”
A full report of the findings will be translated into Portuguese and given to the public prosecutor in Brazil.
The case is still technically open and the prosecutor has agreed to review the new information, and could call for a new investigation or trial.
“We know he was murdered,” Lynch said. “Now let’s find out who planned it and who did it. I think a lot of people have an idea who the finger should be pointed at. But we’ll see.”