The WWE has released a timeline detailing Chris Benoit’s contact with WWE employees last weekend. It says that on Saturday 3:30pm, Benoit left a voicemail for a co-worker saying he missed his flight and over slept and would be late to the WWE Live Event. The co-worker called Benoit back, Benoit confirmed everything he said in his voice message and sounded tired and groggy. Benoit then stated, “I love you”. The co-worker stated that it was “out of context.”
At 3:42pm, the same co-worker was concerned with Benoit’s tone and demeanor and called Benoit for a second time. Benoit did not answer the call and the co-worker left a message stating “just call me back.” Two minutes later Benoit returned the call saying he didn’t answer the call because he was on the phone with Delta changing his flight. Benoit stated he had a real stressful day due to Nancy and Daniel being sick with food poisoning. Benoit still sounded groggy at this point according to the co-worker.
At 4:30 pm, A co-worker who consistently travels with Benoit, called Benoit from outside Houston airport and Benoit answered. Benoit told the co-worker that Nancy was throwing up blood and that Daniel was also throwing up. Benoit thought they had food poisoning. Benoit stated he changed his flight and he would be arriving into Houston at 6:30pm. Benoit told the co-worker to drive onto the WWE event. An hour and five minutes later, Benoit called WWE Talent Relations stating that his son was throwing up and that he and Nancy were in the hospital with their son, and that Benoit would be taking a later flight into Houston, landing late, but would make the WWE live event in Beaumont.
At 6:10 pm A representative of Talent Relations called Benoit. The representative from Talent Relations asked Benoit what time Benoit was getting into Beaumont. Benoit responded he was leaving Atlanta at 9:20pm Eastern time arriving into Houston at 9:24pm Central time. The representative from Talent Relations advised Benoit that it would be too late to make the WWE live event in Beaumont. Benoit apologized citing he had a family emergency. The representative from Talent Relations suggested to Benoit that instead of going to the WWE live event in Beaumont, Benoit should take the flight to Houston, rest up and be ready for the Vengeance Pay-Per-View event. Three minutes later the WWE employee called back Benoit to reconfirm the travel plans with no answer. The representative left a voice message to take the flight and rest up.
Then early the next day – Sunday – Benoit sent several text messages to multiple co-workers. WWE made several attempts to contact Benoit via phone and text messages, as well as, the local hospitals in the Atlanta area. As of 11:00 pm Sunday night there was no contact made with Benoit.
No mention of the text messages were made to WWE management until 12:30 pm the next day – Monday. Fifteen minutes later a WWE official contacted the Fayetteville County Sheriff’s office and requested them to go to Benoit’s residence. And at 4:00 pm on Monday, WWE received a call from the Fayetteville County Sheriff’s office, advising that they entered the house and found 3 deceased bodies (a male, a female and a child). The Fayette County Sheriff’s office has secured the house as a “major crime scene” and that the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office had no further information.
You can draw your own conclusions from this timeline. This timeline and the text messages show me that Chris Benoit was not in his right mind during the last few days of his life. And it only leaves me to wonder if Benoit found lucidity in the end which led him to realize the horrors of what he did leading him to take his own life. One interesting thing I have read about steroid use is that one of the effects of abuse is paranoia. Now the WWE can go out of their way to say that “roid rage” was not to blame for these deaths. Even going so far as to “strongly suggest” that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts.
Ok, it may not have been “roid rage” but the steroids could have messed with his head. An unnamed co-worker was quote as saying “This wasn’t roid rage, this was insanity. Roid rage doesn’t last for 48 hours. There were signs that something was wrong. Stories have emerged that a year ago he became paranoid and believed he was being followed. He wouldn’t let Nancy leave the house because he believed someone was out to get them.” And if it comes out that steroids played a role in these tragic deaths, then I hope Congress comes down on Vince McMahon and the WWE very hard.
Any way you look at it, this is a sad and tragic story. It breaks my heart everytime they air the clip of Benoit and his son after he won the World Championship. Something had to be mentally wrong with Benoit because I refuse to believe that a sane man, a sane father could kill his own 7-year-old son.
