Shawn Michaels And Diesel Good Friends, Better Enemies, Monday Night SmackDown! Track back 30 years to the documented interview with Detective Gerald Procanyn of the Whitehall Police Department at the hotel. According to a criminal complaint, there are photos and notes of these injuries taken by Debbie Rogers, the wife of Snukas manager at the time, the legendary Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. They are not against the donation, only that it shouldnt be tied in with the case or the Department.. Its possible like Snuka concedes that Argentino was fine with the philandering. She was staying in a motel room with Jimmy Snuka in Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. It was devastating.. The Events of Nancy Argentino's Death. PHOTO GALLERY: The strange story of Jimmy Superfly Snuka and Nancy Argentino. Though the records check from the Sheriffs Office matched the four known charges, the Certificate of Conviction from the court says he pled guilty to Assault 3rd while being sentenced to his one-year conditional discharge. Vice's "Dark Side of the Ring" took on the death of Nancy Argentino in a new episode, which aired April 12. The hospital received a call for an ambulance from Snuka when he came back to the motel. At around 4 a.m. trucks were approaching Argentino, who had found a bush to squat and pee. Kennedy only got a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, but caused irreperable damage to any presidential ambitions that he may have had. A recent episode of an ongoing docuseries dedicated to the dark underbellyof professional wrestling tackles a mysterious death and asks,was a young woman's death anaccident or was she killed by a professional wrestling superstar? Other sources have been linked where applicable. And in his book Snuka, besides fearing needles (even though the word fear, he vows, is not part of my vocabulary) boasts his respect of women. Even the incident with Roddy Piper smashing a coconut on Snukas head was used! Snukas wife, Carole Snuka, told the producers of Dark Side of the Ring that her husband told her that McMahon came into town with his briefcase and told him it was done., Her family claimed that WWE offered them $25K following her death. He testified that Snuka is a shell of a man whose brain is damaged beyond repair from years of wrestling and who was suffering from dementia that is worsening by the month.. PWSTees.com Your favorite Pro Wrestling Stories, on a tee! A nurse observed Snukas strange demeanor when he visited Argentinos room after she was admitted at Lehigh Valley Hospital Centers ER. Buddy Rogers left him there and vowed to attend the church service later, but he didnt. They do not want a public apology and would not be a part of it, replied Lieutenant Paul Zemenz, the officers supervisor, in a letter sent back to Sparkes. Picture made on Wednesday, October 7, 2015. Her family claimed that WWE offered them $25K following her death. She would sadly die at the young age of 23 in a Pennsylvania motel room. Picture made on Wednesday, October 7, 2015. He was the mouthpiece, trying to direct the conversation.. The DAs office and the media certainly failed to do their jobs following Snukas first horrific assault. Recovering from that[,] I observed that the male had grabbed the female by her hair and was dragging her face along the wall (north) of the building. (When I reached Bronstad recently, he basically told the same story, including volunteering the detail about Snuka resuming his attack on Argentino in front of him. She later dropped charges and claimed he didnt hurt her. After that meeting, investigators ruled Argentino's death an accident. My mom told her, Listen, Nancy, youre too pretty and too smart to put up with this. With this information, the cause of death would have been termed accidental if a formal autopsy report was prepared., As it would later transpire, the paragraph contradicts the complete coroners office file, which I obtained as part of the same civil case appendix mentioned earlier. Its obvious if you go back and look at the facts of the case, something went on. The date was May 11, 1983, . Died? Snuka recalled the coke-induced bender at the hotel where he and his boys would party and crash. I did not have a clear-cut case. Complicating matters is Snukas alien file, obtained from U.S. He was to re-examine the evidence after Argentinos death and try to persuade then-District Attorney William Platt that this was not an accident. Argentino was dating World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling star James Reiher Snuka known professionally as Jimmy Superfly Snuka when she died under suspicious circumstances in 1983. However, by the next day, he apparently changed his story and claimed that. That day, with Snukas lawyer, James Sparkes, acting as notary, she swore out an affidavit stating that she was in no way seeking prosecution against Snuka. In a single sentence summary from the same phone interview between Bronstad and Romanenko referenced above, Procanyn wrote, , Vince McMahon tried to talk her out of making the complaint against Snuka. Whats more, the 12-24 hour delay for Snuka to call for help contributed to the emergency staffers inability to resuscitate Argentino. It also questions thecontroversial meeting between McMahon and authorities back in 1983, saying perhapsArgentino's death wasn't investigated properly because Snuka was an asset to the company. In August 2015: Carole, the third wife of Jimmy Snuka, says that he has stomach cancer. The male was forcing the female back towards room #1 while the female was yelling for help., After seeing this, Donovan finally called the Sheriffs Department. The 1983 death of Nancy Argentino has become one the most infamous chapters in pro wrestling history. But the revelation that if we take Procanyns contemporaneous interview with Bronstad and Romanenko at face value Vince McMahon may have been one of these failures is something that, in 2020, casts her death in a different light. WWE has not responded to Oxygen.coms request for comment. [McMahon] states the victim actually guided Snuka from one area to another as Snuka has no conception of time, Procanyn wrote in his report. He was charged with second and third-degree assault, resisting arrest, and obstruction of governmental administration. At this point, he began to yell that if she wants to leave[,] go ahead. Take Dr. Isidore Mihalakiss autopsy report noting that the multiplicity and magnitude of Nancy Argentinos dozen or more craniocerbral blows may even be suggestive of mate abuse and that this case should be investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise.. A follow-up interview with Snuka was conducted by investigatorson June 1. She ended up driving him to wrestling matches and planning his schedule, which, in turn, may have put Argentino in harm's way. In the wake of Argentinos death, one of Snukas confidants came to his aid. Her sisters, Louise Argentino and Lorraine Salome, tell me that they believe that this was the first time Snuka had gotten violent, meaning that Argentinos resolve wouldnt necessarily be worn down yet. Lorraine reveals that Nancy's childhood friend Ellen was engaged to Johnny Rodz, a legendary journeyman wrestler and trainer, and this was how she was introduced to the world of wrestling. I think we stopped drinking after thatshe did at least, according to Snuka. He believed that there was enough to take it to a grand jury as a murder case, but William Platt thought otherwise. It is a deterioration of brain tissue and function and was discovered in 2004 at the Allegheny County medical examiners office after performing an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers player, Iron Mike Webster. What? All Ill say is I think his legacy is intact. One event was a 2012 poker game in New York in which Snuka won $100,000 for charity, Scheetz said. He goes on about how he wished it hadnt happen and says I had no reason to hurt her. Nonetheless, Snuka remained forever tied to 23-year-old Argentinos untimely death on May 10, 1983. Senior Deputy District Attorney Craig Sheetz pointed to medical records showing that Snuka had an appointment with a concussion specialist on January 29, 2014. Assistant District Attorney Richard Plochocki, citing Argentinos affidavit with regards to the assault on her person, and the potential negative effects on Snukas green card as a first-time offender, recommended a plea on a single charge of harassment. In 1985, Nancy Argentinos family won a $500,000 judgment against the Superfly in a federal wrongful-death civil lawsuit; but after filing for bankruptcy the retired wrestler reportedly failed to fork over any restitution. Snuka also didnt help matters, with. It was 4 a.m and I was already up. And Tarzan likely never took steroids, boozed or binged on cocaine like The Superfly admitted he had. Snuka, a married man, had returned from a World Wrestling Federation taping at the Allentown Fairgrounds to find Argentino gasping for air and oozing yellow fluid from her mouth and nose.". If you missed it, the immediate things you need to know are that Argentino died of complications from a skull fracture; that Snuka initially told a variety of stories that involved pushing her, only to change his tune claiming she slipped and fell at the side of the road after she died; that the coroner ruled it a homicide in a report that wasnt made public; and that the case mysteriously stalled out after just three weeks. And while theyre drinking and having a good time in comes the party-crashing police. I think she died of a fracture to her skull. We tried to talk some sense into her but she went back on the road with him, Salome said. In. It was a. The donation, though, was often conflated with the sentence as if they were related, and none of the articles contained actual details of what happened in the courtroom beyond the disposition. Ive never heard of anything like it before.. Most of the information was gathered from articles by The Morning Call, who, with several different writers, covered the Jimmy Snuka and Nancy Argentino case from when it was revived in 2013 to his hearings and until his passing in 2017. I could not understand why the district attorney could not see it., 30 years later, the case was still unsolved, but an opportunity for the case to be re-opened presented itself. It wasn't long before she caught the eyes of the wrestlers. More. Snuka was previously ruled incompetent to stand trial in. These changing stories and the official manner of death werent known publicly until 2013, when the Allentown Morning Call discovered the autopsy report and a Snuka police interview transcript both previously unavailable due to the case still being open in court records from the Argentino familys later wrongful death lawsuit against Superfly. That, and other provable incidents of domestic abuse described to the grand jury, led to an eventual indictment on murder charges, which were dismissed due to Snukas apparent mental incompetence mere days before his 2017 death from stomach cancer. Snukas attorney, Robert J. Kirwan, argued that the fliers and videos did not prove anything about Snukas competency. As it would later transpire, the paragraph contradicts the complete, , which I obtained as part of the same civil case appendix mentioned earlier. To Snuka, Nancy Argentino was a willing mistress and he referred to her as his East Coast girlfriend. In his book the wrestler added that they were intimate. Look of fear in them. Twenty-three year old Nancy Argentino had left her life in Brooklyn behind to hit the road with her new boyfriend, wrestler Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka. Hamilton mentioned the case of Chris Benoit in 2007 who reportedly killed his wife and son. -. At one point Argentino hopped over a stream before she lost her footing. This episode looks at the mysterious death of Nancy Argentino, a young woman who Jimmy Snuka dated in the early 80's at the height of his wrestling popularity. I was stonewalled at every turn, Cushing said. Movies. Investigating the mysterious story of Jimmy Snuka, whose girlfriend Nancy Argentino died in . Nancy was Italian, 5 feet 7 inches tall, 115 pounds with dark, curly hair and brown eyes. [Photo: WWE Network]In 1999, with internet usage still somewhat in its infancy, when writer Irvin Muchnick first published the story of Snuka and Argentino online, it circulated and gained steam amongst fans and underground newsletters. Ronald Hamilton, a doctor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who helped discover CTE, said other factors such as drinking, drug use, and depression could also cause mood changes. [Photo Courtesy of The Daily Beast] Nancy Argentino was just 23 when she died in 1983 after being rushed to a hospital with a serious head injury. Javier Ojst is an old-school wrestling enthusiast currently residing in El Salvador. It was obvious. I was devastated, he wrote. Snuka, a cliff diver and bodybuilder with a vertical leap as impressive as his physique, was the WWFs newly minted top good guy. In another version Snuka said he called authorities straightaway. An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. . I love women, he writes. If you bring up pro wrestling to someone from the Northeast whose fandom peaked around this time, theyll inevitably: 1) gush about Superfly being their favorite; and 2) reminisce about imitating him by jumping off their bed or dresser. I didnt push [Jimmy] at all. Investigating the mysterious story of Jimmy Snuka, whose girlfriend Nancy Argentino died in their motel room in 1983, and revealing her family's 30-year struggle for justice. Cynthia Porter, an officer in training, recalled in her affidavit that she could hear Argentino repeatedly cry No, no, dont do that! from outside the room right before Sergeant Peter Bronstad showed up as backup. George The Animal Steele His Double Life and Turnbuckle Fetish. (Former ADA Plochocki hasnt responded to my requests for an interview as of this writing, while his then-boss, DA Richard Hennessy, is deceased, as is Justice Harding.). Nancy Argentino, in happier times. They beat me with their batons I never laid my hands on anyone, and I didnt see any naked women, aside from the one in my room., Snuka copped a guilty plea just to get it over with and adds, I did not assault Nancyshe was fine. All was swept under the wrestling mat in fact. The WWE has also furloughed manyworkers amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Then, he along with his (since deceased) handler Buddy Rogers, beelined it to the exit vowing Ill come back for the church [service]., He never showed, Argentinos oldest sister Lorraine Salome told The Daily Beast. In May of 1983, Nancy died as the result of serious head trauma. Then another call came and it was the motel owner saying that there was a guy running after her. Snuka took his hostage girlfriend into the room and refused to open the door when deputies arrived. Ultimately, this legal matter will be decided by our judicial system. Its been known within the business if not exactly a topic of conversation every f*****g day that something f*****g happened.". When she came back, she told me she slipped on the way and hit her head. At that point, he opened the door further and walked towards the rear of the room, and the female got up wrapped in a bed sheet. 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