I have been asked by numerous people to put back on my detective hat to help solve the Arturo Gatti Murder. So I believe I have cracked the case. Here is what we know so far.
Gatti and his 23 year old Brazilian wife Amanda Rodrigues decided to take a vacation to Brazil with their ten month old son.
Gatti and Mrs. Rodrigues by all accounts had a rocky relationship and fought frequently.
On Friday they got into a fight while at dinner. Witnesses say that Gatti pushed Rodrigues causing injuries to her arm and chin. Witnesses also point out that Gatti was visibly drunk at the time.
According to police Gatti left the scene with his son and left his wife at the restaurant.
After putting his son to bed he went back to look for his wife, Mrs. Rodrigues had already returned to the apartment.
When Gatti finally returned home Mrs. Rodrigues states she slept in the second floor of the apartment with their son while Gatti slept downstairs.
The police say sometime between then and 6 a.m. Mrs. Rodrigues strangled Gatti with her purse strap and murdered him. Mrs. Rodrigues contends she was sleeping the whole time and thought Gatti committed suicide or someone murdered him.
Unfortunately for Mrs. Rodrigues there were no signs of forced entry and the electronic locks indicated no one else entered the apartment.
It seems like an open and shut case but one thing bothers me tremendously. Gatti may have been drunk, but he was alert enough to be able to take his son home, go back out looking for his wife and then make it back home a second time.
Are we to believe that Mrs. Rodrigues who is a very small woman as you can see from the picture would have the strength to choke out Gatti, even in a drunken state is a bit of a reach.
It is also a bit of a reach to think Mrs. Rodrigues would not have heard Gatti being strangled by a 3rd party.
I believe Mrs. Rodgriues was involved, but had some help.
Think about she is in Brazilian, they are in Brazil. Gatti roughs her up and humiliates her in public. He also takes her son after physically abusing her. Don't underestimate what a woman will do if she thinks her child is at risk.
I think she called up Boyfriend #2 and ambushed Gatti when he returned home. The reason there isn't any signs of forced entry is because she let him in.
Gatti comes back home drunk and when he does Boyfriend #2 comes from the back and strangles him with the purse strap. Mrs. Rodgriues allows for time to past to create an alibi for herself (she was sleeping with the baby) and then acts surprised when she wakes up and he is dead.
Unlike the Steve McNair case where I had people close to the situation this is more of my theory of what went down based on common sense and the facts. Of course your opinions are welcomed.
Rob... seriously. Shut the fuck up. You are losing it dude. You used to be a good alternative to ESPN.com and their biased commentary, that's why I liked coming and reading your site. I even told everybody to start checking you out, lately you have let your small amount of fame get in your head, your site is not not as good because you turned blacksportsonline to TMZ. You put up more pics of Michael Jackson and Kim Kardashian than you talk about real sports. You aren't gonna be relavent soon if you keep it up. Good luck brah.
Deion leave if you are so unhappy. Every post you are complaining stop coming back if it is so bad for you.
Deion H, get lost.
Hey Rob, Do you think she may of had a boyfriend 1,2,3,4,and 5. I keep thinking that a gang of thugs did this to him.
I disagree with your story only at the end and that is the most important part. I don't believe that Boyfriend #2 was able to murder Arturo by simply strangling him with the strap of the purse. You might of missed some crucial facts to your story, where Arturo had severe damage to his head. I believe there was a struggle between Arturo and his wife. She attacked him while he was asleep and hit him with a blunt object to the head. This attack did not fully knock Arturo unconscious, but the stangulation with her purse ended his life. I don't believe there was any other person involved in this murder besides his wife. More info will come out of this case, in which will shine more light on the wife being the only suspect in this murder.
Yes you cracked another one. His girlfriend has someone kill him and the weapon he uses is a purse strap?! Maybe all killers for hire will start carrying around purses now since they are so effective. Seriously dude, you were way off with the McNair thing because you couldn't get your facts straight and now you are reaching way outside the obvious on this one. I think you have watched a few to many episodes of CSI.
all deion h did is tell the truth...
Deion is on to something. I think Rob is trying to branch out to a more broader scope. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but in the meantime BSO has suffered from where it started originally.
However, you have to remember that there are plenty more readers tuning in as well so the site had to change a bit. Rob is trying to break out to other ventures (i.e. Pimp FOcus). I believe the smartest thing to do would've been to make sure his BSO staff pumped out hard hitting sports articles to stay with the foundation.
I've been reading a lot about this case and I don't think Amanda Gatti had an accomplice.
Firstly, the hotel apartments are almost impossible to gain access into via front-door (unless one has an electronic card) or window (they were on the 2nd floor), and as the reports say only Gatti and his wife go up to the room together following the arguments in the bars earlier, I think we can rule out a 3rd-party - and if she had a lover/boyfriend then I really doubt he'd be down there in Porto de Galinhas as well.
My take on what's happened is this: they went back to the room together, both pretty drunk, hyped and continued arguing (probably about earlier events in the evening and / or Arturo leaving their baby alone when he went to look for her), she's freaked out and with his back turned, grabbed a small knife and hit Arturo in the back on the neck. He's collapsed, with mixture of shock and the alcohol...and in a rage she's then choked him out from behind with the nearest female 'emotional attachment': her purse-strap - I don't think she'd have stabbed her husband multiple times with a little steak knife. That's serial-killer material only.
Then the panic and realisation have hit home, she's suddenly sobered up and has altered the scene to make it look like a potential suicide case.
(BTW, for those who don't think a 120lb woman on a rage-induced adrenalin rush can strangle a 160lb former pro-boxer from behind with a leather-strap - don't bet on it: lie on your front and ever-so-lightly press your hand against your own windpipe - it's a horriblly uncomfortable feeling. Even slight sleeper-holds can render anyone unconscious within seconds)
If she's released from jail this weak, then we could be looking at a theory of possible bribing the authorities with money, sexual favours, etc..but I think bribe money more than anything might have a lot to do with the police not making a real hard effort to find out the 100% truth of what happened. Alternately, if this goes to court, then I still think she gets off with 'battered-wife syndrome' or whatever you want to call it - she's Brazilian, probably has connections through family, is now a single-mother, etc
It's common knowledge that Gatti was quite violent towards his wife and the restraining order put against him a few months back must have been pretty serious. I can only assume that the night they drank, rowed and he pushed her to the ground in public was probably that last straw for her.
I'm leaning more toward a 'crime-of-passion' than a well-thought out pre-meditated plan to get Gatti to go to Brazil where she could have killed him and thought she could get away with it rather than where they lived in Montreal.
This, along with the accomplice theory sounds just a bit too 'Murder She Wrote'-ish, IMO.
BTW, on a side-note, I speak from personal experience of going to Brazil and being very good friends with a couple of woman there and I can tell you this: Brazilian women, aside from being amazingly sexual, are very loyal, very jealous but also intensely aggressive which tends to lend itself to an overall unstable character.
And I can assure you, they are NOT like Western or European women who put up with a guy's sh!t for years: if you push them about or mess with them for too long, then they will f*cuk you up.