How did legendary boxer Arturo Gatti Sr. die? That’s an interesting question, as the reported cause of death shifted dramatically. And the story involves Gatti Sr.’s wife, who is also the mother of his now-deceased son.
Arturo Gatti Jr., 17, was found dead in his apartment on October 8 in Mexico, sparking renewed interest in the similar and equally tragic death of his father.
Gatti Sr.'s longtime bodyguard revealed the teen's death in an Instagram post. "It's with a heavy heart that I have to say,.... R.I.P. to 17-year-old ARTURO GATTI JR. who was found hanging in an apartment in Mexico yesterday. The same way they found his Father dead in an apartment in Brazil 16 years ago.
My condolences to Arturo Gatti Seniors - Mom, Sisters, Brothers, and his daughter Sophia," Chuck Zito wrote on Instagram.
Here are the details of the father’s death. It was initially investigated as a homicide, with his wife, Amanda Rodrigues, implicated by police, but authorities later ruled it a suicide and released her.
According to a 2011 article by CBS News, the "37-year-old former welterweight champion was found facedown in a pool of blood in a Brazilian resort" in 2009.
Rodrigues was described in that story as the boxing legend's "young, 23-year-old wife." According to CBS News, she "was taken into custody, accused of strangling him with her purse strap."
However, the story took a dramatic shift. According to CBS News, an autopsy showed that Gatti Sr. had committed suicide, hanging himself with "the strap off his wife's purse."
"He was found on the floor after the strap broke," the news site reported.
Before Rodrigues was cleared, authorities voiced their suspicions to the news media.
Lead investigator Moises Teixeira said in 2009, according to ESPN: "It was technically impossible for a third person to have been in the flat. The investigation isn't finished, but we continue to think she did this alone."
According to ESPN, Rodrigues told police "she had a fight with Gatti after dinner" the night before, and he "pushed her to the ground, resulting in minor injuries to her elbow and chin." Witnesses confirmed they fought and said Gatti "was drunk," ESPN reported.
The next morning, around 6 a.m., Rodrigues awoke to find her husband dead in the apartment in Porto de Galinhas.
She told police that her husband left her downtown the night before and returned to the apartment with their son in a cab, ESPN reported, adding that he eventually returned to get her and they both went to the apartment.
Rodrigues' sister, Flavia, told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that there is "no way she could have strangled a man of that size," ESPN reported.
That same year, in 2009, Brazilian police told Reuters that Rodrigues was cleared of wrongdoing in her husband's death.
"The police inquiry concluded that he committed suicide using the strap of a rucksack on a staircase in the early hours of the morning," a police spokesperson told the wire service.