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Wikipedia entry noted death of Chris Benoit's wife hours before family's bodies found
HARRY R. WEBER
AP
June 28, 2007
ATLANTA — Investigators are looking into who altered pro wrestler Chris Benoit’s Wikipedia entry to
mention his wife’s death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their
7-year-old son.
Benoit’s Wikipedia entry was altered early Monday to say that the wrestler had missed a match two
days earlier because of his wife’s death.
A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said Thursday that the entry was made by someone using an
Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Conn., where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.
An IP address, a unique series of numbers carried by every machine connected to the Internet, does
not necessarily have to be broadcast from where it is registered. The bodies were found in Benoit's
home in suburban Atlanta, and it's not known where the posting was sent from, Bass said.
Benoit's page on Wikipedia, a reference site that allows users to add and edit information,
was updated at 12:01 a.m. Monday, about 14 hours before authorities say the bodies were found.
"Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as
Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy," the posting read.
Reporters informed the Fayette County district attorney's office of the posting Thursday, and the
agency forwarded the information to sheriff's investigators, who are looking into it, a legal
assistant said in an e-mail to the AP.
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt said that to his knowledge, no one at the WWE knew Nancy Benoit was dead
before her body was found Monday afternoon. Text messages released by officials show that messages
from Chris Benoit's cell phone were being sent to co-workers a few hours after the Wikipedia posting.
WWE employees are given WWE e-mail addresses, McDevitt said, though he did not know whether Chris
Benoit had one.
"I have no idea who posted this," McDevitt said. "It's at least possible Chris may have sent some
other text message to someone that we're unaware of. We don't know if he did. The phone is in the
possession of authorities."
On Thursday afternoon, the Wikipedia page about Benoit carried a note stating that editing by
unregistered or newly registered users was disabled until July 8 because of vandalism.
In other developments Thursday, Ballard told the AP that 10 empty beer cans were found in a trash
can in the Benoit home. An empty wine bottle was found a few feet from where Benoit hanged himself,
Ballard said.
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Benoit death information was "coincidence," Wikipedia poster says
By Eric Stirgus
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 28, 2007
The person who wrote an entry on the Wikipedia Web site that pro wrestler Chris Benoit's wife was dead before
authorities found her body said Friday he was just passing along a rumor that was "a terrible coincidence."
The writer, who declined to be identified, wrote a five-paragraph statement Friday to Wikipedia, apologizing.
The writer is from Stamford, Conn., home of World Wrestling Entertainment, Benoit's employer. The writer
posted the rumor after Benoit didn't show up at a WWE match last weekend. WWE officials said Benoit
told them he had a family emergency.
"It was just a rumor that I had heard about from other people online who were speculating what the family
emergency Chris was attending to," the writer said. "I made a big mistake by posting this comment on his page."
He called the posting "a terrible coincidence."
A Wikipedia editor removed the item 20 minutes later, according to Sandra Ordonez, Wikipedia's communications
director.
"Because the information wasn't sourced, the information was seen and deleted," Ordonez said.
Authorities found the bodies of Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and their 7-year-old son, Daniel, at their
Fayetteville home about 2:30 p.m. Monday. Investigators believe the wrestler killed his wife and child
before strangling himself.
Ordonez said Wikipedia alerted authorities about the posting Tuesday morning.
Ordonez said Wikipedia's English language page gets about 4 million edits a month. She said the company
has rigorous standards to ensure accurate information is put on the site.
"We have a lot of eyeballs viewing an article," she said.
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