Arturo Gatti Wife

Boxer Arturo Gatti's body was exhumed Friday to allow the Quebec coroner's office to perform a new autopsy at his family's request. The development comes a day after Brazilian police classified Gatti's death as a suicide. Until Thursday, police in the northeastern Brazil city of Recife considered it a homicide, with his wife as the prime suspect. Now, police say Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a staircase column more than seven feet off the ground. Gilles Ethier, deputy chief coroner of the western part of the Province of Quebec, said Gatti's family had retained an American pathologist, who will assist with ... Read Full Story

Arturo Gatti's wife says a second autopsy on the former boxing champion will show she had nothing to do with his death. Amanda Rodrigues sent a letter to the Journal de Montreal that was published Thursday, saying she was trying to set the record straight after Brazilian police initially said she was the prime suspect. Rodrigues said in the letter that she is shocked by the way she was painted as a "monster" and "murderer." The Canadian boxer and two-time world champion died July 11 while they vacationed at the resort town of Porto de Galinhas in Brazil. Officials in Brazil later ruled Gatti ... Read Full Story

The wife of boxer Arturo Gatti intends to sue the state of Pernambuco for arresting her as a prime suspect in her husband's death a month ago. Amanda Rodrigues spent 18 days in jail. Gatti, a two-time world champion from Canada, died July 11 while he and his family vacationed in the Brazilian resort town of Porto de Galinhas. Rodrigues' lawyer, Celio Avelino, said by telephone Thursday his client is taking action against the state for "wrongfully accusing her of murder." Avelino said paperwork will be filed in about 20 days. He declined to provide further details. A day after Gatti was found dead, ... Read Full Story

Arturo Gatti's wife, accused of strangling the champion boxer with her purse strap, proclaims her innocence and love for her dead husband in a letter given to The Associated Press on Wednesday. While declining to be interviewed from her jail cell in the northeastern Brazil city of Recife, Amanda Rodrigues did hand over a letter written on white, lined paper and penned in red ink. "This is a pain that has become inexplicable and intolerable, this loss and this malicious accusation," Rodrigues wrote. "I lost my husband!" The 23-year-old Rodrigues told investigators she awoke on Saturday about 6 a.m. to find her husband's body ... Read Full Story

The death of Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti in Brazil this month was probably a suicide and not a murder as first believed and his wife has now been cleared of suspicion of any crime, reports said Thursday. Gatti, a former world boxing champion, was found dead July 11 in an apartment he was renting with his family in the northern Brazilian city of Recife. He was 37. Police had arrested his Brazilian wife, Amanda Rodrigues, on suspicion of strangling him with her handbag strap as he slept following a drunken row the night before. Her alleged hours-long delay in alerting police, signs that no ... Read Full Story