Various interesting items of a newsworthy nature have surfaced on Irvin Muchnick's blog over the last few days.
- According to Chris Benoit's father Michael (pictured above), Chris's children from his first marriage have until 2 years after their 18th birthdays to file wrongful death lawsuits. It was previously believed that the statute of limitations for filing was 2 years, but that may have just been the case for Chris's father, Michael Benoit, his mother, Margaret Benoit, Nancy's father, Paul Toffoloni, and her mother, Maureen Toffoloni. Michael Benoit noted this as a rebuttal to claims by WWE outside counsel Jerry McDevitt that the Benoit family hasn't sued because Chris was dealing drugs and they didn't want that dragged through court.
- Michael Benoit also mentioned that Fayette County Chief Medical Examiner Kris Sperry, who conducted the autopsies on Chris, Nancy, and Daniel, was phoned before completing the examinations by another client of McDevitt, Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Pennsylvania coroner with a history of misconduct allegations. In Michael Benoit's words:
At the time the caller asked numerous questions about the tragedy and suggested to Dr Sperry that there was a very high probability that Daniel died first. Sperry dismissed the suggestion as he believed and shared with me at that time that Nancy died first then Daniel and then Chris. The ME at the time also encouraged Dr Sperry to test for fragile X in Daniel.
- While WWE representatives claimed in last week's ESPN.com story that the Benoit brain research had never been presented to WWE, this appears to be false. WWE's medical director, Dr. Joseph Maroon, visited the Brain Injury Research Institute, where he "was shown all our research information, slides, and specimens; on Chris Benoit and all the athletes’ brains we studied," according to Dr. Bennet Omalu.