Randy Shaw, the publisher of the award-winning San Francisco online alternative newspaper Beyond Chron, regularly gave me space for guest columns on topics related to this book. So did Greg Oliver, the producer of the online SLAM! Wrestling (and one of my three co-authors of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport). I’m grateful to both Randy and Greg.
Dave Meltzer also ran a couple of guest columns by me on the Wrestling Observer website and, more importantly, supported my work in his own way, through various disagreements and misunderstandings.
Karl Olson of Levy, Ram & Olson in San Francisco, one of the country’s top First Amendment attorneys, counseled me wisely through World Wrestling Entertainment’s legal threats. I know it’s only a matter of time before Karl is on the right side on the issue of freelance writers’ electronic rights, as well. . . .
Michael Holmes, my editor at ECW Press, was rock-solid, as ever.
When the Stamford Police Department stonewalled release of the interrogation of the “Benoit Wikipedia hacker,” I turned to a network of First Amendment stalwarts. My old friend Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists — a New York-based nonprofit promoting press freedom worldwide — introduced me to CPJ staffer Bill Sweeney, a veteran Connecticut reporter who tipped me to the state’s exceptionally strong public information law and infrastructure. Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition helped put me in contact with Stephanie Reitz of the Associated Press, the former “sunshine chair” of the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and her successor Steve Kalb of the Connecticut Radio Network. Stephanie and Steve, in turn, referred me to the knowledgeable staff of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission. Thanks to all of you.
Two literary betters, Frank Deford and Samuel G. Freedman — my name doesn’t belong in the same sentence as theirs — gave me important encouragement and support early on. Author, public radio commentator, and probably the greatest magazine sports writer of all time, Frank belies the adage that nice guys finish last. Sam is the prolific journalist and author who teaches the legendary course on nonfiction book writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in which I have never enrolled. (For one reason, I can’t. Psst: Don’t tell Sam that I dropped out of college a semester before graduation.)
My cousin Dan Muchnick and his gracious wife Juli helped with the logistics of public records collection in the Atlanta area. Not only that — Dan still picked up the dinner tab when I later had the great opportunity to reconnect with them on my Georgia research trip. Dan and I both wonder what his father and my uncle, St. Louis promoter and National Wrestling Alliance president Sam Muchnick, would have thought of this book.
Friends Scott Townsend, of Santa Rosa, and Connor McDonald, of Berkeley, more than once saved my technologically challenged derriere on computer and audiovisual issues.
Thanks for their general support to Charles Chalmers, Jerry Karabel, Josh Kornbluth, Alice Sunshine, Kim Wood. Thanks for specific support to Dave Gee (book cover design) and Jake Meltzer (my Web 2.0 guru).
Though our roles were sometimes adversarial, I appreciated the professionalism of several public servants in Fayette County. Most importantly, Katye Vogt, the CAD records manager of the Fayette County 911 Communications Center, drilled into her files three different times in response to my queries until I was finally satisfied that I had in hand the audio of all the Benoit-related calls from June 25, 2007. Rick Lindsey, a Peachtree City attorney who represented the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, walked a fine line in his thankless task of administering the release of public records. I realize that listing Vogt and Lindsey here could cause them collateral grief. But as they’ve already learned, my own medicine chest includes a spoonful of mischief.
Mel Hutnick, an attorney in Belleville, Illinois, and a former prosecutor, spent hours on the phone with me as I rehashed new findings and reflected on scenarios. Mel is a mutual friend of Larry Matysik, wrestling author, promoter, and Sam Muchnick’s long-time right-hand man and eventual biographer. I mention Mel not only to memorialize his generosity but also because, in one of our conversations, he uttered the line that best captures the ambiguous essence of an examination of the warps of a bizarre lifestyle and industry, and what they tell us about contemporary American society.
Something very disturbing was going on after that double murder-suicide on Green Meadow Lane. The exact nature of that something? That is for you, the reader, to decide. As Mel Hutnick put it, “Sometimes you just have to leave the participles dangling.”
Irvin Muchnick
Berkeley, California
January 2009