According to The Morning Call, 72 year old WWE Hall of Famer, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka was arrested this morning and charges of 3rd degree murder and involuntary manslaughter were announced in a press conference earlier this afternoon. Snuka is currently being held at the county jail under a $100,000 bail.
The investigation of the 1983 death of Nacy Argentino was re-opened last year by Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin after The Morning Call conducted their own investigation, revealing a never-before-seen autopsy report that listed Argentino’s death as a homicide.
Snuka was the only suspect in the original investigation back in 1983 but was never charged and the case was left open.
The Morning Call detailed the original incident as such:
“Snuka had been at a WWF taping at the Allentown Fairgrounds on May 10, 1983, and returned to his Whitehall Township motel room to find Argentino, of Brooklyn, gasping for air and oozing yellow fluid from her mouth and nose, records show.
Argentino was pronounced dead at Lehigh Valley Hospital the next day. An autopsy determined she died of traumatic brain injuries and she suffered more than two dozen cuts and bruises — a possible sign of “mate abuse” — on her head, ear, chin, arms, hands, back, buttocks, legs and feet.
The autopsy also determined her injuries were consistent with being hit with a stationary object. In an autopsy report, forensic pathologist Isidore Mihalakis wrote the case should be investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise.
Snuka originally told at least five people, including the responding police officer, he shoved Argentino earlier that day, causing her to fall and hit her head, according to police interviews obtained by The Morning Call. He later told police those five people misunderstood him, and said Argentino slipped and hit her head when they stopped along the highway to urinate.”
The only case Jimmy Snuka lost over the matter was a wrongful death case in which was was ordered by the court in 1985 to pay the Argentino family $500,000 but there are no records of Snuke ever paying.
As recently as 2012, in his book, Snuka stood firm on his innocence of this incident:
“Many terrible things have been written about me hurting Nancy and being responsible for her death, but they are not true. This has been very hard on me and very hard on my family. To this day, I get nasty notes and threats. It hurts. I never hit Nancy or threatened her.”
However this is inconsistent with the charges he faced for assaulting Argentino in a New York motel and fighting with police when they arrived to the scene, all four months before Argentino’s death. The assault charge was later dropped and plead guilty to harassment.
A lot of rumors have gone around about WWE (then WWF) and Vince McMahon helping Snuka cover up evidence following the death of Argentino. And though the revelation of a hidden autopsy report would make it easy to point fingers at said rumors, there hasn’t been any indication at this present time that McMahon had anything to do with any sort of cover-up
