Chris Benoit on Steroids During Murder-Suicide
Professional wrestler Chris Benoit was on testosterone, painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs when he killed his wife and son and later comitted suicide in his Atlanta, Georgia, home last month.
Over the weekend of June 23, Benoit, 40, strangled his wife, Nancy, suffocated his 7-year-old son Daniel, and placed Bibles next to their bodies before hanging himself on a weight machine cable.
According to Georgia’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Kris Sperry, Benoit’s body contained an “elevated” level of testosterone and therapeutic levels of Xanax and the painkiller hydrocodone.
Dr. Sperry said that the body of Benoit’s wife, Nancy, also contained therapeutic levels of hydrocodone and Xanax, and it’s likely that Daniel was sedated at the time he was murdered, because a high level of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax was found in the child’s system.
Xanax is not normally prescribed for children, Sperry said.
Though some had speculated that Benoit may have been injecting steroids and commited the murder-suicide in a fit of “’roid rage,†Sperry said that the level of testosterone revealed nothing conclusive about the wrestler’s state of mind before his death.
“There’s no reliable scientific data that says elevated levels of testosterone lead to psychotic rage,” Sperry said.
Benoit’s physician, Dr. Phil Astin, has been indicted on seven charges of improperly dispensing and distributing painkillers and other drugs.
“Dr. Astin was identified as prescribing, on average, a 10-month supply of anabolic steroids to Mr. Benoit every three to four weeks from May 4, 2006, through May 9, 2007,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.