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Here he is, Jimmy Superfly Saluka.
Man, there was only one Superfly.
A wild man with the hair and then the zebra trunks and his body. He was a
brilliant performer.
No one even comes close.
And he had freakish athletic talent.
Going up on the top rope, flying off and crashing into your opponent. I mean,
that's awesome.
By 1983, Jimmy Superfly Snuka takes the wrestling world by storm.
Everywhere was a sellout. All the arenas, they were always packed.
Look around and see, you know, this guy's going to make you money.
But fans are unaware of the events surrounding the violent death of his
girlfriend, Nancy Argentino.
which raises disturbing questions about who Jimmy really is.
Nancy was extremely into the relationship. She was invested 100%. She
felt betrayed because this was the guy she was in love with that was killing
her. I really don't know what really happened that night.
I mean, rumors just started to spread like fire.
Jimmy did that. Jimmy beat her up. She died of brain injury.
He didn't get arrested, wasn't detained.
We don't think we really received justice from the authorities.
They did nothing, keeping the case open, but hoping that it would just go away.
30 years later, the case resurfaces with shocking new information to challenge
the legacy and innocence of one of wrestling's greatest performers.
Part of our goal was to figure out who she was. This isn't just Jimmy Snuka's
story. This is Nancy Argentino's story.
Let's find out what happened.
Was it really an accident?
Was it his intention to kill her?
By the early 1980s, the World Wrestling Federation explodes in popularity.
A key ingredient to its massive growth has been in capitalizing on the star
power of its most charismatic performers.
But the man fans love more than anyone is the Superfly.
Jimmy Snuka.
From the moment he joins the WWF, audiences are entranced with his high
acrobatics and wild -man persona.
He is the embodiment of a real -life Tarzan.
His universal popularity led many to believe his star would shine forever.
But they were wrong.
From the Isle of Tonga, weighing 225 pounds...
The Tonga Kid.
My name is Tonga Kid.
Real name is Sam Patu.
To be honest, you know, I wasn't interested in wrestling.
I was this kid that was growing up in San Francisco, got into a lot of
I did six months in juvie for hitting a bus driver.
So, you know, I thought, oh, shit, you know, I'm really going to get my ass
whooped now from my parents, right? And my mom's brothers are Alpha and Zika.
So they sent me to Alpansika, and they said, all right, this is what we need to
do with you. You're going to become a professional wrestler.
I was 16 years old.
You're talking a young kid who just started in the wrestling world, got
out there to the wolves. Somebody has to protect me. And that was the Superfly,
Jimmy Snooker. From the Fiji Islands, Jimmy Superfly!
Jimmy Snuka was a professional wrestler from the island of Fiji.
He could do it all.
Could have been Hulk Hogan.
He'd have just, you know, kept his head on, kept cool.
I'm Tom Morocco, Sunset Beach, Hawaii.
Started wrestling in 1970 and unofficially retired about 1988.
Jimmy, he spent a lot of time in Hawaii. He grew up almost homeless.
Where he slept, I have no idea, you know. He had basically no home.
I think that's why he latched on to professional wrestling, because it gave
a place, it gave him an identity, it gave him a family.
Being accepted by crowd, being accepted by people, being a hero, being somebody,
it meant the world to him.
Every time Jimmy went in the ring, he kneeled down, and people don't know why
he'd do that.
It's almost like people need to kneel down when you pray, right? Jimmy kneels
down and he does it to respect his fans.
That's why Jimmy did it.
In the early 1980s, Snooker enters the World Wrestling Federation.
Owner Vince McMahon recognizes his star power potential and soon makes Snooker
his number one attraction.
Snuka was the most popular performer in WWE at that time. Bob Backlund was the
champion. They had some other stars, but Snuka was on fire.
I'm Irv Muchnick. I'm the nephew of Sam Muchnick, who is the legendary National
Wrestling Alliance promoter. I would say 35 years I've been obsessed with the
pro wrestling phenomenon with Snuka.
They brought him in originally. He was a heel.
They quickly figured out that they had to convert him into a babyface because
was just too popular. And Buddy Rogers became his manager, and he did the
switch. We've failed. We've got what it takes to win.
It all came together in New York. He was money. He was their biggest star.
Zucker was at the peak of his drawing power.
Jimmy also fully embraces the grueling lifestyle of a wrestler on the road.
We'd go to clubs every night, party every day.
It's a lot, man. You know, it was tough.
Go to the matches, go to sleep, work out, repeat, repeat.
Being on the road by yourself can be very damn boring sometimes, you know? I
think it's good to have somebody on the road to travel, you know, with you on
the road sometimes, you know?
And Jimmy had his girlfriend on the road. I don't remember her name right
the bat, but yeah.
Are you talking about Nancy?
Yes.
Yes, I'm talking about her. Yeah.
My name is Lorraine Salome. I'm the older sister of the late Nancy
My younger sister and I always say that Nancy was the favorite because she never
gave my mother a hard time.
Nancy was a very intelligent girl. She had a lot of friends because people were
drawn to her. She was a hard worker. You know, she always had a job.
And she took great pride in her clothes and her makeup and her hair. She always
wanted to look good.
Nancy was very innocent.
Even though we lived in a big city, she lived a sheltered life.
That changes when Nancy is introduced to the world of professional wrestling at
Madison Square Garden, the premier venue for the WWF.
Nancy had a childhood friend named Ellen that they grew up together.
Ellen was engaged to a wrestler named Johnny Rod.
So Nancy got into the habit of going with Ellen to go to Madison Square
to see the wrestling matches.
Afterwards, she'd go backstage, and they'd wait for Johnny, and then she met
Superfly Snooker.
You know, she really liked him, and it seemed to be a somewhat serious
relationship right away.
At the beginning, we were all like, oh, yeah, that's great, Nancy's happy, and
we didn't really understand him that much.
He was really strange because we tried to make him feel comfortable, but he
would sit in the corner, and he wouldn't talk to anybody except occasionally to
Nancy. He isolated himself.
She told my mother that she was in love with him, and she took care of him when
they were on the road because Buddy Rogers didn't really want to travel with
anymore, like drive him from place to place.
Buddy Rogers' role extended far beyond an in -ring manager for Jimmy.
He would also become his handler and chaperone on the road.
He said Jimmy was a sweet guy, but he was hooked on cocaine and other
junk, and he was totally uncontrollable.
And it reached a point where Rogers told Vince McMahon he couldn't be in the car
with Snooka anymore because he would snort cocaine brazenly while they were
driving.
So they talked to my sister Nancy, and all of a sudden, that was her job.
She would map out the places.
She'd drive the car.
She'd make sure Snooker got to the matches on time. She was his girlfriend,
she also had a job to do.
My mother liked him, even though he wasn't, like, super friendly.
And I always got the feeling that my stepfather, Ralph, had his doubts about
him. As Jimmy and Nancy's relationship grows, her family begins to see the
cracks hiding behind Jimmy's quiet facade.
It was not that many times that I met him.
I'm Louise.
I'm Nancy's sister. I grew up with her. We were close. The whole family was
close. My parents were away on a weekend, and I came home, and they were
and they had brought home Chinese food, and I sat down to eat with them, and I
was just my bubbly.
just yakking and chatting and saying, oh, how are you, blah, blah, blah.
And he didn't like how I was acting, and he just looked over me, and he put his
hand, like, up to my throat, and he said, I could.
And he gave me that wrestling face.
I backed up, and I said, wow.
And I looked at my sister.
I said, I don't want to eat.
And I went upstairs.
And then when she came upstairs, I got her in the bathroom, and I said, Nancy,
you need to get rid of him.
And she was all apologetic. Like, she looked kind of, like, timid. Not what I
was just seeing in her.
And she said, oh, no, no, no, no. He's just tired. He's been working hard.
It's okay.
He felt bad that he treated me that way.
He said, here, here, I want to give you something. And I looked, and in my hand
was, like, cocaine. I think it was cocaine.
And Nancy was upset.
She just said, don't do that. Don't do that.
She doesn't need that.
And I think I gave it back to him. And I said, no, no, no, keep it.
And I said goodbye to him.
And I thought, wow, that's like a real change in her personality all of a
sudden.
Despite her family's deep concern, 22 -year -old Nancy Argentino is now
constantly on the road with her boyfriend, wrestling superstar Jimmy
Snuka. I didn't have a relationship with her because Jimmy was very protective
with that, especially when it comes around all these crazy shark wrestlers,
know what I mean?
I don't think anybody had a relationship with her, you know, because they knew
who Jimmy was, you know, they knew who she was with.
So did you ever meet Nancy?
I met her, yeah. She didn't seem to really like me.
Maybe it was because he and I were arch enemies, or maybe it was because she
knew I was friends with his wife, Sherry. At any point in time, did you
that he was married?
I think Nancy told me, and I said, what are you, crazy?
I said, he's married.
She said, well, he's not with his wife. He's separated.
How could he be with anyone else if he was with Nancy? It never crossed our
minds because they were always together.
Jimmy and his wife Sharon are still living together with their four children
North Carolina.
Time on the road has allowed him to live two separate lives, but his secrets
can't stay hidden forever.
My name is Kevin Ammerman. I'm a journalist. I work for the Morning Call.
newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
So it's January 1983.
Jimmy Snuka is at Howard Johnson in Salina, New York. He's there with Nancy
Argentina.
Apparently, other guests are calling the front desk saying, it sounds like a man
is beating a woman.
I was in my apartment sleeping, and I got a phone call at 2 o 'clock in the
morning from Nancy.
She was screaming into the phone, Lorraine, you have to help me. I have to
out of here.
I said, what's wrong? She said, he's chasing me.
And then the phone went dead.
So police respond. Police claim that Jimmy Snuka has Nancy Argentina by the
hair. And he's dragging her across the wall and across the floor by her hand.
So police attempt to intervene.
And they're met with almost superhuman strength by Jimmy Snuka. And he starts
resisting arrest and manhandling the police.
There were also police dogs who responded.
While he's fighting the police, he's also apparently fighting the dogs as
It was unbelievable.
I didn't know what to do because I didn't know where she went. So I waited.
And finally, early in the morning, she called me back. I said, Nancy, what
happened last night? And she just said, oh, nothing. Just a big
misunderstanding.
Arrested on charges of assault and harassment, Snooker is able to avoid
time with help from Nancy.
Right here is...
A copy of Nancy's affidavit signed by her.
I'm Adam Clark. I'm a journalist who wrote the 30 -year anniversary story
Jimmy Snuka and Nancy Argentino.
One of the charges pending against Jimmy S. Snuka is that of assault in the
third degree. This charge is said to be as a result of an assault upon me by
Jimmy Snuka.
I wish to state that he never struck me or intentionally harmed me in any way on
January 18th, 1983, nor at any other time in the past.
You know, she really was in love with Jimmy Snuka.
So after Jimmy Snuka was charged, he ended up pleading guilty to a minor
of harassment and then donates $1 ,500 to a local Ronald McDonald house.
And, you know, he basically walked away.
Then she just went back on the road with him.
They were counting on Nancy at that point to get him places because nobody
wanted to deal with him. He was unpredictable.
He was high a lot.
So they really put everything on my sister to make sure that he got to the
match. Back on the WWF circuit, Jimmy and Nancy traveled from town to town
across the Northeast.
So one of their regular stops was Egg Hall in Allentown.
Every three weeks, the WWF shot syndicated television in Allentown for
-show, which was called Championship Wrestling.
The WWF was important to Allentown. It had an economic impact.
It wasn't uncommon to see Andre the Giant hanging out somewhere at a bar or
a big star hanging out at the George Washington Motor Watch. At that exact
moment in May, I believe, of 1983, they were shooting some of the big angles in
his feud with Don Morocco.
Oh, we had the strap matches, chain matches, and cage matches.
And it was looking good. Snowball was just starting to roll.
In the early hours of May 10th, 1983, Jimmy and Nancy arrive in Allentown to
tape an episode of Championship Wrestling.
Jimmy Snuka leaves the George Washington Motor Lodge and goes to film wrestling.
He films a couple sessions, comes back to the motel, and then leaves again.
He leaves in the afternoon, and he comes back about 9 p .m.
Jimmy heads to his room where Nancy has been all day.
Just a few hours later, the motel's other occupants are awoken by a
outside.
What woke me up was the sirens.
My room was not far from Jimmy's room.
There was an ambulance that had been sitting outside of Snooker's room.
So what's going on over there?
I can see the police cars and the ambulance and roped off into some yellow
And snooker leaning up against the cop car.
Jimmy looked pretty scared.
It was bad.
It was very bad.
On the night of May 10th, 1983, emergency responders arrive at the
Washington Motor Lodge in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
where Jimmy Snuka and his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, have been staying with
several other wrestlers.
It was between 11 .30 and quarter to 12 that we had gotten called to an
unconscious female.
My name is Shirley Reeve, and I was a paramedic in 1983.
We drove up to the scene, and the room door was open.
Jimmy was standing there along with the detective.
She was in bed, covered up with a seat, and examined her.
Her pupils were fixed and dilated, and it's more indication of a head injury.
And I'm like, well, she's in bed, not on the floor, not outside.
He was just touching the feet, and I had to basically drag things out of him.
And he just said that they must have wrestled a little bit too much the night
before when he pushed her over, and she had hit her head.
She came inside.
They went to bed.
He went to his wrestling match the next morning, came back.
She was still conscious, but I guess was becoming a little bit lethargic or
sleepy. So he just said, well, you know, I'm going to go to my match. I'll come
back and check on you later on. So when he came back later on, then she wasn't
responding.
She was having difficulty breathing, and that's when he called the ambulance.
I did do an intubation, put an airway in. We started a line. We gave her some
drugs and just took her in.
Wild Snook is at the hospital, and they're trying to revive Nancy.
He's starting to tell person after person what happened.
And at that point in time, when police interview all of these witnesses in the
ER, they all say that Snookum mentioned some sort of conflict, either shoving,
striking, that somehow he physically pushed or struck Nancy, and she fell
and hit her head.
I was in my room, dead asleep.
It was about 3 .30, 4 o 'clock in the morning, and the phone rings.
I pick it up, and they say, this is the Lehigh Valley Hospital.
Can I speak to Caroline Argentina?
So I get up, and I go in my mother's room, and I wake her up. I said, Ma, the
hospital's on the phone. And she comes to my bed, and I hear her say, is she
going to be all right?
And then I hear her say, dead?
Dead?
So Jimmy, he got on the phone, and as far as I can recall, he started, like,
blubbering and saying that, oh, it was an accident, it was an accident. She
and hit her head.
She hung up the phone.
She went and told my father, and then my sister Lorraine.
It was like we were all walking around like zombies because we were in shock.
just couldn't believe it. We never thought that it would end up like that.
And then we just called all the family members and all of our friends, and I
cried on the phone with them.
We were all in shock.
In the early morning hours, Snooker returns to the motor lodge and is
by police.
He introduces yet another conflicting account of events.
The next morning, police come to the hotel to interview Jimmy Snooker, and
start asking him about what happened. And this is critical because at this
in time, Snooker has already told multiple people at the hospital that he
some involvement in her fall.
He says that they stopped alongside the road when they were coming to Allentown.
Nancy had to go to the bathroom.
He says she gets out. There's a lot of trucks driving by. So he hollers at her,
come on, hurry up.
And as she's trying to come back, she slips.
She hits her head on the side of the road.
And that's what caused the injuries.
By now, the news of Nancy's death has made its way to WWF headquarters and
Snooker's boss, Vince McMahon.
I got on the phone.
and got a hold of Vince Jr.
Vince says, have you heard anything about Snooker and his girlfriend?
I said, as a matter of fact, here I am with Lieutenant so -and -so, and I put
him on the phone to Vince.
McMahon informs police that Snooker will continue to cooperate with the
investigation, and his star performer is released without charge.
At what point did you guys as a family...
start to feel like maybe this isn't an accident?
Well, Nancy's funeral was so disturbing.
Traditional Italian funerals in those days, you were laid out for three days,
and then you had a mass, and then you were buried.
The second day, Buddy Rogers walks in with snooker, and he's wearing flip
and these really, really short shorts and some kind of tank top.
Buddy Rogers was leading him around, pretty much.
Then he went over to the coffin, and he started crying on the coffin and
touching her, and my father had to pull him off the coffin.
I asked my mother, did he say anything to you? Did he say how sorry he was?
And she said no. He said, she looks terrible.
Now that was a pretty weird thing to say.
You know, of course she looks terrible. She's dead.
The undertaker came over to my stepfather.
And he said, you know, I have to tell you, this is disturbing because we had a
hard time getting her to look good because she had a huge bruise around her
and she had multiple cuts and abrasions all over her body.
Then I think, you know, my stepfather knew that something was terribly wrong
about the way she died.
The tragic death of 22 -year -old Nancy Argentino seems to have done little to
slow the career of Jimmy Superfly Snooker. Look what I got next to me. In
summer of 1983, and just a few weeks after her passing, Snooker is back,
continuing his storyline with adversary Don Morocco.
When Snooker flies, Morocco dies.
So was there like a part of you that was thinking like something might happen to
Jimmy? Selfishly, I was worried, yeah.
Just out of my own selfish motivation, you know, I didn't want to lose my
goose because there's a lot of money down the road to be made.
Their feud culminates in a legendary cage match at Madison Square Garden,
becomes the career -defining moment for the Superfly.
People are lining up all over the country to see this match.
We just set the place on fire.
Holy hell.
Jimmy was such a star, and people wanted to see him jump off the top cage on me
and splash me.
I'll never forget that night, because I was there when he came off of the cage.
I mean, whoo!
And just rocked New York.
Jimmy, he tried things that people never tried before.
He was a high flyer. He probably spent more time off the mat than on the mat.
I'm Carol Snuka.
I was married to Jimmy Snuka.
I was with Jimmy for 20 -some years.
Sometimes, every now and then, somebody would make a comment and said something
about, I know what you did, Jimmy. I'm going to be waiting for you.
fans congregating outside the stage exit, and Snooka comes out, and there's
woman who yells to Snooka, hey, Snooka, you goddamn murderer, when are you going
to kill another girl?
He's always said to me, I know what I did. Let the other people think what
want, okay? If they want to think I did that, that's them.
That's in their mind. That's not my mind.
I know what I did in my mind, and my God knows, and that's all I have to worry
about. They want to talk?
They want to do that? That's fine.
Doesn't bother me.
While Snuka's career in the WWF is reaching new heights, authorities in
Allentown continue their investigation.
The challenge that they faced in trying to prosecute this case was they had a
dead body, they had a woman who clearly had injuries, but they had no other
witnesses, they had no confession.
The fact that somebody just...
Tells different stories is certainly not enough evidence to charge anybody with
a crime.
My name is Frederick Conjor. I was the police chief in Whitehall Township,
Pennsylvania in 1983.
The lieutenant in charge of the investigation, I never had any reason to
that he wouldn't do the best he could to investigate the case, and I think he
did.
Although they didn't drive Snooker around to try to find the place where
had supposedly fallen, they did go to the trouble of sending two Whitehall
officers 100 miles from Allentown to the family house in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Detective Procanon sat in my living room, sitting there, saying, you know,
sorry, but we're going to rule this as an accident that she fell by the side of
the road.
At that time also, Snooker's promoter kept calling the house.
My mother got on the phone, and I heard him say to her, Mrs. Argentino, I'm so
sorry for your loss.
Do you think like $25 ,000 would help you?
At that time, my mother knew what was going on. She said, do you think that my
daughter's life is worth $25 ,000?
And hung up.
Unable to bring criminal charges against Snooker, Nancy's family pursued them in
a wrongful death lawsuit, arguing his behavior was negligent on the day she
died. He let her go to sleep, and he went off to his matches. He didn't come
back for like eight hours later, and by then, she was pretty much, she was dead.
The Argentino family won a $500 ,000 default judgment against Snuka, who
didn't show up. And his lawyers then did a filing with the court.
Snuka hadn't paid them. The family never collected a dime of that half -million
-dollar judgment.
Jimmy's family and Jimmy didn't do anything about it. They never went. They
never showed up. They didn't do anything.
I don't know who advised him on that, but... I feel it was the wrong decision.
think it should have been handled right then and there.
My mother just gave up. She threw in the towel. You know, she had a very hard
time dealing with it, very hard. We all were so disgusted with the whole thing.
We just had to get on with our lives.
His drug problems got worse at that point, and then he became unreliable
altogether in WWF.
slash wwe had no use for him and i think the half -life of jimmy snooker's
career and his decline owes to guilt over exactly what happened with nancy
argentino is pure speculation but it couldn't have helped and so he did the
descent of the wrestler and went to the awa went to finally the indie circuit
and finally you know the autograph shows you're not doing anything except
signing your name for people who remember you when.
As the years pass, Nancy's story is nearly forgotten by everyone except her
family. Then in 2011, interest in solving her mysterious death was
renewed. I was sitting in my apartment in 2014, and I get a call from Adam from
the morning call, and he said, oh, hi, we're doing an article about the 30
cold case death of your sister Nancy Argentino.
It clearly was a mystery there, and it seemed that there was a story that was
really ripe for us to dive into and figure out, one, what the hell happened,
two, what can we bring to light that nobody's ever seen before and that
talking about?
In 2013, I was working for The Morning Call. My editor was a big wrestling fan,
and he just thought it would be something interesting to revisit on the
anniversary of it.
One of the first things I did in my reporting was try to find the autopsy
report. So I called over to the Whitehall Township Police Department to
get the file.
I called the coroner's office.
He said he wasn't allowed to turn it over because the case was still
open. So really, it was up to us to find another way to go get that document.
And then we came across the wrongful death lawsuit.
Within that lawsuit, there was tons of information.
That's where things really picked up.
Unlike the files from the criminal case, the documents contained within the
family's lawsuit are unsealed.
Surprisingly, it includes Nancy's never -before -released autopsy report.
This is the autopsy report that nobody had seen publicly until our story came
out. It says the pattern of her injuries is consistent with a moving head
striking a stationary object. It is not consistent with a single, simple fall.
in view of the other injuries that she has, scalp, facial, and bodily bruises
and abrasions. It says that the magnitude of the injuries may even be
of meat abuse.
The last sentence of this document is really the bombshell that came out of
health officer report.
And it says, I believe that the case should be investigated as a homicide
proven otherwise.
And it's signed by Dr. Malekas.
30 years after Nancy Argentino's mysterious death, a newly discovered
report suggesting a potential homicide raises questions about the 1983 police
investigation.
Mahalika says here, I personally checked the clothing that Ms. Argentino was
wearing at the time of her injury and found no evidence of dirt or tears in
fabric. It's the first time I've seen that report, but I could tell you if I
were a defense attorney, I'd say,
Well, of course they didn't have any deterrent or anything because he took
back to the hotel room. She laid down in bed. Then she was put on the ambulance.
Well, this was brought up in the case years and years later. I believe the
should be investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise.
And we're back to it was investigated as best as it could be investigated, I
guess. So, you know, did everything that was conceivably possible.
So as I'm working on this story, of course, Jimmy Snuka has no clue that
a reporter in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who's investigating this case. And while
we're working on the story, his book comes out.
Published in December 2012, Snuka's autobiography marks the first time he
publicly addresses the events in Allentown, as well as the meeting he had
McMahon and local authorities.
So these are the original police documents.
It is the most complete record that anyone has ever seen.
So this is the only record we have of that final meeting.
Unlike all of the other interviews that were done in this case, there is no
detailed transcript of what was said over an hour.
And we do know that after that meeting, the case effectively went cold. The
police interviews stopped.
There was nothing else in that file.
Vince McMahon would have great reason to defend Jimmy Snuka. Let's say at the
time he is charged with murder in 1983.
That would be a terrible thing for the WWF.
Vince McMahon is a businessman, and no matter what business you're running, if
one of your top employees is being investigated for murder, that's bad for
business.
Timmy talked to me a lot about Vince. He called him Brother Vinny.
And Jimmy felt very close to Vince, and he trusted him 100%. He didn't read or
write English. He didn't understand it. You know, with his contracts, with
everything, he trusted the people. He actually said to me one time, people
come to him before a match, and he'd say, Vince said sign this or you won't
paid after the show. He would sign papers, and he had no idea what they
And I've tried to find out what happened in that room back in 83, and nobody
knows.
Jimmy said to me, Vince came down with his briefcase and said to him, it's
don't worry about it, it's done. And he thought it was done.
There's no transcript of the meeting. It's the only interview there's no
transcript of. And then seemingly the investigation stopped there. And there's
been a lot of speculation on what could have happened in that meeting. I haven't
a clue. I mean, I don't see that that makes any difference.
I would only say there wasn't anything significantly said or done, so that's
there's no record of it.
The meeting with McMahon and law enforcement isn't the only section of
to stir controversy, but also the way he portrays his relationship with Nancy.
And obviously he covered the situation with Nancy in there as well.
Right, because he couldn't do a book and not.
I had said to him, are you sure you want to put that in there? And he said,
definitely. He said, that's my book. It's my life.
It's got to be in there.
And in there, he talks about, oh, yeah, Nancy was a nice girl, but Nancy ruined
his life. When we read that, we were like, Nancy ruined his life?
When I got to the part about my sister, I was furious.
He kind of insinuated she was a once -in -a -while girlfriend.
Oh, and he denied that he ever hurt her. He never touched her. Why would he do
that? So he totally denied that he ever laid a hand on her.
So the version that Jimmy Snuka tells in his book is very similar to what he
told in 1983, but it's not exactly the same. And that was one issue over the
years as he talked about this in radio interviews and other accounts. It was
always just slightly different with some of the details.
So she got out and went to use the bathroom, pulled over to the side.
I guess after she got done, she came back over like a stream that was there.
She jumped and slipped and banged her head.
For decades, Snooker has maintained Nancy's injuries occurred en route to
Allentown, with no mention of any other passengers in the car.
I understand that, you know, you were at the George Washington Hotel on May 10,
1983. Yes, I was.
I was there at the George Washington Hotel in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Yep. We drove to Allentown, Pennsylvania, me, Jimmy, and her.
We jumped into the car and drove there. Okay, so you and Jimmy and Nancy drove
together to Allentown? Yep.
And what do you remember from that ride all over?
Oh, it was fun. I was in the back seat. We had the Elvis going, and Jimmy had
some nice, beautiful cologne on. He always loves cologne. It smells good.
just talked and chopped it all up, you know, going to Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Yep. As soon as we arrived there, the Allentown, Jimmy and Nancy went their
their room, and I went my way to my room. And that's when all that stuff
place, when the lady got, when Nancy got.
When Nancy got killed that night.
Do you recollect what kind of his story was that he had told about what had
happened with Nancy? I don't really know what Jimmy told the police.
Yeah, it was basically that they were driving, coming into Allentown, and she
had to use the restroom.
And so she walked outside the car, and she fell while she was using the
outside the car.
Do you remember that story at all? No. No, I don't remember that story.
Did you ever have any personal interactions with Snooker yourself or
Not that I recall that I actually, no.
Well, here's the thing. The only reason I'm mentioning that is because the
person that was just in this house before you.
Oh.
Said he was in the car? Said he was in the car.
So, and he's never told a story before. And so.
So had you ever heard that there could have been a third person in the car?
When you ask me about that, you know, somehow I had heard
that. But, I mean, if you pinned me down and said, what day, time, who was this
person? But there was never any contradiction
to Snooker's story.
Yeah, we're talking 30 years ago.
So I did talk to Sam Fatu, and I think that might be confused because he's
told me that.
But, you know, the wrestlers, they're not lying. It's just they don't remember
the whole thing.
After the autopsy report is uncovered, the Lehigh County Attorney's Office
responds to intense public pressure and announces Nancy Argentino's death is
being officially reinvestigated.
The main difference in how the district attorney's office handled the case in
1983 versus how the district attorney's office handled the case in 2013 was the
district attorney's office in 2013 ultimately put it to the people. We are
to put this in front of a grand jury.
Sure enough, the grand jury thinks there should be charges filed in this case.
Jimmy Snuka should be charged with murder.
On September 1st, 2015.
Jimmy Snuka is arrested and charged with third -degree murder.
He's now 72 years old, and only a month earlier had announced he was suffering
from stomach cancer.
There's a few articles that we saved over the years, this being one of them.
It's really happening.
After all these years, better late than never.
When I started working on this, I never thought that just a couple years later,
this story, my story, would become...
A headline everywhere.
It was one of the biggest stars in the history of professional wrestling being
arrested and being charged with murder because of a story in the local
newspaper. That just doesn't happen, and it was surreal then, and it's still
surreal now.
Jimmy's health during the trial was really bad.
He didn't understand anything at that point. He had too much brain damage.
Honestly, I think it was a blessing because when he went through the court,
didn't know what it was about.
And I think if he had known what it was about, it would have been devastating to
him. They had a series of hearings.
And all of a sudden, Snuka's lawyer said, he has brain damage because he
many blows to the head. So he is not capable of standing trial.
His attorney had argued that his dementia was so bad that he didn't even
what was going on. And the judge basically ruled that he was unfit to
trial, and specifically she felt that he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
For Nancy's family, seeing Snooker confronted with his past in a courtroom
the only justice they'll ever get.
Everybody was talking about it. They knew what he did. So we were happy that
got somewhat...
of punishment for Nancy's death, so.
It hurted me bad because I know what type of person he is.
I can't see Jimmy hurting anyone.
That's just what I believe.
The family, you know, was still felt delighted.
Somebody lost a daughter. They're certainly, you know, have to be saddened
hurt.
The one shame about this case is that there was no true final resolution.
The event occurs in 1983.
We go 30 years before charges are filed.
Charges are filed. But then a judge ruled that Jimmy Snuka is incompetent to
stand trial.
So he never gets to fully clear his name. The Argentinos never get to fully
a prosecution. There was no final resolution on the case. And that's why
continue to debate it.
Ten days after the ruling on January 15, 2015, Lucas becomes to his cancer
and dies.
It was devastating for me. It was sad.
I was pretty depressed, you know. He lost a good
man, a good person, you know.
Until today, I'm still angry about it.
I'm angry that the man passed, and I'm angry what people say about him.
It's sad.
All the way around, it was sad on both parties.
I loved Jimmy a lot.
There's no doubt that Jimmy Snuka was a great professional wrestler, one of the
biggest stars of his time, a talented wrestler, well -respected for his craft.
But at the same time, you can't overlook his personal life. You can't
overlook... What happened with Nancy, you can't overlook the violence that's
been brought up over the years. So it's a complicated legacy. It's a legacy that
will always be clouded by his personal life. There is no more separation of the
ring and outside of the ring.
What happens outside of the ring is just as influential these days as what
happens in the ring.
Jimmy Superfly Snuka stands as one of the most iconic professional wrestlers
history, a daredevil acrobat far ahead of his time.
but his legacy will never escape the events in Allentown.
For Nancy's family, her memory lives on while justice remains out of reach.
Lorraine and I really want to share this story because we don't feel like
we've gotten justice.
We feel like Nancy just keeps calling out to us in some way or another to seek
justice.
There's no closure for anybody, you know, no closure. I've never met Nancy
anyone in her family. I feel really bad for them. They lost their daughter.
Okay, something should have been done.
I think letting it go for 32 years caused a lot of damage.
I think too often stories of domestic violence, and especially when they
powerful men, center around the men, and the women are reduced to just... the
victim, and you don't know anything about them except this is the person who
attacked by someone. This is the person who was the victim.
As you can see, she was filled with life, and she had so much hope for her
future. She was 19 here, and she died when she was 23.
Her life was just cut down too briefly.
It's a great picture of her.
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