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After 32 Years, ?Justice? in Our Sister?s Death Has Larger Meaning

Posted: Feb 19th 2015 By: Louise Argentino-Upham and Lorraine Salome

The headlines roil with stories of domestic violence by National Football League players. The topic resonates for our family as we approach 32 years since our attractive and kind sister Nancy Argentino, 23, died from a mysterious traumatic brain injury while in the Whitehall motel room of her boyfriend Jimmy ?Superfly? Snuka, who was in town for a television taping of the then World Wrestling Federation (now WWE).

Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin has folded a reexamination of the 1983 homicide investigation in Nancy?s death into the work of the Seventh Investigating Grand Jury. Though another holiday season has passed with only our memories of Nancy, there is reason for hope.

The D.A.?s decision followed the superb investigative work of the Morning Call?s Adam Clark and Kevin Amerman, whose ?cold case? package appeared on the front page shortly after the 30th anniversary of the May 1983 incident.

In important ways, our family already has won our three-decade quest for justice. Only a small minority of interested observers still believe that Nancy ? who had worked for several years as a dentist?s assistant and believed she was in a monogamous relationship with ? was a ?groupie.? She is now regarded, accurately, as a sweet girl who made a tragic mistake in her choice of men, and paid for it with her life. Generally speaking, the public today understands a little better the dysfunctional dynamic of domestic violence and is somewhat less apt to ?re-victimize the victim.?

Even if Jimmy Snuka is never indicted for striking Nancy in the head ? perhaps accidentally or more forcefully than he intended ? or for causing a fall that forced her head to strike hard on the wall, furniture or floor of the Whitehall motel room, he bears accountability in the legacy of his ?WWE Hall of Fame? career. There are reports that Snuka, now 71, rarely shows his face outside his New Jersey home since the 2013 reports by the Morning Call, his hometown South Jersey Courier-Post, and author Irvin Muchnick.

Our parents were so shocked at the time of Nancy's death. This shock, combined with their attorney not wanting to go up against the WWF's lead wrestler or search for the evidence and bring Snuka to trial, resulted in our parents filing a civil wrongful death suit. In 1985 they won the case, resulting in a $500,000 default judgment in our family?s favor in U.S. District Court. Thus far, Snuka has successfully avoided paying a dime to our parents ? but he can?t hide from the truth.

The statute of limitations long ago expired for involuntary manslaughter, perhaps the likeliest possible count on the basis of the deteriorated physical evidence. But responsible reexamination of the admittedly circumstantial Snuka file still serves a civic purpose. It shows the public that celebrities and moneyed interests are not above the law. And it corrects shameful lapses by the district attorney and police in 1983.

In our view, just as important as the grand jury?s bottom line ? ?true bill? or ?no true bill? on a Snuka indictment ? will be the accompanying narrative. Why did Whitehall detective Gerald Procanyn (now an investigator for the district attorney) tell writer Muchnick that Snuka told a single consistent story about Nancy?s injury? The record clearly shows he told many contradictory versions.

And why did the police drive the 100 miles from eastern Pennsylvania to our family?s home in Brooklyn, for the purpose of pushing an innocent theory of Nancy?s death ? yet didn't go to the trouble of driving Snuka around to locate the roadside spot where he maintained Nancy had slipped and fallen on her own?

Finally, in Snuka?s own autobiography, published in 2012, he goes out of his way to describe a curious detail of the climactic meeting between Vince McMahon, the wrestling company owner, and then D.A. William Platt and other police and prosecutors: ?All I remember is he had a briefcase with him.?

This tardy probe can?t bring Nancy back to us. It won?t necessarily even make Snuka pay, beyond his guilty conscience, for what our winning wrongful death suit alleged he did to her. What the Seventh Investigating Grand Jury can and should do is render the verdict of history.

The Argentino sisters and author Muchnick produced an ebook short, Justice Denied: The Untold Story of Nancy Argentino?s Death in Jimmy ?Superfly? Snuka?s Motel Room, which is available on Amazon Kindle, with all proceeds benefiting My Sisters? Place, a women?s shelter in White Plains, New York.