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32-year-old Superfly case shows need for police transparency

Posted: Sep 3rd 2015 By: Laurence Reisman

Time has a way of providing great perspective. Tuesday?s arrest of former professional wrestler Jimmy ?Superfly? Snuka in connection with the 1983 death of his girlfriend is an example of why transparency is critical to effective justice.

I?m not sure why I decided to stop into the Whitehall, Pennsylvania, police station the morning of May 11, 1983. One piece of paper I found that morning led to more than 30 years of wondering about the death of Nancy Argentino, then 23 and a mistress of the future wrestling hall of famer.

I was a rookie reporter working for the Bethlehem Globe-Times, an afternoon paper that hoped to win readers in the backyard of the much larger morning paper in Allentown. My mission was to break news on the afternoon news cycle.

Whitehall, a relatively small community, rarely had police stories. That morning, though, an incident report caught my eye. It was about the death a few hours earlier of a woman staying at the George Washington Motor Lodge. The report was fairly routine ? an accident, perhaps ? but there was something unusual on the report: professional wrestlers? names.

I knew this was a potentially big story. Snuka was a star of the World Wrestling Federation, the top wrestling circuit at the time. Snuka?s flights off the top rope or top of a steel cage to pin opponents were legendary.

To get the scoop, we had to ferret out lots of information on a tight deadline. Chuck Dervarics, a colleague, and I made several phone calls, reaching Snuka, then 40, and wrestling promoter Vincent McMahon. They offered little information, but Police Chief Frederic Conjour explained there would be an investigation and autopsy.

Later that day, we learned Snuka had been arrested a few months before after allegedly assaulting Argentino in upstate New York. For months we tried to get information on the progress of the death investigation, but were stonewalled ? if I recall correctly, by then District Attorney William Platt. Authorities refused to release details of the case, including an autopsy report, claiming the case was under investigation and that it would soon be completed.

Fast-forward 30 years to 2013. The Morning Call revisited the Argentino death on its 30th anniversary. The newspaper obtained a copy of the autopsy report, found within a 1985 wrongful death lawsuit. In the lawsuit, Argentino?s relatives were awarded $500,000 Snuka never paid. One key factor: The autopsy labeled Argentino?s death a homicide, and talked about bruises she had.

?The clear-cut forensics weren?t there, but the suspicion was there,? Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, who performed the autopsy, told the Morning Call in 2013. ?I did not have a clear-cut case. It was a very worrisome case. Obviously, there was enough there to arouse my suspicion but not enough to take it to trial. ? Just because she was beaten doesn?t mean she was beaten to death.?

The best explanation I ever got from authorities is what the newspaper reported in 2013: Snuka said he and his girlfriend were fooling around, he pushed her, she fell backward and hit her head.

Based on an investigation by the newspaper in 2013, Lehigh County?s new district attorney reopened the probe, empaneled a grand jury to look at the results and, on Tuesday, Snuka was charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

My hope is that 32 years worth of evidence presented at trial will prove exactly what happened. Sadly, though, it?s a case that should have been put to bed decades ago.

Many times there are good reasons for law enforcement agencies to keep investigations under wraps. Other times, though, it pays to release information. Releasing autopsy reports in cases like these, for example, often help shed light not only on the case, but on how well law enforcement did its job.

In the Snuka case, law enforcement did a good job at being anything but transparent. Had prosecutors 30 years ago released the autopsy and explained their initial reluctance to prosecute, there would be no whispers now that Snuka?s case was a celebrity cover-up. Snuka could still have been prosecuted if additional evidence were found.

Now, though, we?ve got a 72-year-old former wrestler, reportedly with stomach cancer, facing a murder trial ? and a family that may have to relive their loved one?s death, 32 years later.

It?s hard to imagine justice truly prevailing.