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Famed wrestler Gagne linked to death of man, 97

Posted: Feb 20th 2009 By: mikeiles

Wrestling legend Verne Gagne, 82, reportedly fought with a 97-year-old man who later died. Both men had dementia.

If you grew up in Minnesota in the 1950s and '60s, you remember Verne Gagne as the king of old-school professional wrestlers -- burly guys in little shorts and big boots who tossed each other around in the ring and into the turnbuckles.

For decades beginning in the 1940s, Gagne's feats in football and pro wrestling made him seem larger than life.

But now, at 82, with his mind ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, he is the focus of inquiry into an altercation with a fellow resident of a Bloomington health care facility that led to the other man's death.

Gagne and Helmut Gutmann, 97, clashed Jan. 26 in the memory-loss section of Friendship Village, Gutmann's daughter, Ruth Hennig of Boston, said Thursday.

Gutmann, a scientist and musician who fled to the United States from Nazi Germany in 1936, suffered a broken right hip in the altercation and died about 2 1/2 weeks later.

"No one knows" what led to the clash, Hennig said. "I don't think anyone was present when it began ... or even if anything precipitated it."

She said that because of her father's dementia, he had "no memory at all" of his fight with Gagne and "didn't understand why his hip hurt."

Hennepin County medical examiner's office investigator Mike Opitz said a cause of death hasn't been officially certified.

Bloomington police are trying to determine whether to recommend charges to the Hennepin County attorney's office, Deputy Chief Perry Heles said.

Hennig said her family has yet to discuss whether they want Gagne prosecuted. "We're still dealing with the death on an emotional level," she said. "My mother [Betty Gutmann, who lives in the Twin Cities] is pretty upset."

Hennig said the two men had clashed previously, but she didn't "really know any details."

She said that after her father was injured, he had come through surgery "just fine" and was receiving physical therapy. But early last week "he just stopped taking any sustenance at all. ... He stopped eating and drinking," she said. He died Saturday.

Tags: Verne Gagne