The Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, in its February final report on the Chris Benoit case, released text messages to and from Benoit’s cell phone, many of which are revealing. It also released logs, with the times and phone numbers (and in many cases, the parties associated with those phone numbers) of calls to and from Chris’s cell, his wife Nancy’s cell, and their home phone. And as reported yesterday on this blog, the sheriff has belatedly released the audio of messages on the home answering machine, which for the most part are curiosities.
What about the actual audio of voicemail on Chris’s cell? He was a mobile globetrotter who did a super-majority of his communication on the cell. Exactly what was said by various people at various times would provide far more clues than the dry secondary phone-call log.
On April 8, Detective Ethon Harper explained to me: “Luckily, we were able to at least get the texts from the phones. We retrieved the data from the phones such as SMS (text messaging). We asked for them from Verizon, but due to an issue they had with their systems, they could only produce what they gave us and nothing more. They were unable to provide texts or voice mails.”
On Monday of this week I followed up: “If this point is referenced in your report, please direct me to that passage. If not, please tell me who at Verizon told you that the texts or voicemails could not be produced due to an issue they had with their systems.”
When I receive a response, I will report it.