Anyone wondering if your humble blogger is a conspiracy theorist needs to know, first, that the questions raised here about gaps in the Benoit evidence are not fantasies. They are facts. Indeed, I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the chain-of-evidence issues. Many cases have these kinds of ambiguities, and many of the ambiguities prove trivial or innocent. This case has many more than its share. I seriously doubt that each and every one of them will prove trivial or innocent.
But you also need to know that there are two possible explanations for any individual gap. One explanation is conspiracy or corruption. The other explanation is sheer incompetence, which can never be discounted — in Fayette County or anywhere.
In that connection, there is the little matter of the county’s June 26, 2007, subpoena to Verizon Wireless, which can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/VerizonSubpoena.pdf.
Two months ago I asked Detective Ethon Harper, “Was a demand for voicemail audio included in any of the 14 categories of the subpoena to Verizon?” Harper never answered.
Even though my layman’s reading of the plain text of the subpoena clearly suggested that the answer was “no,” I have been reluctant to say so, in case a demand for voicemail was somehow embedded in legalese I didn’t understand. But I’ve now consulted with a lawyer who has confirmed that answer.
So: One fairly important reason Verizon didn’t provide the voicemail from Chris Benoit’s cell phone account is that the company wasn’t asked!
To the extent that a cover-up has ensued — no mention of the voicemail issue in the sheriff’s case summary; a fuzzy attempt by Harper to fuse the voicemail issue with a purported technical problem with text message retrieval, which is a separate question; belated release of mostly useless home answering machine messages that became grist for Atlanta TV news while distracting the public from the scandalous telephonic evidence gaps — that cover-up could be either completely or partially due to the simple embarrassment of the sheriff and the district attorney over the revelation that they were so negligent.
Again, no one is saying World Wrestling Entertainment bought off these folks. For one thing, they might not have had to.
Irv Muchnick