More information on the role, or non-role, of Matthew T. Greenberg, the now-iconic “Benoit Wikipedia hacker,” is at hand.
Followers of this blog already know the “dog ate my homework” background of this tangential, but nevertheless important, record. (See here, here, here, and here.) To be sure, getting to the bottom of the Wikipedia affair will not alter the undisputed conclusion that Chris Benoit alone murdered his wife Nancy and their son Daniel before killing himself across the weekend of June 22-24, 2007. However, my review of the official investigation hovers over an unmistakable pattern: the eagerness of authorities to run as fast as they can from the implications of rich and powerful World Wrestling Entertainment’s timeline of the aftermath of the crimes. That is where the story of the Stamford Police Department interrogation of Greenberg — and the transmission of that information to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia — gets interesting.
As another week winds down, this is where things stand:
* The office of Rick Lindsey, attorney for the Fayette County sheriff, has told me that a copy of the defective copy of the video that it received from Stamford PD (which cut off shortly after it starts) is en route to me in the mail.
* On Wednesday, Captain Richard Conklin of Stamford PD told me that a good duplicate of the complete interview was in the process of being prepared and sent to Fayette County.
* On Thursday, Captain Tom Wuennemann of Stamford PD told me that a copy of the written report of the Greenberg interview was being mailed directly to me.
* Greenberg himself has not responded to emails dated June 16, June 20, and July 8. The emails have not bounced, so I believe the address I am using is good. A recently listed home phone number under Greenberg, at the same address listed in the Fayette County account of the interview of him, is no good. A recently listed business phone number under Greenberg at the same address is also no good.
* I did succeed in reaching by email one of the circle of Greenberg’s college friends who were identified in reports last summer as having been involved in a pattern of vandalism of Wikipedia content. The friend wrote back to me, “I am willing to help set the story straight under one condition: I do not want my name, or the names of any of my friends involved in the unfortunate coincidence on wikipedia all over the news.” I responded that I would promise to exercise discretion with respect to people who could be proven to be innocent bystanders in the Wikipedia affair, but could promise nothing more; as for Greenberg himself, his name is already in the public record through the Fayette County sheriff’s report.
Irv Muchnick