Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
On June 29, 2007, Matthew T. Greenberg was interviewed on videotape by Detective Tim Dolan in an interrogation room at the Stamford Police Department.
The then-19-year-old Stamford resident, on summer break following his freshman year at the University of Connecticut, had been identified as the computer hacker who had made an unauthorized edit of Chris Benoit’s biography at Wikipedia, sending the media into a frenzy. At 12:01 a.m. on June 25 – nearly a full day after Benoit sent his farewell text messages to Chavo Guerrero and Scott James (Armstrong), and more than 14 hours before the bodies of Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their son Daniel were found – Greenberg inserted a note at Wikipedia that Benoit had missed the June 24 wrestling show in Houston because his wife had died.
A year later I have obtained a copy of just the first three minutes of the Stamford police grilling of Greenberg.
In this post, I will transcribe the pertinent content of the video snippet.
In the next post, I will review how the Fayette County and Stamford authorities are processing my public information requests in this matter.
In the third and final post of this series, I will explain why solving the mystery of World Wrestling Entertainment’s timeline of events following the Benoit double murder/suicide in Georgia requires more information about Greenberg’s role, or non-role, than we currently have.
***
The video opens with Greenberg and his father sitting in the interrogation room. The ticking clock on the wall reads 1:35.
Detective Dolan enters the room and closes the door. Dolan directs the elder Greenberg to sit out of camera range, and points out the camera to Matt Greenberg and positions him facing it.
Matt Greenberg gives his date of birth, Stamford address, home and cell phone numbers, and summer employer.
DOLAN: You know why you’re here, why we asked you to come down.
GREENBERG: Yeah.
DOLAN: OK. Why don’t you tell me …
GREENBERG: … what happened. OK.
DOLAN: First, are you a wrestling fan?
GREENBERG: Yeah.
DOLAN: OK. A big one?
GREENBERG: Well, pretty big.
DOLAN: OK. Go on.
GREENBERG: OK. Well over, like, last weekend, the wrestler Benoit, like he, there was like rumors going on, cause he missed the pay-per-view and like his scheduled dates, which he never does, and I was reading rumors and speculation online.
DOLAN: Where online?
GREENBERG: Um, like on forums, I forgot the exact, like sites. Um, but I was like.
DOLAN: OK, hold on. On forums?
GREENBERG: Yeah.
DOLAN: OK. In any chat rooms?
GREENBERG: No, no chat rooms. I was like, I was just reading about it and some rumors like came up and I just –
DOLAN: And what were the rumors?
GREENBERG: That his, um, that like his family was sick or someone maybe died, like his wife perhaps, because he missed the pay-per-view.
DOLAN: OK. And when was that?
GREENBERG: Uh, Sunday.
DOLAN: Around what time Sunday, roughly?
GREENBERG: It was like at night, maybe between 10 and 12ish, before the post.
***
At that point, the video abruptly goes blank. This snippet is a copy of the tape that the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office received from the Stamford Police Department. According to Stamford, a good original of the complete interrogation is on hand there.
In recent weeks I have sent four unanswered email messages to Greenberg at an apparently current email address. Yesterday I also left a voicemail on his cell phone.
Anyone with tips is invited to contact me at tips@muchnick.net.
Irv Muchnick
