The son of Canadian boxing legend Arturo Gatti has tragically died at the age of 17 after being found hanged in a Mexico apartment.
Just over 16 years since his father’s mysterious death, Arturo Jr passed away in the North American country on Tuesday, it has been announced.
According to the French-speaking Canadian network TVA Nouvelles, the teenager was in Mexico with his mother, Amanda Rodrigues, prior to his unexpected passing. It is reported that a neighbor discovered him dead.
Chuck Zito, who served as close friend Gatti’s bodyguard throughout his career, was first to share the devastating news on Wednesday.
‘With a heavy heart, I must announce… R.I.P. to 17-year-old ARTURO GATTI JR., who was found hanging in an apartment in Mexico yesterday,’ shared Zito, an American actor and stuntman. He wrote this alongside several photos of Arturo Jr and Sr on Instagram, noting, ‘This mirrors the way his father was found dead in an apartment in Brazil 16 years prior.’
‘My condolences to Arturo Gatti Seniors – Mom, Sisters, Brothers, and his daughter Sophia.’
The son of late boxing legend Arturo Gatti has died at the age of 17 after being found hanged
Arturo Jr, who was born 10 months before his dad’s mysterious death, passed away in Mexico
Arturo Jr aspired to follow in his father’s footsteps, seeking to establish his own boxing career. He began training at the age of six and participated in numerous amateur matches, with his long-time coach Mo Latif reportedly scheduled to travel to Mexico this week.
The young prodigy, who shared a close relationship with Mike Tyson, was expected to one day turn professional.
Arturo Sr, a former two-weight world champion famous for his historic boxing trilogy against rival Micky Ward, was discovered dead in Brazil during a vacation with his son and wife Amanda in July 2009.
His body was found with his head partially beneath a kitchen counter and a small purse strap nearby. He had been battered and bruised, with a deep ligature mark under his chin. His tongue protruded from his discolored face, and his right ear was swollen. Additionally, there was a three-centimeter-long gash on the back of his head, crusted with dried blood.
Rodrigues was arrested on suspicion of murder 24 hours after she claimed to have found his body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor of their rented condo in the northeastern resort town of Porto de Galinhas. Eighteen days later, she was released, as authorities eventually deemed it a suicide.
As the Daily Mail recalled in a special report looking back at his death earlier this year, many of Gatti’s close family and friends still refuse to buy into the theory that he died by suicide. An initial toxicology report carried out by Brazilian officials showed no drug activity in his body, while there was no evidence of late-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head.
When authorities concluded that Rodrigues was not involved in her husband’s death, Gatti’s former manager and confidante Pat Lynch – whom he considered a ‘surrogate father’ – sought the help of a powerful team of private investigators, law enforcement and medical experts to get to the bottom of what truly happened on July 11.
In September 2011, the team made their report public after concluding that he was ‘rendered unconscious with an unknown object, and then manually strangled with the purse strap or a similar device.’
‘Death would have been by ligature strangulation, with blunt force head injury,’ their closing argument read. ‘Amanda Gatti, either alone or with assistance from an unknown person or persons, had the opportunity, means and motive to murder her husband.’
Yet two months later, a Quebec coroner ruled there was no ‘hard evidence’ that Gatti’s death was caused by ‘foul play’ or suicide after a separate investigation was carried out by Montreal pathologists.
The coroner, Jean Brochu, said the initial missteps from the Brazilian authorities made it too difficult to conclude with absolute certainty what happened on the night of July 11, 2009, despite stating that Gatti had died a ‘violent death.’ The probable cause of death was listed as asphyxiation by neck constriction.
