In some people’s eyes, not only did Amanda Rodrigues get away with murder, but she also profited from it after being awarded the remainder of her ex-husband Arturo Gatti’s estate. Rodrigues was handed an inheritance of $3.4 million on Dec. 16 by a Quebec Superior Court Justice named Claudine Roy when she awarded her the inheritance of the ex world champion boxer’s fortune.

Gatti’s family and friends believe Rodrigues was responsible for his death in the summer of 2009 when he was found on the floor of the couples’ rented apartment while on their second honeymoon in Brazil. Rodrigues was originally arrested as the main suspect in his murder, but Brazilian authorities released her after three weeks when they said Gatti committed suicide by hanging himself.

However, Gatti’s family said Rodrigues was a gold-digger and convinced Gatti to change his will just before he died, leaving everything to her. The family said Gatti’s original will from 2007 should be enforced, but they didn’t have a copy of it. The judge said there wasn’t any evidence that Rodrigues manipulated Gatti into changing his will though and said the most recent version will be honored.

Gatti’s younger brother and mother, who believe Rodrigues killed Gatti after he changed his will, took the case to court and fought to have the 2007 will enforced since it left the state to them and his daughter from a previous marriage. The judge said she realized Gatti and Rodrigues shared a rocky relationship, but they were still a couple since they appeared to make up after each argument. She said the fights were often violent and serious, but the couple always reconciled afterwards and were together at the time of Gatti’s death.

The pair met in 2006 in New Jersey when Gatti was 33 and Rodrigues was just 19 years old. They married the next year and had a baby son, but the relationship was anything but steady. The court heard that Gatti often stayed out all hours of the night drinking and Rodrigues would retaliate by hitting him, screaming, throwing things, and scratching his car with a key.

Pat Lynch, Gatti’s former manager, paid to have a private investigation carried out after the death and they came to the conclusion that the boxer was murdered. But coroners in both Brazil and Canada stated that there isn’t enough evidence to prove it. They admitted that he died violently and it’s possible he was killed, but impossible to prove.

While Judge Roy upheld the 2009 will, Rodrigues still faces more court battles since Gatti’s former wife Erika Rivera has filed a wrongful-death suit against her in New Jersey. In addition, a man in Florida is suing the estate for $5 million after claiming that Gatti punched him in the face.

Gatti had a daughter named Sophia with Rivera, and while they didn’t receive anything in the will, Gatti set up a $125,000 education fund for his daughter in 2007 along with a $1-million trust fund and a share of a house worth $250,000.

Rivera is eligible to withdraw funds from the trust fund each month for support. Rivera was also a co-plaintiff in the recent case in Canada as she wanted to block Rodrigues and her son from receiving any financial payment whatsoever.

Gatti was born in Italy, raised in Montreal, and then moved to New Jersey. He was 37 years old when he died. He turned pro in 1991 and won the IBF Super Featherweight and WBC Light Welterweight Championship before retiring in 2007. His pro record was 40-9, with 31 KOs.

Even though private investigators recently said that former junior welterweight boxing champion Arturo Gatti was murdered, they haven’t really given the public much proof to back it up. Gatti was found dead at the age of 37 in Brazil on July 11, 2009. His wife Amanda Rodrigues found his body in their rented vacation condo in Porto de Galihnas and was originally the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

Brazilian police then ruled the death was a suicide and said Gatti hanged himself with the strap of his wife’s handbag and released Rodrigues. However, friends and colleagues of Gatti were convinced he was murdered and paid for a private 10-month investigation. A report of the findings was released on Sept. 7 and a civil trial started in Montreal a day earlier to determine where Gatti’s fortune would go and when details of a second autopsy are to be released.

Investigators said Brazilian police have to reopen the case because there was a wound on the boxer’s head and it appears they’re now willing to look into Gatti’s death again. Gatti’s former manager Pat Lynch paid for the private investigation and one of the investigators, Paul Ciolino, said he was basically murdered because he had money, which is estimated to be about $6.5 million.

Rodrigues and her lawyers said the report’s a joke because it was paid for by Gatti’s people and wasn’t done independently. She added that a news documentary into the case will be more accurate because it’ll be done objectively.

Most of the interesting news was brought out in the civil trial and not the investigation. Some of Gatti’s friends said he was often abused by his wife and changed his will shortly before his death, leaving all of his belongings to Rodrigues. They also say his original will left everything to his family, but they can’t produce a copy of it.

The private investigation consisted of interviews, scene photos, and autopsy reports. It also used computer-generated simulations. The main argument by investigators was the finding of a large cut on Gatti’s head, which they say couldn’t have gotten there by itself due to the position his body was found in. They also said the handbag strap wasn’t strong enough to hold the weight of his body for any longer than just a few seconds.

Investigators say Gatti was hit in the head and then strangled by the strap and that blood-soaked hand towels found in the room weren’t tested by Brazilian police. Gatti and his wife got into a furious argument at a restaurant the night before he died and there wasn’t any forced entry into their vacation condo. Rodrigues said she saw Gatti lying on the floor of the kitchen at 6:30am, but thought he was just drunk. She said she saw him in the same position again at 9:30 am and noticed a pool of blood around his head and that he had turned blue. That’s when she called the police.

Nothing would really come as a surprise now. If another police investigation ruled the incident to be a homicide or a suicide, there’s going to be an argument either way.

Arturo Gatti was one of those rare breed of fighters. He never gave up. The only way you could be assured of beating him was by knocking him out because if you only managed to knock him down you knew he sure as hell was going to get back up.

Gatti’s record was 40-9 with 31 KOs and he won world championships in the junior, and super lightweight divisions. He participated in four of Ring Magazine’s ‘Fight of the Year’ and is remembered all over the world for his epic trilogy with Mickey Ward.

When it was announced back on July 11, 2009 that Gatti had been found dead in his Brazilian hotel room while on his second honeymoon, it shocked millions of boxing fans around the world. Most of them assumed he might have died from drugs or alcohol accidentally, but none of them would have guessed he’d taken his own life.

Word quickly spread that the 37-year-old Gatti had been murdered by his then 23-year-old Brazilian wife Amanda Rodrigues even though he was found hanged in his room. She said she had found the Italian- born and Canadian-raised Gatti dead when she came out of her room 10 hours later.

Rodrigues, an ex-stripper, was charged with murder by strangulation, but she was released by the Brazilian authorities and all charges were dropped. They concluded that Gatti had died by hanging himself. However, many people felt Brazilian police were just protecting one of their own or were paid off and just brushed the whole incident under the carpet.

One person who was adamant that Gatti didn’t kill himself was his manger Pat Lynch, who hired private investigators to thoroughly look into his death. After months of working on the case they said it’s pretty clear it wasn’t a suicide and a press conference will be held on Aug. 30^th to discuss their findings.

Paul Ciolino, a private investigator out of Chicago, said he and his partner Joseph Moura have interviewed people and experts in Canada, America, and Brazil and he’ll hold the press conference at the Global Boxing Gym in North Bergen at 11 am on the 30^th. He said he’ll also release an animation to show it wasn’t physically possible for Gatti to have killed himself, based on the theories of the Brazilian police. Ciolino said that expert scientific witnesses will give short presentations as well during the conference.

But Brazilian authorities said that Gatti was upset over the state of his marriage and drunk at the time. They said he hung himself with his wife’s purse strap while she was asleep in an upstairs room with their son. Ciolino said that theory didn’t make sense and the Brazilian police held a half-assed investigation. He also said the autopsy wasn’t complete and they just did several things that weren’t acceptable procedures anywhere in the world.

Ciolino said there was only one other person in the apartment the night of Gatti’s death, so he doesn’t have to accuse anybody of his murder as it’s obvious who is responsible.