10 Murders Committed By Bodybuilders (2023)

Whatever your personal opinion of the sport of bodybuilding, or whether "roid rage" is a thing, you have to admit that there have been an extraordinary number of murders, assaults, and other forms of violence involving members of the sport, both male and female as well as in women. In many of these cases, the perpetrators have been described as completely non-violent before beginning steroid use. Although some believe that roid rage is a myth, research shows that even light steroid use leads to aggression.

But that doesn't mean everyone who uses them becomes violent. Of course, bodybuilding isn't the only thingSportthat has participants who use steroids or have problems with violence. We can only hope that as more brains are studied and more is learned about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), we can one day better understand why people do the things they do.

10John Rickard

Connie Navarro and her friend Sue Jory were shot dead in Navarro's West Los Angeles apartment in 1983. The suspect was her ex-boyfriend, bodybuilder John Riccardi. John disappeared the day after the murders and went insidehiddenfor the next eight years. He would not be found until he was featured in a segment ofAmerica's Most Wanted. Viewers of the show were able to offer tips that eventually led authorities to a Houston condo. Riccardi had apparently lived a life of luxury and supported that lifestyle by committing burglaries. Money, jewels and other items were found when he was captured.

Though he denied molesting Navarro after their split or having anything to do with her death, witnesses said Riccardi grew increasingly vicious towards her. He was eventually found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. That sentence was eventually overturned by the California Supreme Court and commuted to life imprisonment without chance of parole.^[1]

Another victim of this crime was Connie Navarro's then 15-year-old son, David Navarro. He stated that Riccardi broke into their home a week before the murders, pointed a gun at him, and handcuffed him. Luckily for David, he stayed with his father the night the killings took place. He believed that if he had been home that evening, he would have been a victim too.

David later became known as Dave Navarro, guitarist and member of the rock band Jane's Addiction. He also toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is currently the host of the popular TV showFarbmaster. Fearing for his own life in the years leading up to Riccardi's capture, Dave felt his fame would make it easy for his mother's killer to find him. He also said that he used it onceHerointo numb the pain of his mother's death.

Seeking further healing, Dave produced a film about the whole experience titledmourning son. He was quoted as saying, "One of the ways trauma survivors overcome trauma is by going through the ugliness." While working on the film, he decided to visit Riccardi in prison. While expecting to feel anger at the man who took his mother's life, he realized, "He's just an old guy dying in prison."

9Bertil Fuchs

September 30, 1997 was a day that would forever change the life of bodybuilder Bertil Fox and would leave a 20-year-old beauty queen and her 36-year-old mother dead.

Fox, a two-time Mr. Universe known as "Brutal Fox" during his career, was previously engaged to beauty queen Leyoca Browne. Her mother, Violet, owned a clothing store on the island of St. Kitts. Fox entered the store on that fateful day. An argument ensued, shots were fired and both women were killed.

Fox claimed that the deaths were accidental and occurred while he was fighting Violet for the gun. However, his best friend's testimony at the trial told a very different story. He explained that Fox admitted to him that he killed the two women but never stated that he didself defenseorcoincidentally. Fox said Violet pushed him out the door, so he pulled out the gun and started shooting. A seamstress who also worked in the shop at the time gave a statement that also incriminated Fox. Although the evidence was compelling, his first trial ended with a hung jury.

Fox was given a second trial, found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. His lawyers appealed and the death sentence was overturned. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment.^[2]

8Sally McNeil

Sally McNeil and her husband, fellow bodybuilder Ray McNeil, were both ex-Marines. Eight eventful years of marriage came to a bloody endvalentines dayin 1995. Ray showed up at her home in Oceanside, California, after 10:00 p.m. that evening, and Sally was not happy. She had apparently been mulling over his whereabouts while waiting for him to return home. As he stood by the stove cooking chicken, she started screaming and asking where he had been. The argument escalated and one of Sally's children reported hearing a gurgling sound as if their mother was being choked.

Shortly thereafter, Sally went to a closet, removed a 12-gauge shotgun, and shot Ray once in the abdomen and once in the jaw. When she called 911, operators could hear him saying in the background, "Why, oh god, why?" Still alive when police arrived, Ray denied choking her. A few hours later he was pronounced dead. She was sentenced to 19 years in prison for second-degree murder. Blood tests would show that she had one type of steroid in her system and he had five different types in his at the time of his death.

In the years leading up to her husband Ray's murder, Sally displayed a pattern of becoming more and moreviolent and unbalanced. In 1990 alone, she found herself in the midst of numerous assaults and aggressions. She was arrested for pulling a pistol from her first husband and using a crowbar to smash the windows of his car. A few days later, she dropped an 80-pound weight from the balcony onto Ray's car as he was leaving. On another occasion, the police visited her home to check on her children's well-being. She continued to fight with the police and eventually had to be sprayed with maces to stop the violence from progressing. Last but not least, she was banned from participating in bodybuilding competitions when she hit a woman in the stands who she suspected of sleeping with her husband. In 1993, she assaulted a police officer after they were called into a bar where the bouncer told her to stop dancing on a table. They said she went "berserk."

In better times, Ray was among the top 20 professional bodybuilders in the nation in his weight class. He was also named Mr. California in 1991. Sally won the US Armed Services Physique Championship twice in the late 1980s. She would also compete in amateur wrestling to make money, such as women's submission wrestling and apartment wrestling, where she would wrestle with men. The nickname she used for these events was "Killer Sally". How ironic.^[3]

7Jacob Batsel

They followed him into his garage under cover of darkness, and when the garage door closed, things quickly went wrong.

Henry Jeffcoat, owner of a local Atlanta nude nightclub, returned home from work around midnight on February 10, 1993. Noticing that would-be robbers had followed him into his garage, he pushed a button in his car that would alert police that he needed help. Jeffcoat was able to draw his gun, open fire and wound one of the robbers before being shot nine times in the back and dying. The attackers were able to kick a hole in the garage door and escape into the woods before police arrived.

After investigating a lead, police were able to arrest the murder and attempted robbery of Henry Jeffcoat. To say the community was shocked to discover who the suspects were would be an understatement. James Batsel and Mark McKenna were SWAT officers in nearby Riverdale.

McKenna, who was wounded in the attack, cooperated with the investigation in exchange for a life sentence without parole. He would help link them to a set ofunsolved crimesand identify members of the crime ring. It mainly consisted of bodybuildingpolice officersfrom local agencies, and most were regulars at a local Gold's Gym. One member said he only joined because he was told the victims were drug dealers and the money was dirty. They called themselves "white boys against crime".

Gunman James Batsel also pleaded guilty. He blamed steroid use for the crime, stating that he was using 3,200 milligrams of steroids a week. At the time of his crimes, he was reported to have weighed 135 kilograms (298 lb) with just 2 percent body fat.^[4]

6Craig Titus und Kelly Ryan

At the beginning of their collaboration, we can imagine that Melissa James would have been thrilled to be the personal assistant to Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, who were stars in the professional bodybuilding world. The couple was well known and had achieved great success in their chosen field. We can also imagine that there had to be good times along the way between the couple and their assistant. It's hard to imagine what went so terribly wrong between them in the end.

Melissa James was found burned beyond recognition in the trunk of Kelly Ryan's Jaguar on a desert road outside ofLas Vegason December 14, 2005. She would be found to have been beaten, drugged, tasered and injected with morphine before being strangled and burned. Her head was also wrapped in duct tape. During the autopsy, the coroner was able to peel off the tape and found that it had formed a macabre "death mask." The coroner was never able to determine the exact cause of death, or even if Melissa was alive when she was placed in the trunk of that car.

The couple went on the run after the murder, and a nationwide manhunt ensued. Nine days later, they were found at a nail salon in a Boston suburb and arrested. They initially claimed Melissa died of an overdose, so they burned her body and left town. They did so because they feared the publicity would hurt their careers. Murder tends to do that.
Craig admitted to having an affair with Melissa that Kelly was unaware of and using steroids and othersdrugs. He accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder, kidnapping and arson. His prison sentence was 21 to 51 years. Kelly also accepted a plea deal of arson and battery with a deadly weapon. Her prison sentence was six to 26 years.^[5]

5Daniel Lugo and Adrian Doorbal

Photo credit:CBS

This story is so bizarre that Hollywood made a movie about it, starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and Mark Wahlbergpain & gain. The film was a comedy, but the reality was anything but.

The true story is about crimes committed by Daniel Lugo and Adrian Doorbal, who knew each other from Sun Gym in Miami Lakes, Florida. During the day they pumped iron and figured out how to make money. Lot of money. They came up with what they believed to be the ideal plan. They would kidnap wealthy people and force them to sign their cash, property and other valuable assets.

John Carl Mese was a co-owner of Sun Gym and also a chartered accountant. He would notarize the money transfers, and Lugo and Doorbal would act as musclemen. Jorge Delgado, another collaborator, helped them find their first victim. His name was Marcelo Schiller and he was known to have a number of expensive houses and money in offshore accounts. Delgado also had the access code to one of Schiller's houses.

After several unsuccessful attempts to kidnap him, they finally succeeded on November 15, 1994. They transported Schiller to a warehouse, where he was held for the next four weeks. They handcuffed him, taped his eyes shut, and forced him to sit in his own urine. When it came time for him to sign the documents that would transfer his ownership to them, they burned him with lighters and shocked him with Tasers until he had signed all their papers - all without being able to see what he was signing . By the time it was over, the men had transferred millions of dollars in Schiller's fortune to them. After he was cleaned out, they tried to stage a car accident with him at the wheel. Schiller survived, but he did not tell police what had happened until many weeks later.

After breaking away from their first result, the men decided it was time for another. This time they chose Frank Griga, who made his $5 million fortune off phone sex lines, and his girlfriend Krisztina Furton. They were kidnapped, beaten and drugged with horse tranquilizers. Unfortunately thetortureof Griga ended with his death. They tried to save the situation by getting his girlfriend to give them computer security codes. That too would fail. They had given her so many sedatives that her small body couldn't handle them and she died too.

In an effort to rid themselves of the bodies, they dismembered them and attempted to incinerate them in 208-liter (55-gallon) drums. When that didn't go as planned, they filled the remains into buckets and threw them down a drainage ditch. Authorities were able to identify some of the remains using the serial numbers on KrisztinasBreast implants. Lugo and Doorbal were both found guilty.^[6]

4Gordon Kimbrough

Gordon Kimbrough and Kristy Ramsey worked, lived, and competed in bodybuilding together. They had both won awards individually and as a pair won the USA Pairs title in 1991. They were well known in the San Francisco bodybuilding community.

However, their personal relationship seemed doomed fairly early on. He admitted to having affairs with other women, pushing and hitting them. When it got too much for her, they split up. Apparently, hoping to make things work, Kristy Gordon asked Gordon for counseling about his anger issues. Though he reportedly said, "It wasn't a big deal to me, but to her, it was," he agreed with the advice.

When things smoothed out, they decided to get married. Kristy would soon find out she was pregnant, but together they decided to end the pregnancypregnancy. He said: "The wedding was already planned and the dress was already made."

Before the wedding could take place, Kristy met and became engaged to another man. When she told Kimbrough that she wanted to end their four-year relationship and call off the wedding, he got angry. On June 20, 1993, he allegedly hit her on the chin, wrapped an electric cable around her neck three times, tied it in a knot and stabbed her twice in the throat with a kitchen knife. When police arrived, he was found holding a syringe to his neck as if thinkingSuicide.

In an unusual move, Kimbrough testified in his own defense, vowing that the murder was committed in a fit of passion. He hoped for a lesser sentence, but was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years to life.^[7]

3Jamie Fuller

Jamie Fuller, 16, of Beverly, Massachusetts, was a novice bodybuilder who began taking steroids at age 14 to gain mass. His friends and family noticed an immediate change in his demeanor and personality. The disturbing story of his life would be told in a TV movie titledNobody would tellin 1996.

Amy Carnivale was Jamie's pregnant girlfriend of 14 years. When he found out that she had gone to another boy, he got angry. He had recently taken large doses of testosterone as well as an anabolic steroid pill and also drank a large amount of itBier. He would later say that he couldn't control his aggression after taking all of this.

His friends would testify that on August 22, 1991, Fuller tricked Carnivale into going into the woods with him. He then put his hand over her mouth, said, "Amy, I love you," then stabbed her in the stomach and slit her throat. As she fell to the ground, she murmured the words "I love you" and it enraged him so much that he stomped on her throat. When she was dead, he walked out of the forest with blood on his arms and said to his friends, "It is done." He proceeded to tie a cinder block to herbodyand threw them over a fence and into a pond. He reportedly laughed as he heard her bones crunch as she fell. He then threatened to kill his friends if anyone told what he had done. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.^[8]

2Bruce Nadler

dr Bruce Nadler was well known to amateur and professional bodybuilders in New York alike. He was also an avid bodybuilder and billed himself as the "World's Strongest Plastic Surgeon." Nadler was known to have performed over 700 timesgynecomastiaSurgery to correct breast overdevelopment in male bodybuilders using steroids. It's quite unusual for a doctor to be as positive about steroid use as he is. He would say he is his own testing lab and is sure he can find the right combinations and dosages to avoid side effects.

He was eventually investigated by the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct and forced to relinquish his medical license after being charged with misconduct. The allegations mainly stemmed from the fact that he was prescribing anabolic steroids, growth hormones and other drugs used by bodybuilders.

We can imagine that losing your reputation as the leading plastic surgeon would be quite difficult. One day you will be on top of the world doing a lotMoney, and in the next everything is taken away. After his forced retirement, Nadler decided to regroup and turn his attention back to his second passion. In 2005 he wrote a book entitledThe Nip Tuck Workout: Exercise Through the Eyes of a Plastic Surgeon, moved to Los Angeles with his wife Terri and opened Nip Tuck Fitness, LA in Beverly Hills.

This is where the story gets a bit murky as not much has been written about what exactly happened on February 2nd, 2008 and more importantly why it happened. We know that Bruce and Terri were found at their home, deceased from gunshot wounds. It would be a murder-suicide committed by Bruce. Some speculated that he was depressed from being unable to do what he loved most, but we don't know for sure. He seems to have taken this answer with him.^[9]

1Chris Benoit

Photo credit:Visa

On June 25, 2007, the world of professional wrestling was shaken to the core. One of the most popular wrestlers, his wife and child were found dead at their home in Fayetteville, Georgia. Benoit's wife Nancy was found bound and strangled. His seven-year-old son Daniel had been drugged and strangled. Bibles were found near their bodies. Benoit was found hanging from a weight machine in his home gym. After the shock wore off, it would be discovered that Benoit had murdered his wife and child and then killed himself. It appeared the murders and suicides were spread out over the weekend. The incident came as a complete shock to family, friends and colleagues.

According to Chris' father, he knew from an early age that his son wanted to be a wrestler. Before turning pro, Chris was a bodybuilder and amateur wrestler. He stayed focused and lifted weights every day to make his dream a reality. This dream was to be realized at the age of 18 when he became a professional wrestler. From then on his career exploded. He was known all over the world and won many titles. At the time of his death, he was still at the peak of his career, which made his suicide all the more puzzling. Known to friends and family as a devoted father and husbandDoppelmordof his wife and child really didn't make sense.

To understand what happened, the researchers were keen to examine Benoit's brain. They had seen so many cases ofProfessional Athleteshave severe brain damage called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Benoit's father initially resisted the idea, but when so many bad things were said about his son, he agreed to let her pursue her studies. They found extensive damage to Chris' brain, likely caused by all the hits to the back of the head with things like chairs, ladders, and cables during his wrestling career. He had probably suffered from untreated concussions throughout his life. When the toxicology report was released and steroids were found in his system, speculation arose about the possibility that "roid rage" was occurring and driving him mad. Unfortunately, there can be no definitive, unequivocal proof of what actually caused this tragedy.^[10]

fact verified byJamie Frater