Legendary pro-wrestling villain Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka was busted in Pennsylvania on Tuesday in the 32-year-old murder of his Brooklyn girlfriend in a motel near Allentown, authorities said.
Nancy Argentino
Snuka had been videotaping a World Wrestling Federation event on May 10, 1983, and returned to his motel in Whitehall Township to find Nancy Argentino, then 23, struggling to breath and with mucus flowing from her mouth and nose.
The wrestler — known for his high-flying antics in the ring — first told a cop and four others that he had shoved Argentino earlier in the day and that she had hit her head, according to police interviews obtained by The (Allentown) Morning Call.
But Snuka, who was married with four kids at the time, quickly changed his story, insisting that all five had misunderstood him and that the victim had slipped and hit her head after they stopped by the roadside to urinate. She died in a hospital a day later.
Snuka, 72, was busted Tuesday morning at his home in Waterford Township, New Jersey, and charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, according to Lehigh County DA Jim Martin. He was later released after posting $100,000 bail. If convicted, he faces 20 to 40 years behind bars.
The DA had reopened the cold case in 2014 after the paper detailed the results of her autopsy, which labeled the case a homicide and “mate abuse.”
The autopsy showed that Argentino died from traumatic brain injuries, and that she had dozens of cuts and bruises on her head, face, arms, back and legs.
Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and girlfriend Nancy Argentino in an undated photo.
One of Argentino’s sisters, Louise Argentino-Upham, said she believed Snuka was guilty from the start.
“The evidence was unbelievable, I knew he did it all along,” she told The Post from her Florida home.
“It’s been a long time coming. She was only 23 and she really didn’t deserve what happened to her. They did the right thing by gathering all the evidence now and arresting him. Somehow it got all muddled back then.”
Her mother, 89, just had open-heart surgery but was thrilled justice had finally been served.
Another sister, Lorraine Salome of New York, was also gratified the authorities in Allentown brought the case to a grand jury after so long.
“Better this should have happened 30 years ago. They dropped the ball then, they gave my family a very hard time. Every avenue that we turned down in those days they slammed the door in our face. We had to sue him to get any kind of justice,” Salome said, referring to a $500,000 wrongful death suit nancy’s family won in 1985.
“We never saw a dime, but money was not the point. He took off like a deadbeat, but better late than never.”
Snuka was the only suspect in the case but had never been charged, and insisted in his 2012 autobiography that he was innocent.
“Many terrible things have been written about me hurting Nancy and being responsible for her death, but they are not true,” he whined.
But just months before her death, Snuka was busted for beating her in a Syracuse motel. He pleaded guilty to harassment and more serious charges were dropped.
Snuka, who has been diagnosed with stomach cancer, his wife announced in August, started his career with the WWF — now the WWE — in 1984 as a villain, and was known for diving from the ropes and even the top of steel cages.
He also had several grudge matches with wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper after Piper, who died July 31, conked him over the head with a coconut.
