EDITORS' NOTE (7/1/22): Due to receiving a few negative comments on here, DCBLOG has chosen to disable the comments section out of respect for respecting the mental health of the blogger, as this site joins the rest of the social media and internet communities in doing our part to support awareness of that topic. Please remember: Think Before You Post.
BY DC CUEVA
In what is now eighteen regular Challenge appearances along with all three legs of the Champs vs. Stars spinoff, CT has been at the heart of some of the show's most memorable moments: a vicious fight he had with Paris roommate Adam King on The Duel II, being a backpack to Johnny Bananas on Cutthroat, and him being humbled when he won the first of his three titles when he took Rivals II in 2013, followed by Invasion of the Champions and War of the Worlds II in the ladder half of the decade, and all in the nation of Thailand. He even had his own wedding be featured as part of the series as well, which introduced us to his now divorced wife and his first kid.
But it is CT's relationship with Diem Brown that is no doubt the most significant part of his MTV journey, as that love affair fascinated so many fans from when they first met on The Duel in 2006, then rekindled things on the first Battle of the Exes. And we all had tears in our eyes when he went back home with her when she became ill on the second Exes Challenge... and was at her bedside when she passed away after her third battle against ovarian cancer in the autumn on 2014.
As he is now at the rightful age of 40 competing on yet another Challenge in Double Agents, CT has no doubt had quite a life over the past four decades - and that even includes a co-starring role in horror movie Habitual alongside lifelong friend Johnny Hickey. But something that is largely forgotten in his backstory is one that took place during the middle part of his MTV career: an traumatic event that, in part, is why he didn't compete on The Challenge in between that fight in New Zealand and him emerging from the background to take on Johnny Bananas as a mercenary on the Czech Republic.
The story of what happened over a decade ago is perhaps as heart-wrenching as you can possibly get: someone he grew up and considered so close getting his life taken away too soon. And it would only be a decade after the fact that his family finally earned the justice they so wanted.
It was a hot summer Sunday's afternoon and early evening in mid-August of 2008 in Chester, Vermont, in the southern part of the state near the border with New Hampshire. This small town of over 3,000 took a break from watching the middle weekend of the Beijing Olympics and the Red Sox to gather for its annual softball tournament with families and kids enjoying a pleasant weekend of ball, beer and fun. In a place far away from the city and one of the least populated states in the country, it is perhaps as quaint as you can get in small town America.
But in one moment, it all changed with a moment that scared just about everyone: people began to scream in panic as a few of them sprinted from a parking lot nearby in chasing a man with an ax in his hands. This caught everyone off guard as a man from down the way in Boston ran to a truck in the park's parking lot and started to hack into it. And at the heart of it was a dispute that would turn deadly.. and it wasn't just someone: it just so happened to be the oldest in a group of four siblings and where one of them had become much more well known outside of his household.
 |
| All Pics Courtesy FB Justice4Vinnie |
By the summer of 1980 the family began to grow when brother Chris was born, and so began a strong relationship between Vinnie and the younger Tamburello, to the point where they would share custody of his beloved Curious George toy monkey. In the coming years, young brother Jason and first daughter Vanessa would turn this family into one of six, where the siblings would always be supportive of one another in their now crowded household... something that, as Vinnie Sr. would call, "the pride and joys of our lives."
The one he called "Lil' Vinnie" was one who loved to go skateboarding, who later loved basketball here in Celtics territory. He translated that love of into being a coach for youth basketball in local after school programs, becoming beloved by the students on the court and on fields of play in Charlestown. By age 17, though, Vinnie started to explore living out on his own as he was starting to live a hard life away from where he grew up.
In 2007, he moved up to Vermont to help restore those once-proud houses to new ones again as he worked with CT on those when the younger brother wasn't competing or training for Challenges. At the same time Vinnie had also met his girlfriend Julie Kronberg, where soon enough she was expecting her first baby -- it was news that was accepted with great joy by everyone in both their families - except Julie's mom: an argument led to her being kicked out of her parents' house, and eventually she would suffer a miscarriage. But there was a serendipity to losing their first kid: he proposed to her, and they had plans on getting married and starting a family together.
But at the same time, there was something else going on while he was trying to keep himself in check during this changing time in his life. Vinnie had been dealing with a group of men who just happened to be drug dealers and informants for the local District Attorney, and they had done whatever they can to intimate the same mom who evicted his pregnant girlfriend and who would then assault her. It was when the leader of the group, a man named Gib Bastian, would step up to him that he got dropped to the ground at a bar fight in town which exposed the low-life nature of their group, which was part of a series of events that would eventually prove to be a precursor to that fateful day.
He would then charge the group with the maul as they then split up, as one of the men - Kyle Bolaski - fell in front of Vinnie as he took the hammer and smashed into Bolaski's vehicle. And while Tambuello was destroying the truck, Bolaski ran over to grab the hunting rifle that was also in his car and promptly shot him in the leg and then shooting Vinnie again in the back. The group then returned back to the area where Vinnie was shot and jumped him with the rifles. And after being able to speak with police when they arrived on the scene, it was upon his arrival at the local hospital that after bleeding, Vincent Tamburello was pronounced dead.
Vinnie's death stunned everyone from his parents to CT and everyone else in their inner circle... but it's when the legal process began that the sadness turned into pure anger. The Justice4Vinnie.org website has afforded his dad Vinnie Sr. & the Tamburellos plenty of opportunity to vent their outrage towards the local DA Robert Sand, who refused to bring to trial Mr. Bolaski or his other colleagues. The attorney did what he can to try and throw the case out if they didn't keep their mouths shut, but in this battle between Vinnie's family and the state government of the least-populated state in the Union - it was their loud voice that eventually ousted Sand from his office and finally put the accuser into the courtroom.
With the corruption of the former DA out of the way, the trial that ensued gave, at first, a favorable decision in favor of the family after a fair hearing: a guilty verdict by the jury after a fairly short trial and a 25-year sentence. But in 2014 with Sand & those around him having reemerged back into prominence in Vermont, an appeal by Bolaski heard by the state's high court ruled that some of the testimony and evidence presented by the prosecution turned out to be false, where he claimed that he was acting in self-defense. It not only reversed the original decision but also the suspect free until a retrial was ordered - and it was back to square one.
But after many years and so much fighting to try and have all of the evidence be presented both cleanly and honestly -- as well as all of the legal circus that took place surrounding it, in January 2020 the decade-long case finally met its final reckoning. A guilty plea was entered prior to that second trial with the one charge being ruled as an involuntary manslaughter, which unlike the original charge carries only a maximum 15-year stay behind bars compared to twenty-five. But it can be reduced to just seven years - a term Bolaski had already served half of prior to the plea deal. Nonetheless, Judge Elizabeth Mann called this deal "an imperfect result" and one that, "For the Tamburello family, the sentence falls short," as Vinnie's family left with an empty feeling when they walked out of the courtroom.
As Vinnie Sr. wrote on their site, "He was always known as "Li'l Vinnie", no matter if he towered over me, which he did, he always was, and still is, known as Li'l Vinnie."
- I AM DC
#DCBLOG
