Luna Vachon Found Dead at Age 48; Current Details Here

Source: Mike Mooneyham of The Post and Courier
Veteran pro wrestling star Gertrude “Luna” Vachon was found dead Friday morning at her mother’s Florida home.
The Canadian-born Vachon, 48, the daughter of Paul “The Butcher” Vachon Butcher and niece of Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon, had been staying with her mother after her own house was recently destroyed in a fire.
The cause of death has yet to be determined. An autopsy was scheduled for Saturday.
Vachon had been medically diagnosed as having a bipolar disorder and being manic depressive, and had battled health issues throughout her career. She attended a WWE-sponsored rehab program in 1994 due to drinking problems.
Vachon began training at the age of 16 under her late aunt, Vivian Vachon, and began her wrestling career at The Fabulous Moolah’s school in Columbia.
“All she ever wanted to do (was wrestle),” Paul Vachon once told the SLAM! Wrestling website. “Her idol was my sister, Vivian, who was a wrestler. She had been watching her ever since she was 4 or 5 years old. That’s all she ever did. I told her she was a lunatic because all she wanted to do was wrestle.”
Vachon’s gimmick for most of her career was that of a “lunatic,” an outlandish, face-painted, Mohawk-sporting, over-the-top character with exaggerated facial expressions, and a part of stables such as Kevin Sullivan’s Army of Darkness in Florida in the mid-’80s and The Oddities in WWE in the late ‘90s.
But Vachon, who last performed in WWE in 2000, also was an accomplished wrestler who enjoyed notable feuds with the likes of Alundra Blayze (Debra “Madusa” Miceli) and Sensational Sherri Martel (Sherri Schrull), and most recently had mentored WWE women’s star Natalya (Natalie Neidhart) of the Hart Dynasty.
She often lamented that the business would benefit from more women who could actually wrestle — “not just bimbos and bimbettes.”
“I am saddened to hear of the passing of Luna Vachon,” Sullivan said in a statement. “Not only was she a fantastic performer, but I was lucky enough to consider her a dear friend and I will miss her greatly. Luna was an integral part of my career and I would not have succeeded without her. We have lost a great performer and an even greater person.”
Vachon had been married three times, including twice to wrestlers Tom Nash and David “Vampire Warrior” Heath of The Blackhearts tag team, and also was once involved in a purportedly abusive relationship with veteran wrestling star Dick Slater.
Vachon, who was nicknamed “Daughter of Darkness,” became a born-again Christian in 2004 after attending an Athletes International Ministry conference, and was later baptized by fellow wrestler Nikita Koloff and her then-husband David Heath (the former Gangrel in WWE).
She had worked in recent years as a tow truck operator in Port Richey, Fla. She recently had lost nearly everything she owned when her home in Florida burned down.
Jim Ross posted on his blog at jrsbarbq.com that he and Steve Austin both conversed with Vachon at a Cauliflower Alley Club event two years in Las Vegas, and that she had gained much-needed stability in her life.
“We talked about her being diagnosed with being bipolar and her having issues with depression of which she battled on an ongoing basis for a good while,” said Ross, who worked with Vachon when he was Vice President of Talent Relations in WWE. “Luna was a battler and was a tough individual who said she was going to keep fighting the good fight, but that it wasn’t easy. Steve and I both gave Luna many words of encouragement and spent significant time with her at the CAC function, talking old times and mostly laughing about our mutual experiences. Without question, laughter is good medicine for all of us.”
“It’s a very sad day for wrestling with the passing of Luna Vachon,” said TNA star Mick Foley. “My heart is aching.”