Tonya Harding

On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan was attacked by an unknown figure as she came off the ice at Cobo Arena and headed backstage. When word spread, television crews rushed to capture a sobbing, hysterical Kerrigan on the ground, surrounded by people, clutching her jumping leg, and crying "Why, why?" Within days, two people contacted authorities and said they had listened to a tape of four people planning the attack. A friend of Gillooly's whom Harding had employed as a personal bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt, was immediately implicated.

On January 11, both Harding and Gillooly proclaimed their innocence. That same day, however, Eckardt—owner of World Bodyguard Service, whose only client was Harding—confessed and said that he had hired two others to carry out the attack; he also implicated Harding and Gillooly in the planning and details, noting that Harding had provided information about Kerrigan's schedule. Eckardt, the baton hit-man Shane Stant, and getaway-car driver Derrick Smith were charged, as was Gillooly. Harding denied any involvement at first and at a press conference read a prepared statement in which she asserted that upon hearing about Kerrigan's attack, "My first reaction was one of disbelief … followed by shock and fear," according to Shannon Brownlee in U.S. News & World Report. Harding also claimed that her first-place finish in Detroit had been an "unfulfilling" one due to Kerrigan's absence.