Who Murdered Elvis?

By Stephen Ubaney

Grab your thinking as we probe every part of Presley's mysterious death, FBI involvement, and the sinister forces at work during the final days of his career. We have been told all the lies for decades, but now it's time to answer some very pointed questions.

-Why were the first words out of Vernon Presley's mouth, upon learning of his son's death, "my God, they've murdered my son!?"

-Why does Elvis Presley have two death certificates that contradict each other?

-How could Elvis have passed two complete physical examinations the week before he died?

-How could Codeine show up in his toxicology report when there was no sign of Anaphylaxis in his body?

-Are we really expected to believe that the Investigator's photos and notes of the death scene were stolen from his car by coincidence?

- Why has history ignored the 1990 television interview where Elvis' doctor not only claimed that Elvis was murdered but named the murderer?

This book exposes the massive cover-up that has kept the truth from being told to the public and will change the way you look at Elvis Presley's mysterious death forever. This book will not disappoint you. Can you handle the truth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Feb 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9780988282995

Book preview

1

The Chronicle

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Now you listen to me; the only thing that's important is that that man is on stage tonight – nothing else matters – nothing!

- Larry Geller, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours-

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If you want the same regurgitated Elvis Presley fluff that's been written over the past several decades, stop reading now.

There are hundreds of books that worship The King and soft-pedal his tragic death. They were intended to do nothing more than profit from the specter of the man and monetarily feast on his legacy. They ask no difficult questions and deliver no real worth.

This book, instead, was written with two purposes in mind – one, to dispel the myth and fantasy that surround this man's untimely death; and two, finally set the record straight. Elvis Presley was murdered, there’s new evidence that proves it, and it's time to rewrite the history books.

Since Presley’s death millions of fans around the world have been expected to just accept what they were told about his untimely and very suspicious demise. They were just supposed to repeat what they had been told and roll over on command.

But after a time even the most casual observers would begin asking questions and these were questions that no one had answers for. For me that day was August 16th, 2007 – the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. On this date there were televised festivities from Graceland and another candlelight vigil for the fallen idol.

The ceremony was almost an identical rerun of every major Presley-death anniversary, except for a startling set of interviews. These interviews, broadcast to a worldwide audience made no sense.

On this particular anniversary a reporter interviewed the members of Presley’s staff who were eye witnesses to the discovery of Presley’s body. One after another, the television captured short video clips and none of the stories were the same.

In fact, the witnesses couldn't even agree on the simplest of details – what color pajamas Elvis wore, where the body was found or even what time of day it was. I witnessed these interviews in disbelief. How could these witnesses be telling different stories, and why hasn't anyone investigated these accounts?

This book, for the first time, connects the disparate snippets of information into a final and believable event. Finally the world will know what happened. But before answers come questions. Exactly who was the real Elvis Presley?

The name itself flashes mental images of the glamor and excitement that embodies Americana. From curled lip to swiveled hip, no entertainer riveted his audience and changed the societal landscape like this one man. Men wanted to be him, women wanted to bed him and Hollywood lusted to invent anyone with such an intoxicating persona.

Born in the most impoverished of circumstances and the only remaining sibling of a stillborn identical twin, Elvis Presley's stature in life didn't look promising. This shy, sad and unattractive boy tip-toed his way through childhood, living an unpopular existence.

He was a mama's boy who looked different than the other kids and was bullied throughout his childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi. His popularity didn't improve when the family uprooted and moved to Memphis in 1948, where his flashy clothing and James Dean haircut offended everyone in his conservative Brush Cut community.

In Memphis, the adolescent Presley attended high school, worked nights and added to his gospel-music roots by watching black performing artists Arthur Crudup, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King. Elvis was unsophisticated, poor and an untrained musician who played entirely by ear.

High School was especially tormenting for the young Presley as classmates hurled insults, apples and eggs at the kid who dressed like a freak and played what they considered to be raunchy rockabilly music.

By 1953, Presley had gathered enough courage to saunter into Sun Records and try his hand at recording. Sun Records was a local recording studio that was owned by Sam Phillips who was always on the lookout for new music trends. Unfortunately Phillips was unimpressed and young Presley left with only the recording that he'd paid for and not much else, but what happened in the next few months changed the world.

Regardless of what claims have been made over the years, the person who discovered the greatest natural talent in music history was Marion Keisker, and she was the secretary at Sun Records. During that now famous first recording session, she understood that Elvis had the perfect blend of styles to fit what Sam Phillips was looking for.

More than a year passed before Phillips finally gave in to Keisker's repeated attempts to put him on Presley's trail. After all, Phillips was searching for a white kid who sounded black, and could merge the two profitable markets into one. Eventually Phillips agreed to give him studio time with randomly selected band members who had never met.

Phillips attempted to have Elvis sing a variety of old staple country songs that almost every artist at the time had done versions of, and the recordings were a disaster. Out of frustration everyone broke for lunch but Elvis remained in the studio. He picked up his guitar and sang a few of his favorite songs that Keisker had secretly recorded. When Phillips returned from lunch she played for him the tape that she had recorded and he was amazed at the difference. He soon realized that when Elvis did his own thing the sound was exactly what Phillips was searching for. After many musical tweaks, the second half of the recording session was a tremendous success and a star was born.

Those recordings led to local radio air time, and live appearances that created a public spectacle. By 1955 Presley’s act had caught the attention of Tom Parker, a savvy music-industry veteran since his promotion of Minnie Pearl, Hank Snow, Gene Austin, June Carter, Roy Acuff and Eddy Arnold in the early 1940s. Parker had many industry ties and had frequented Las Vegas when Sin City was a town of just 10,000 residents.

In 1945, Parker struck an exclusive managerial agreement with Eddy Arnold for a 25% cut of the profit, with Arnold paying the business expenses. This was a double-edged sword for Arnold. Parker was a good manager but he wanted to control and dominate every facet of Arnold's life. Parker was also was selling merchandise that Arnold didn’t get profits from and he was secretly managing other performers on Arnold's dime.

These side deals happened frequently with those in power at RCA Victor and although Arnold needed Parker’s management skills he knew that he was being exploited. While Parker transformed Arnold from a country bumpkin into a superstar with radio shows, movies and appearances in Las Vegas, the two men eventually loathed each other and their arrangement ended badly.

Elvis' mother, Gladys Presley, distrusted Tom Parker on sight and warned Elvis to stay away from him. A similar warning came from Eddy Arnold himself, but Elvis ignored them. The young Presley had stars in his eyes and pockets that were both tattered and empty. To Elvis, any deal that would launch his career and fill his wallet sounded good, so the deal was inked.

Parker agreed to represent Elvis for 25% commission on all monies, and charged Elvis for all business expenses. Parker also peddled Elvis buttons, posters and other souvenirs from his vendor's apron and would eventually conjure up huge side deals with RCA Victor that Elvis would never profit from. Their agreement was eerily similar to Eddy Arnold’s as every trick that Parker pulled on Presley he'd done to perfection years before. Amazingly, when Parker managed Roy Acuff he even gave him the moniker of The King of Country Music.

From the first minute of Parker’s management over Presley, things would be different than they were under Sam Phillips and Sun Records. Parker never let Elvis do interviews and intentionally kept him away from TV talk shows which turned Elvis into an object of limitless fantasy. The control over interviews made Elvis more exotic, mysterious and obscure. It also forced fans to pay a handsome sum to see him, which was highly desirable.

By 1956 Elvis and Parker had signed a contract with the William Morris talent agency under the major recording label of RCA Victor and the worlds of race, culture and music had changed forever. It was not smooth sailing as Presley’s act outraged conservative America.

In late 1956, a Florida judge declared that Presley's music undermined the youth of America as his gyrations were viewed as a self-gratifying striptease with clothes on. In many cases, he was seen as a savage, depraved, sexual pervert and Colonel Parker knew it would only be a matter of time before Elvis Presley's life would be threatened, and it was.

Amazingly, the same FBI that had carefully monitored Presley's every move to protect the general public against this vulgar new star had now been called upon to protect him from assassination. The bull's-eye on Elvis became larger every day as a portion of society rallied against this obscene and radical new music that had hijacked the innocent American youth. Despite the attempts by judges, parents and the sensational tales planted by the FBI to vilify Elvis' character, it appeared that nothing could stop the rising star – a rise driven, in part, by Colonel Parker's behind-the-scenes manipulation.

Beyond the resistance of black disc jockeys who didn't want to play a record by a white boy because he'd been accused of stealing Negro rhythm-and-blues, and the full-scale rebuke of conservative adults who rejected the image of teenage rock-n-roll rebellion, other more sinister factors lay at work. Parker understood the sinister undertow of the music business and knew how to manipulate the players. In the same way that fight promoters owned the top contenders that other fighters must face to become a champion, the mafia owned the entire entertainment industry and the price tag attached to any climb toward stardom.

In 1958, while under contract with Paramount Pictures for seven pictures, and in the midst of shooting his fourth feature film, King Creole, Elvis received a letter from the Memphis draft board, ordering him to report for service in the US Army. Panic-stricken with fear they'd be sued by the movie studio for breach of contract, Colonel Parker pulled every string possible to get a favorable outcome and the Army granted Elvis a 60-day extension to complete the film.

A favor from the US Army was as impossible then as it is today, but Parker's contacts completed this seemingly impossible task a mere 16 days after the letter was opened. Nowhere in the US government does business happen so swiftly without incredible pull, and Tom Parker had it. He asked precious favors from people in very high places, and those favors would have to be paid back at a time of their choosing.

Elvis, like the rest of the American public, was totally unaware that the CIA and FBI were deeply involved in various domestic programs that murdered or removed anyone whom they felt pushed the government or society along an ill-favored path. With the Cold War just beginning the CIA had launched many new projects to ward off the Red Scare of Communism in the United States. Programs such as Operation Chaos, The Merrimac and various other Resistance Programs were designed and used to infiltrate, disrupt and destroy dissident groups by any means necessary.

Mark Zepezauer writes about such projects in his book The CIA's Greatest Hits: ...the CIA used its domestic organizations to spy on thousands of US citizens whose only crime was disagreeing with their government's policies. These programs are not the work of conspiracy theorists or the fantasies of those using their over active imaginations. They actually existed for a specific purpose (and I tremble to think of what might exist today). To those in power, it was cheap insurance to preserve the nation’s agenda and keep everyone on the same page.

Even today the US government’s population is viewed as inventory, in fact that is the exact word that the IRS (Internal Revenue System) uses to refer to the American people. In that sense we are nameless and faceless. We are merely masses of people to be organized and manipulated away from major uprisings that could alter and damage the nation. While it was true that the government would have to break a few constitutional laws, target certain groups and even murder a few citizens, they viewed it as a small price to pay for delivering control to the general public and maintaining order.

A perfect example of this is the murder of Malcom X by the FBI for his connection with the black militant group, the Black Panthers. In the mid 1960’s the US government was horrified at the power that Black Panthers had and they viewed the murder of their recruitment mouthpiece, Malcom X, as a small price to pay to maintain order. In the government’s eyes they were doing nothing more than managing their inventory.

While Elvis Presley wasn't Stalin, Malcom X or public enemy No. 1, he'd managed to gyrate himself to the full attention of both the FBI as his stage hysteria was deemed a danger to the morals of the nation. Parents and teachers were outraged and complained to the TV networks in droves and they all wanted him off camera.

There was no salvation for Elvis Presley records in churches in those days either, as churches across the nation assembled themselves to burn and break his records. Religious organization even went so far as to boycott record stores that sold Presley’s music.

The governmental powers had no choice but to act in a way that would ease the uproar to their inventory. The only logical thing for the US government to do was to find a way to get Elvis out of society and drafting him in the Army was the answer. It was the path of least resistance for the bureau to manage their inventory. Besides, back in 1958, sending someone to Germany to serve in the Army was the equivalent of sending them to another planet, which solved the FBI’s issue with Presley well. They saw him as a bump and grind musical fad, and they thought he'd fizzle out, but there was another side the story.

At that time in history, organized crime that circled within both the entertainment industry and the US government knew that sending Elvis a draft notice while he was under contract and in the midst of filming a movie would put him in an obvious breach of contract with Paramount Pictures. It was designed to happen that way because it would pinch Tom Parker into a desperate move: he'd run to the mob and ask for powerful favors to circumvent the problem. Either way, both the US government and the mob pulled off this well-planned maneuver and put both Elvis Presley, and more importantly, Tom Parker in their debt for years to come.

For many reasons, drafting Elvis Presley worked for both the mob and the government, and the two definitely weren't strangers. Drafting Elvis to soothe society’s uproar worked so well it was repeated years later. In 1964 Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston and won the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Days later Clay informed the press that he'd converted to the Nation of Islam and his new name was Muhammad Ali. The Nation of Islam, at that time, was well connected with black militants, such as the Black Panthers, who were creating a great deal of unrest for the FBI in America’s inner cities. Interestingly, at that time, Muhammad Ali was a best friend of Malcom X.

Almost immediately Cassius Clay was reclassified and drafted into the US Army to remove him from society. Clay was removed from society one way, and Malcom X was removed from society another way. In the same way that Tom Parker had honed his skills to perfection on Eddy Arnold, the FBI had honed their skills with the drafting of Elvis Presley, or whoever they deemed to be a menacing newcomer of the day.

As Elvis' Army life passed, so did his beloved mother and the trip back to Graceland complicated things for Colonel Parker. Handling Elvis' business affairs and maintaining his country-boy image before the general public that once called him a savage was no easy task, but now a solemn Elvis returned to Graceland to mourn his mother (who was also his best friend).

His father Vernon Presley, who'd already remarried a divorcee named Davada (Dee) Stanley, and her three small sons Billy, Rick and David were also new residents. Joining Elvis on his return trip were his usual high school friends Lamar Fike, Red West, Sonny West, his cousin Billy Smith and new Army buddies Charlie Hodge, Joe Esposito and Marty Lacker.

This core group of best friends and confidants later came to be known as the Memphis Mafia – a term coined by the media as they were seen driving up to Las Vegas hotels in suits, sunglasses and limousines. Although the term Memphis Mafia was nothing more than a tag that labeled Elvis Presley's loyal friends / employees, the real mafia didn't like the term at all.

Even the hint of Elvis with the mafia would start people digging for answers and who knew what they'd find. Exposure is the one thing that neither the mob nor Parker could withstand. Elvis and his family were equally petrified by this term as the general public was unaware that members of organized crime had attempted to take over Presley's career.

Unfortunately, and without their knowledge, it had already happened. Back at Graceland, Elvis' new band of brothers (the Memphis Mafia) had soon given way to 24-hour tomfoolery that was despised by Parker and Vernon alike. The two men initially distrusted these members and saw them as hangers-on who surrounded the star with unhealthy influences.

Eventually each was given a job necessary to the business and the situation eased. Since the friends weren't on Parker's payroll and they helped with the function of the business, they were eventually accepted by Parker but in his mind they were always kept at arm’s length. The exception was Joe Esposito.