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Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer and Getting Away with Murder · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis are insane. He
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: smashed people in the face with Mikes stands. He shot
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: his bass player in the chest with a three fifty
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: seven magnum. He was born into hell fire and hell
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: bent on assassinating the King. One of these knights, Jerry
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Lee was going to get past the guards at Graceland
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and stick fat Elvis good and has past his prime
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: belly with his new hunting knife, the one that said
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: King of rock and Roll, Because fuck Elvis Presley, Jerry
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Lee Lewis was the real king. He was also paranoid
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and dangerous. He slept behind a door fortified with steel
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: bars and with a loaded pistol under his pillow. He
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: mainlined speed directly into his stomach, so much so that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it was like he was doing it for sport instead
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of pleasure. But Jerry Lee Lewis made great music. The
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: music you were hearing at the top of the show
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: my mellotron called Cha Cha Swinging Flutes MK. Two. I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the license
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: for every breath you take by the police. And why
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of paranoid Cheese?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: song in America on August twenty fourth, nineteen eighty three,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And that was the day that Jerry Lee Lewis, also
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: known as the Killer, also known as the man who
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: may or may not have invented rock and roll, became
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the man who may or may not have gotten away
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: with murdering his fifth wife. On this our first episode,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: cha Chaw swinging flutes, paranoid Cheese, the Killer and getting
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: away with murder. I'm Jake Brennan in this this disgraceland
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: in the South, where Jerry Lee Lewis was born and raised.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: His first cousin, televangelist Jimmy Swaggert, was more famous than
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the Beatles, but Jerry Lee was the Holy Ghost. He
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: was larger than life and took zero shit from anyone,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: especially not from his rock and roll contemporaries. Supposedly, Chuck
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Berry had once refused to go on before him, so
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee set his piano ablaze, played through the Flames
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: with Rob Pentecostal Fury and made an impossible act for
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Chuck to follow. His live shows were legend, and his
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: raw power was a sight to behold. The way Jerry
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Lee performed it hadn't been seen before in popular music
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: or anywhere else. His body rattled and shook with violence
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and overt sexuality as he bent his six hundred pound
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: piano to his will and his hair flailed wildly, while
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: his googly eyes scanned the room for non believers, of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: which there were none. Jerry Lee's madman reputation preceded him.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Rumors circulated that he was possessed, that he had been
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: touched by the devil, that he was a vampire, that
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: he was a vampire who fought for the South in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the Civil War. Okay, he wasn't a vampire, but if
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: he was, he'd be the type of vampire who fought
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: for the South, lost and then never really acknowledged that
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the North had won. In nineteen seventy seven, the year
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Punk broke, a shit faced Jerry Lee rammed his Lincoln
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: into the gates at Graceland at three am, waving a pistol,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: demanding to see Elvis Presley. When the cops asked him
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: what he was doing, he flatly said, I'm here to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: assassinate the king. If Elvis was sex incarnate, Jerry Lee
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: was violence incarnate. And Jerry Lee hated Elvis. He thought
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: he was a hack, a thief, and that he couldn't
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: hold a candle to real musical originators like himself or
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Hank Williams or Al Jolson. When Elvis died and they
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: asked Jerry Lee for a quote, he said, I was
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: glad man, just another one out of the way. I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: mean Elvis, this Elvis that What the shit did Elvis
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: do except take dope that I couldn't get a hold of.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: But Elvis was the king. He wore the crown that
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee thought was rightfully his. At least it was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: his before that mess over in England back in the fifties.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: If you know two things about Jerry Lee Lewis, they
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: are probably these. You know, the piano lick to Great
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Balls of Fire. Then you probably also know that he
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: married his thirteen years old cousin, Myra Gale. But when
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: news of Jerry Lee's child bride was made public, it
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: ruined him. He was in England in the late nineteen
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: fifties at the height of his early Rock and roll fame,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and in a heartbeat, he went from making ten grand
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a night to being kicked out of the country, blacklisted
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: on the radio, back home, and stringing together one nighters
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: for a couple hundred bucks here and there. His reputation
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: never really recovered, but by the early seventies Jerry Lee
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: did regain his fame and his fortune. He was conquering
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the charts again, this time as a country singer, with
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: hit after hit after hit. Between nineteen sixty eight and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, Jerry Lee had seventeen top ten hits
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: on the Billboard Country charts. This is a hugely popular
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: run my point. By late seventies early eighties standards, Jerry
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Lee Lewis was a star and a household name, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: money wasn't a problem anymore, at least if he could
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: keep his newest ex wife, Jarin out of his pocket
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and the irs off of his back. Jerry Lee was
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: flush again and hiding his money in shoe boxes. But
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: then in nineteen eighty one, all of that speed he
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: had been taken caught up to him, and his stomach
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: nearly exploded. The doctors gave him no better than even
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: odds that he'd lived, friends like Johnny Cash and Elizabeth Taylor.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: They came by the hospital to say their farewells. But
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: miraculously he got better, and in January of nineteen eighty two,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: looking beaten up and worse for wear, he appeared on
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: NBC in a special celebrating twenty five years of Jerry Lee.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: They call me the Killer, he told the audience, But
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the only thing I ever killed in my life was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: possibly myself. Maybe that was true, but the next two
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: years would be full of death. In Mayhem, a raid
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of his house by tax men turns up cocaine and marijuana,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: alluding to divorce settlement from his fourth wife, Jaren threatens
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to bankrupt him yet again, but then Jaren suddenly turns
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: up dead, face down in a pool. No witnesses, the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: official ruling an accident. Jerry Lee's wife is now gone,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and so is the expensive divorce settlement that she was seeking.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: A year after Jaren's death, almost to the day, the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: killer took bride number five, Sean Michelle Stevens, a cocktail
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: waitress from Michigan, nearly half his age, on June seventh,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, on a tree shaded patio on Jerry
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Lee's eighty acre estate, the one with the piano shaped
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: poolau back. They were married, jerry Lee in a white tux,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Sean in a white dress. In picture shot for the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: National Inquirer, they look happy. Sewan is wearing a six
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars ring. Seventy seven days later, Sewn is dead.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: The official of death an accident, but unlike Jared's death,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Shawn's death attracted some attention. Police reports went missing. The
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: EMTs you found Sean's body at jerry Lee's house, noticed
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: blood under her fingernails, scrapes on Jerry Lee's hand, bruises
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: on Sean's body. The nearby Memphis newspaper had rolled over.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: But in Detroit, near where Sean's parents lived, reporters uncovered
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a bunch of details that didn't add up. It was
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: starting to look like a cover up, and not a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: very good one. And then there was the matter of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the call that Shawn made to her mother the night
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: before she died, the one where she told her mom
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that she was trying to leave Jerry Lee but that
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't let her. And to think, just three months earlier,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Sean Stephens Lewis was happily married into a bona fide
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: celebrity to boot a raging speed freak and alcoholic, but
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a celebrity nonetheless. Marital bliss soon gave way to the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: reality of living with a spoiled, narcissistic, drug and alcohol
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: addled rockstar who was used to getting his way all
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the time and beholden to absolucko lutely nobody Sean got
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: hip quick. Jerry Lee liked to drink a lot. Rule
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: number one, let him Jerry Lee's stomach hurt a lot.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Rule number two get used to him shooting taw and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: straight into his belly with that big, ugly needle. Jerry
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Lee liked attention from the ladies. Rule number three, don't
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: give a fucking inch. Jerry Lee was your man. Grab
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that needy slap by the hair and tell it to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: fuck right off back to the dirt floor, shack her
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: white trash mama failed to do her the favor of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: miscarrying in and get back to the business of being
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the one and only missus Jerry Lee fucking Lewis. Jerry
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Lee was like a needy puppy, and he needed to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: be reminded of who his woman was and Like most
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: needy men, jerry Lee was jealous, really jealous, even though
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: his eyes wandered in the eyes of women everywhere wandered
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: right back. Not only was Sean determined not to give
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: an inch, she also wasn't afraid to let her man
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: know she was no sucker. Confidentially a high school crush
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: was back in Michigan waiting for her. Should thinks with
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: jerry Lee not work out, the killer was not pleased.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Once Sean threatened to leave jerry Lee. This did not
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: please the killer either. You're my wife, he said, I'll
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: kill you before you leave me quickly. Sean had learned
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that jerry Lee liked group sex. Why settle for one
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: woman when a romp with two or thirs three would do.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Sean was cool, but a swinger she was not, and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: she wasn't having any of it, especially not with her
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: younger sister, Shelley, as Jerry Lee had been maneuvering. When
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Shelley batted down jerry Lee's advances, his reaction was something
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: between petulance and rage. Screaming at Shelley and banging his
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: fist into a counter. He screamed at her, you scared me.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: You should be why do you think they call me
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the killer? How'd I get that name? Huh? According to Shelley,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: he then slapped her face. Shortly after this happened, Sean
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: was found dead in her home. For the local EMTs
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: who took the call, there was nothing out of the
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: ordinary about heading over to Jerry Lee's to provide medical
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: assistance to some passed out reveler. It was part of
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the gig. Finding a dead body, that was something new.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: The first thing they noticed was the absence of mister Lewis.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The second thing they noticed was how the body of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: missus Lewis was situated or placed neatly on a fully
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: made bed in a guest room, not in her bedroom
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: with her newlywed husband in a guest room. The EMTs
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: checked for vitals while Lottie Jackson, Jerry Lee's caretaker of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: more than ten years, knocked on his bedroom door. Within seconds,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the killer emerged. The EMTs quickly noticed the bright red
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: scratches on the back of Jerry Lee's hand, you know
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the kind the kind of looked like scratches your cat
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: would make, except Jerry Lee didn't own a cat. Blood
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was also visible on Jerry Lee's robe and on his slippers.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: There was a pile of bloody clothes in the bathroom,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a rivulet of blood on a door, more blood on
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the carpet. Broken glass was scattered across the floor. Throughout
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the house. There was blood on Sean's dead hand, in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: her hair, on her clothes and on a bra that
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: was in another room, Dirt all over her body, bruises
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: on her arms, on her hip, Her fingernails were broken
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: with something that looked a lot like blood underneath them.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: All of this physical evidence on and around a woman
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: lying dead on top of a neat and made bed
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that wasn't hers, in a guest room in her own home,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: down the hall from where her newlywed husband slept alone.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Stranger than that, the evidence wouldn't even be reported until
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: after the grand jury convened. Is it any wonder that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: they found no indication of foul play? We'll be right
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: back after this word word word. Missus Jerry Lee Lewis
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: was dead in a home field advantage. Grand jury was
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: about to determine that no crime had occurred. How is
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: this possible? Jerry Lee's world was de Soto County, Mississippi.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Elvis had Memphis up the road, apiece. So Jerry Lee
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: had De Soto, and De Soto had Jerry Lee right back.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: He was their very own celebrity. DeSoto County law officials
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: occupied a special place in Jerry Lee's pocket. Jerry Lee
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: was one of their own. Plus when it counted, Jerry
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Lee made the appropriate campaign contributions to the appropriate men
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: who made sure that DeSoto County remained an appropriate place
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to fear God in and to raise your children upright in.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: When Jerry Lee fucked up, he didn't arrest him. You
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: made sure the mess went away. The night before Sean died,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee drove his car off the road and into
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a ditch. DeSoto County deputies got his car toad, gave
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: him a ride home, and didn't test him for intoxication.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The incident wasn't even recorded by the Sheriff's department. The
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: county dispatcher John Crawford is on records saying, I knew
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: not to log it or nothing. When I heard it
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: was Jerry Lee Lewis, I knew it was just a
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: community service. This was the culture in DeSoto County, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it was in this culture that the investigation took place.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And the investigation never really had a chance. When state
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: investigators arrived on the scene the morning Shawn was found dead,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: County officials were already muddling through the house, and the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: state's investigators reported that Jerry Lee was secluded in his
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: den alone with DeSoto County's deputy share of Jack McCauley
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for more than an hour. What were they talking about.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows for sure, But what we do know is
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that soon after that conversation, state investigators learned that the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: decision had already been made by DeSoto County authorities unilaterally
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to use a private medical examiner instead of a public one.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Why because this would ensure that all information gathered from
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the odd toopsy would now flow back to the county,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: where Jerry Lee's presence loomed large, and not to the state,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: which was beyond the killer's fear of influence, and that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: any and all sort of details from Seawan's death would
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: never be placed in the public record. But the public
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: did get winto some of the details thanks to a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: young funeral director named Danny Phillips. Phillips is on record
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: saying I'd never say Jerry Lee killed that girl, but
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see it investigated. To me, I just
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: can't believe that that girl just got to that bed
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and lay down and died. You just can't make me
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: believe it. Phillips was particularly perplexed by his finding of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: what he thought to be a puncture wound caused by
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a hypodermic needle on Sean's right arm, the same type
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: of needle found at Jerry Lee's house that day. The
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: official cause of death was fluid from the lungs from methadone.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Yet despite all of this, the private medical examiner quickly
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: declared no foul play, and the body was shipped out
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of the lab within hours to be embalmbed. De Soto
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff Dink Sao explained away the crime scene evidence,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: stating that the blood was caused by Jerry Lee cutting
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: his finger on a glass, but made no mention of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the countless shards of broken glass throughout the house, or
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of the scratches on Jerry Lee's hand, or of the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: blood under Shan's fingernails. Shawn's bruises were quote unquote superficial.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Sau claimed there were no marks of any violence and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: no indication of anyone being attacked. County Attorney Bill Ballor
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: declared a complete and thorough investigation, but how thorough was it.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Test determining whose blood it was weren't yet completed. Nobody
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: seemed to care. The reporting of the evidence had been
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: bungled badly. It never stood a chance with the Grand Jerry,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and forget the physical evidence. Investigators didn't care about anecdotal
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: evidence either. Nobody thought it relevant. The three nights earlier,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee took two women home from group sex with Sean.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: At some point things got scary and the girls were
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: spooked enough to run out of the house and frantically
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: beg the neighbors for a ride out of there did
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Sean try to escape to A night before her desk,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: she made two calls, the first to her mom, telling
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: her she was thinking of leaving Jerry Lee, but that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't let her. It was late. Sean's mom thought
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: she was upset and that by morning it would all
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: blow over. They made plans to talk later and hung up.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Then Sean made a second call. This one wasn't a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: family It was to her hometown on Sweetheart Scott's sister.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: The one Seawn made mention of to Jerry Lee to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: reclaim her sovereignty and the power played between her and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the countless women threatening their relationship. She wanted to know
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: if Scott still loved her. She was planning her exit
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and made plans for Scott's sister to come for her
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: later that month. Then in mid sentence, the phone went dead.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: The fifth Missus Lewis was gone, real gone. The cause,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: like jerry Lee's previous wife, Jaren, an accident. Was it
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a mistake, a suicide? Whatever the cause of death, there
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: was no coming back from it, and jerry Lee needn't
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: worry about the high school sweethearts busting up a hillbilly
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: hamlet or carefully calibrating that unique emotional cocktail he'd been
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: nursing since his days back in Faraday, Louisiana, sitting in
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a pentecostal pew on a Sunday in fear of the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Holy ghost. You know, the cocktail, an emotional speedball, trading
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: on equal part self confidence, god given talent, fear of
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: your maker, and the shame of being a mere mortal.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: With Shawn's death, shame and jealousy were on the run,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and pride was once again creeping up the backstretch. On
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the day they found Sean dead. While the local cops
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and state investigators got down to the business of securing
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the scene and collecting slash not collecting evidence, Jerry Lee
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: decamped fifteen miles north at his manager J. W. Whitten's house.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: By now, reporters were looking for a comment from the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: killer to run in their evening editions about his newest
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: dead wife. So tragic? How is he able to stand this?
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: That sort of thing? But JW. Ever, Jerry Lee's keeper,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: made it clear that the killer would not be able
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to come to the phone. He was supposedly in shock
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and heavily sedated. But Jerry Lee would soon find himself
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: well enough to make two very important phone calls within
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: hours of his wife's death, the first to her mother
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to inform her of Shan's death, though he would instead
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: wide up talking to her sister Denise, and then shortly
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: after to his local bar, Hernando's hide Away to find
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: out if anyone had any hypodermic needles. Later, a witness
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: from the bar claimed Jerry Lee said, you got any rigs?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Goddamn cops cleaned me out. A week later, the night
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: after the funeral, Jerry Lee wasted no time. He was
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: right back at Hernando's, his favorite bucket of blood, his
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: go to his local honky Tonk, where there was always
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a seat open at the bar for him with a
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: spotlight always made him look ten feet tall and ten
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: percent more better looking than Elvis. It was at Hernando's
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: piano where Jerry Lee made up a little ditty on
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the spot and he sang it with two beautiful women
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: on the stool at his side. I told when she
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: left it, I'd have another in Right around this time,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lee spoke to Sean's sister Denise for the last
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: time by telephone. Jerry Lee's speech was slurred. He was
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: on one Jesus Christ, Jerry Lee, what happened Denise Sis's day?
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: And she is a bag girl? What what do you mean,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Jerry What do you mean? She is a bag girl?
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And she did chilling right. All these details are out there.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: They've been expertly reported in newspapers and magazines like The
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune and Rolling Stone. So why doesn't America care?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Unlike the other cases of celebrity spousal abuse and potential murder,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: say the oj Simpson case or even the recent celebrity
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: sexual assault cases, in the case of Jerry Lee Lewis.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: There wasn't even an indictment, never mind a trial. Was
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: it because this was a pre cable news America create Internet?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Or was it because the spotlight in Little DeSoto County
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: didn't burn bright enough despite Jerry Lee's chart topping success.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Or maybe Sean's death was just an accident. Or was
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it because we don't really care about justice We care
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: more about our myths. The strange and mysterious death of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: missus Jerry Lee Lewis, as Rolling Stone put it, it's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: just so on fucking brand for the killer, deep down,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: way down, all of our self righteous notions about justice
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and right and wrong. When it comes right down to it,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: we want our rock stars to be bad. We want
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to believe in the myths. From the time they explode
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: out of their mama's womb, standing up and talking back,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: We take the ride with them, the one where they
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: misbehaved their way into our hearts. For the entirety of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: our short collective pull on this mortal coil. Jerry L.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Lewis is out there right now at the time of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: this recording, at the age of eighty one, and still performing,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: still knocking them dead and entertaining us both in body,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: on stage and in our minds. Is the Killer and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: thank God for it and the Holy Ghost. I'm Jake
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Brennan and miss this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Truly and is produced in partnership with the Elvis. Credits
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: for this episode can be found on the show notes
• 25:03
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• 25:07
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• 25:10
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• 25:13
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• 25:16
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• 25:21
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• 25:25
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• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Rock a Roller, He the Man