Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / The Death of Elvis Presley Pt. 2: Dr. Nick

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The Death of Elvis Presley Pt. 2: Dr. Nick · Conspiracy! The Show

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Speaker 1: Elvis Presley was a giant on America's cultural landscape, a
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Speaker 1: man filled with passion and fire at a time when
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Speaker 1: most of the rest of the country was sleep walking
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Speaker 1: through its cultural life. He didn't invent rock and roll,
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Speaker 1: He just hand carried it into the mainstream. Elvis Presley
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Speaker 1: was different, and because he was good at it, it
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Speaker 1: paid off. All twenty eight of his movies were moneymakers,
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Speaker 1: and his records have sold somewhere between seven and eight
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Speaker 1: hundred million copies. That works out to roughly one Elvis
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Speaker 1: Presley record for each family on the face of the earth.
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Speaker 1: Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people worshiped him,
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Speaker 1: the king demonstrated the fact of his mortality when he
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Speaker 1: died at the age of forty two. They told us
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Speaker 1: of a heart attack, But did Elvis Presley really die
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Speaker 1: of a heart attack?
0:54
Speaker 2: Destroy Welcome to Conspiracy This Show, the world's most trusted
1:01
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory podcast with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and
1:07
Speaker 2: Olivia Heidar.
1:18
Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm your host,
1:23
Speaker 3: Adam Todd Brown and let me tell you I'm all
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Speaker 3: shook up for this week's co host. Oh my favorite
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Speaker 3: co host of All no co host. I don't even
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Speaker 3: have any guests unless you count the alleged ghost of
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Speaker 3: Elvis a Ron Presley. I am continuing my deep dive
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Speaker 3: into his death. I don't know. It's still not convinced,
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Speaker 3: no matter how much Geraldo Rivera wants me to be.
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Speaker 3: Remember that I mentioned him at the end of last
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Speaker 3: week's episode, or did you pretend you didn't hear it?
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Speaker 3: Understandable if so, that guy kind of sucks. But the
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Speaker 3: fact remains Heraldo Rivera was actually a key figure in
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Speaker 3: the reporting around a potential cover up in the death
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Speaker 3: of Elvis Presley. He was coming at it from a
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Speaker 3: different angle than last week's subject, Gail Brewer Giorgio. While
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Speaker 3: her suspicion is that Elvis faked his death, Heeraldo is
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Speaker 3: more convinced that the local medical examiner was involved in
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Speaker 3: a cover up meant to hide the truth, which is
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Speaker 3: that Elvis died of a drug overdose. It's exactly the
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Speaker 3: kind of story that would make a person like Elvis
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Speaker 3: want to fuck off to Argentina forever. I get that
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Speaker 3: we're talking about one of the most famous people of
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Speaker 3: all time, but hey, Elvis wasn't an elected official taxpayer money,
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Speaker 3: didn't pay his salary, his job did not involve public safety.
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Speaker 3: No matter what happened on August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 3: there has never been a point in history when we
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Speaker 3: the public were entitled to know every single detail about
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Speaker 3: how or even if Elvis died, and we probably never will.
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Speaker 3: But my concerns about this Heraldo's story go beyond invasions
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Speaker 3: of privacy and HIPPAA violations. HIPPA didn't even exist back then. Anyway,
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Speaker 3: I'll put it this way. If Elvis did die in
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven, Heraldo is absolutely right about what he's
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Speaker 3: getting at in this report. But if Elvis did fake
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Speaker 3: his death with the help of the FBI and join
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Speaker 3: the witness protection program, which is the claim that all
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Speaker 3: of this is building up to, if that is what happened,
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Speaker 3: this Heraldo Rivera twenty twenty report is intentionally or not
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Speaker 3: absolutely part of that scheme. And when I say absolutely,
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Speaker 3: I mean it in that non absolute I can never
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Speaker 3: prove it, so I'm not actually saying it happened kind
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Speaker 3: of way. All we got anymore is our gut when
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Speaker 3: it comes to a lot of this, and my gut
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Speaker 3: tells me this twenty twenty report is up to something.
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Speaker 3: Let's talk about the report itself, and then we'll talk
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Speaker 3: about why I feel that way. One of the first
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Speaker 3: people Heraldo talks to is ginger Alden, Elvis Presley's then fiance.
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Speaker 3: She is the person who found his body. Giraldo asks
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Speaker 3: what she was told killed him, and she says that
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Speaker 3: she was told Elvis died of a heart attack. This
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Speaker 3: is an interesting detail, aside from the part where it
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Speaker 3: would involve other people. I kind of wish I was
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Speaker 3: doing this episode live or with other people, because I
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Speaker 3: am curious about what people these days think did kill Elvis.
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Speaker 3: Everyone knows he died on or around the toilet, but
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Speaker 3: I think folks might be surprised to know that the
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Speaker 3: exact cause of Elvis's death is a hotly debated topic
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Speaker 3: that still hasn't been completely settled. Throughout this episode, you're
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Speaker 3: gonna hear references to the autopsy results. If you google
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Speaker 3: around a little, you'll find a document out there that's
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Speaker 3: often referred to as the autopsy report. It is not
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Speaker 3: the document that's out there is the medical examiner's report,
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Speaker 3: and there is a bunch of weirdness around that document
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Speaker 3: as well, and we'll get to it in a bit.
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Speaker 3: But the autopsy results, we for the most part, still
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Speaker 3: have not seen those. Vernon Presley, Elvis's dad ordered that
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Speaker 3: they be sealed for fifty years. The autopsy results won't
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Speaker 3: be released until twenty twenty seven. Did you know that?
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Speaker 3: I did not know that. I'm sure I've heard it
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Speaker 3: at various points throughout my conspiracy theory travels, but if so,
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Speaker 3: it wasn't a detail i'd committed to memory. You'll see
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Speaker 3: some tabloid ish articles out there that claim to reveal
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Speaker 3: the results of that autopsy, but they're actually just accounts
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Speaker 3: of what a guy who claims to have seen the
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Speaker 3: autopsy results has to say about it. What's the difference
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Speaker 3: between a medical examiner's report and autopsy results? I also
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Speaker 3: did not know that, but I looked it up, and
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Speaker 3: from what I gather, the coroner or medical examiner's report
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Speaker 3: rules on the circumstances or manner of death, natural causes, accident, homicide,
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Speaker 3: et cetera. And then the autopsy is the deep dive
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Speaker 3: that figures out why the deceased got unalived in the
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Speaker 3: way that they did. That makes perfect sense because the
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Speaker 3: autopsy report in air quotes that you can find online,
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Speaker 3: is two pages long, and it has none of the
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Speaker 3: gory details you'd expect from an autopsy report. Heraldo's claims
6:45
Speaker 3: in this twenty twenty episode center around the medical examiner's
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Speaker 3: report and Heraldo's belief that releasing the autopsy results will
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Speaker 3: confirm his claims. The main gripe he has is that allegedly,
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Speaker 3: lots of people who were in the room for the
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Speaker 3: autopsy wanted to issue a ruling that Elvis died from
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Speaker 3: unknown circumstances, but that awesomely named Shelby County Medical Examiner,
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Speaker 3: doctor Jerry Francisco, went rogue and immediately told the world
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Speaker 3: Elvis died of heart attack. That's the elevator pitch version
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Speaker 3: of what's happening in this twenty twenty episode. The medical
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Speaker 3: examiner says it's a heart attack, Geraldo thinks it's drugs,
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Speaker 3: and he wants to see the autopsy results so he
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Speaker 3: can confirm it. After running through all of those questions,
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Speaker 3: the twenty twenty report moves on to a reconstruction of
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Speaker 3: the last twelve hours of Elvis's life. One hour before
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Speaker 3: midnight on the night before he died, Elvis had a
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Speaker 3: dentist appointment. That's being rich and famous for you eleven
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Speaker 3: PM dental appointments. As mentioned on the last episode, Elvis
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Speaker 3: was scheduled to leave for a tour on the day
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Speaker 3: he died, and he was trying to get his teeth
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Speaker 3: cleaned for it. Granted, he didn't order any costumes for
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Speaker 3: that tour, and he didn't have his hair or sideburns
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Speaker 3: dyed for that tour, if Gail Brewer Georgio is to
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Speaker 3: be believed, and that sure is weird, but he did
8:13
Speaker 3: get his teeth cleaned, sure, but also that dental appointment
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Speaker 3: probably wasn't all that it seemed to be. We'll get
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Speaker 3: to that in a minute. After a couple hours of
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Speaker 3: typical Elvis night owl gibber jabber with his team around
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Speaker 3: four AM or so, Elvis did exactly what you'd expect
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Speaker 3: fat drug addled end of day's Elvis to do. At
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Speaker 3: four in the morning, he played a couple hours of racketball.
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Speaker 3: From there. Ginger Alden says he called for medication to
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Speaker 3: help him sleep at around six thirty am, and after
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Speaker 3: taking it, he started reading a book about psychic energy
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Speaker 3: that all does definitely sound like the Elvis we know
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Speaker 3: he got up again at eight am because he couldn't sleep,
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Speaker 3: at which point he requested more drugs. It's worth noting,
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Speaker 3: as far as I can tell, this twenty twenty report
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Speaker 3: is kind of where this version of events comes from,
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Speaker 3: and it is the official version of events. This is
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Speaker 3: original Heraldo reporting, built from interviews with people who were there.
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Speaker 3: It's possible that reporting and people who were there might
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Speaker 3: deserve some air quotes, whatever the case. While there were
9:22
Speaker 3: definitely actual court cases and things of the like in
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Speaker 3: regards to the death of Elvis, it all comes after
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Speaker 3: this twenty twenty report, and it's this report that prompted
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Speaker 3: the biggest criminal case in the death of Elvis Presley.
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Speaker 3: But more on that later. Back to those last twelve
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Speaker 3: hours in the life of Elvis. After getting that second
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Speaker 3: batch of medicine, he gets up a third time and
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Speaker 3: takes the book about psychic energy to the bathroom. Ginger
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Speaker 3: Alden tells him not to fall asleep, and then she
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Speaker 3: immediately falls asleep. She eventually finds him dead in the
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Speaker 3: bathroom around two pm that day. Authorities arrived, He's taken
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Speaker 3: to the hospital. He's dead. Let's get into one of
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Speaker 3: Heraldo's first claims item.
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Speaker 1: ABC News has learned that no immediate discovery was made
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Speaker 1: of any disease or injury which could have caused Elvis's death.
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Speaker 1: His heart was indeed enlarged and muscular, and there was
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Speaker 1: significant blockage of the arteries, but according to two doctors
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Speaker 1: present at the autopsy, serious heart disease was still years
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Speaker 1: away for Elvis Presley.
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Speaker 3: So Elvis had an enlarged heart and some arteries were blocked,
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Speaker 3: but he was still years away from serious heart disease.
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Speaker 3: That comes up in this episode. What's interesting about this
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Speaker 3: is what isn't said. Heraldo is claiming this is coming
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Speaker 3: from people who were present for the autopsy, and he
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Speaker 3: talks to some of those people, and you know what,
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Speaker 3: no one ever says Elvis had a colon the size
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Speaker 3: of a baby whale. I don't know that he did.
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Speaker 3: But that has become a detail of this story in
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Speaker 3: the years since, mostly starting with those tabloid articles from
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Speaker 3: a few years ago. That's one of the details about
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Speaker 3: this twenty twenty report that kinda doesn't sit right with me.
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Speaker 3: Heraldo is talking to doctors and hospital personnel who say
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Speaker 3: they were in the room for the autopsy, and all
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Speaker 3: of them sort of weave in and out of openly
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Speaker 3: sharing details about what they saw, like how they were
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Speaker 3: convinced it was a drug overdose, but then also saying
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Speaker 3: they can't tell him what they saw because of privacy reasons.
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Speaker 3: So we hear all about how they think it was drugs,
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Speaker 3: but any specific details fall victim to medical privacy, we
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Speaker 3: can't say. And now we've been through this next part already.
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Speaker 3: Doctors decide to tell the world Elvis died of quote
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Speaker 3: unknown causes on account of him having some but not
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Speaker 3: enough heart disease and an apparently unremarkable colon. But then
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Speaker 3: doctor Jerry Francis comes out and tells the world that
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Speaker 3: Elvis died of a heart attack. Heraldo talks about how
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Speaker 3: doctor Francisco refused to be interviewed and also refused to
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Speaker 3: release the autopsy results. Twenty twenty eventually sued to get
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Speaker 3: a copy of that autopsy report, and that's what got
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Speaker 3: the autopsy report sealed for fifty years. This seems to
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Speaker 3: be correct. They interviewed doctor Neil Florendo, who was also
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Speaker 3: in the autopsy room.
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Speaker 1: Doctor florend in your medical judgment, was there any evidence
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Speaker 1: that Elvis Presley died of.
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Speaker 3: A heart attack.
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Speaker 4: From what I saw grossly and from my limited judgment,
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Speaker 4: was at that particular time, there was no gross evidence
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Speaker 4: of a heart attack.
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Speaker 3: There was no gross evidence of a gross evidence of
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Speaker 3: a heart attack.
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Speaker 1: Were you surprised by doctor Francisco's announcement that he had
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Speaker 1: died of cardiac arrhythmia?
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Speaker 4: Personally, yes, I was surprised.
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Speaker 3: There's another important figure in this, doctor Muirhead, who tells
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Speaker 3: Heraldo there was no sign of a heart attack. He
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Speaker 3: also runs down the list of drugs that were alleged
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Speaker 3: to have been in Elvis's system codeine, morphine, quelude, valium,
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Speaker 3: valmid placidyl, nembutal, feno, barbital, pentobarbital, but to barbital. It's
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Speaker 3: explained that all of these are central nervous system depressants,
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Speaker 3: often abused, several of them very addictive. There are some
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Speaker 3: weird details about this toxicology report where this list of
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Speaker 3: drugs comes from. It seems like at the time the
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Speaker 3: hospital where Elvis's autopsy is alleged to have been done,
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Speaker 3: they didn't have a lab that was capable of doing
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Speaker 3: the kind of toxicology reports they needed, so these results
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Speaker 3: come from a lab in California, and there is, as
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Speaker 3: we'll find out later on, some dispute as to their
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Speaker 3: news worthiness. But first let's hear from Heraldo.
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Speaker 1: Again item Elvis's stomach contents were destroyed without ever having
14:11
Speaker 1: been analyzed.
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Speaker 3: Okay, now that's a tasty detail. You can determine a
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Speaker 3: lot of things from stomach contents, including time of death.
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Speaker 3: That's one detail history seems to agree on. We know
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Speaker 3: the window of time in which he died thanks to
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Speaker 3: this ABC twenty twenty report and ginger Alden later writing
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Speaker 3: a book about her experience with Elvis. Destroying the stomach
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Speaker 3: contents could be a means of hiding that drugs were involved.
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Speaker 3: It could also be a sign that no one died
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Speaker 3: at all. You know, maybe there are no stomach contents.
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Speaker 3: Whatever the case. Doctor Jerry Francisco comes out two months
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Speaker 3: later and doubles down on his finding that a heart
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Speaker 3: attack killed Elvis. So what's fascinating about this to me
14:56
Speaker 3: is that someone's lying, right, The only question is why
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Speaker 3: and who? Speaking of that cerral wect shows up in
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Speaker 3: this Heraldo takes the findings of that toxicology report from
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Speaker 3: the lab in California and shows them to several different
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Speaker 3: pathologists and various medical experts. Cerral Wecked is one of them.
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Speaker 3: I don't know how much I trust that guy. He
15:22
Speaker 3: shows up in pretty much any case where the media
15:25
Speaker 3: has a role in crafting a potentially incorrect version of events.
15:31
Speaker 3: Celebrity pathologists don't become celebrities by being the best. They
15:36
Speaker 3: do it by saying what people want them to say
15:38
Speaker 3: in the right moments. Look into the details of any
15:41
Speaker 3: high profile murder case, Michael Peterson, Scott Peterson, Steven Avery,
15:46
Speaker 3: you name it. In every case, one side finds a
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Speaker 3: medical expert who's willing to say the evidence points to
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Speaker 3: one finding, and the other side always finds a medical
15:57
Speaker 3: expert who's willing to say the evidence points to their finding.
16:02
Speaker 3: It's almost as if some of the science we use
16:06
Speaker 3: to send people to prison could maybe be a little
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Speaker 3: more faulty than we've been led to believe. But hey,
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Speaker 3: that's a talk for another day. Let's listen to Cerril Weckt.
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Speaker 1: To be certain, we asked for a second expert opinion.
16:18
Speaker 1: We provided the data to doctor Cyril Weckt, the coroner
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Speaker 1: for Pittsburgh and Alleghany County, for analysis. Doctor weck is
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Speaker 1: one of the foremost medical examiners in the entire country.
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Speaker 5: I believe that mister Presley died as a result of
16:33
Speaker 5: a combined drug effect. Various drugs, all of which are
16:37
Speaker 5: known to be central nervous system depressed and collectively cause
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Speaker 5: the heart and lung to be depressed. The brain controls
16:47
Speaker 5: the activities of the heart and lung involuntarily, and when
16:50
Speaker 5: the brain is depressed by multiple drugs, such as happened
16:54
Speaker 5: in this case, in my opinion, the heart and lungs
16:57
Speaker 5: will not function properly drugs specifically or be referring to doctor.
17:02
Speaker 5: There were several drugs involved here. The principal offender in
17:05
Speaker 5: this case was Cody, which is a pain reliever, but
17:10
Speaker 5: which is known to have a CNSD press and defective.
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Speaker 3: They also interview Elvis's stepbrother, David Stanley. He tells Heraldo
17:18
Speaker 3: he saw Elvis abusing drugs regularly. Another step brother, Rick Stanley,
17:23
Speaker 3: says he picked up a prescription for Delauded for Elvis
17:27
Speaker 3: the night before he died, and that's where they get
17:30
Speaker 3: into Elvis's history with prescription medications. These were all legally
17:36
Speaker 3: prescribed drugs, albeit potentially over prescribed. Next, we talked to
17:42
Speaker 3: former LAPD detective John O'Grady. He's interviewed in this twenty
17:47
Speaker 3: twenty episode, and oh man, the LAPD, there's a name
17:51
Speaker 3: I trust to not be involved in high level conspiracies
17:53
Speaker 3: involving the American government. He says he frequently worked with
17:57
Speaker 3: Elvis's father, Vernon to invest to gate where Elvis was
18:01
Speaker 3: getting his drugs from. This feels like a plot hole
18:04
Speaker 3: in the Heraldo report. They act like where Elvis was
18:08
Speaker 3: getting his drugs from was a mystery to people, while
18:11
Speaker 3: also interviewing people who talk about filling lots and lots
18:14
Speaker 3: of prescriptions for Elvis. If anyone's gonna know what doctors
18:20
Speaker 3: were giving him these drugs, it's gonna be the people
18:22
Speaker 3: around him who just went and picked up the drugs.
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Speaker 3: I don't understand all of this extra investigative work. It
18:30
Speaker 3: feels like they might be trying a little too hard.
18:33
Speaker 3: So what's this LAPD guys deal? You know? Nevertheless, let's
18:37
Speaker 3: listen to a quote from former LAPD detective John O'Grady.
18:41
Speaker 1: Should his attending physicians have noticed the fact that he
18:45
Speaker 1: was abusing these drugs.
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Speaker 5: He'd either have to be a returned alligator, not to
18:51
Speaker 5: notice that or a totally incompetent medical doctor.
18:55
Speaker 3: Okay, well fuck that guy. So next Heraldo starts chatting
18:58
Speaker 3: up the doctors who who prescribed Elvis his drugs, one
19:02
Speaker 3: of them being Max Shapiro, who is described as a
19:06
Speaker 3: doctor feel good type who was known for prescribing narcotics
19:11
Speaker 3: more than most doctors would. He is a dentist who
19:15
Speaker 3: also makes house calls, as dentists often do. I don't
19:19
Speaker 3: think he says he prescribes medication more than most doctors,
19:23
Speaker 3: but does it out of compassion. And Heraldo asked to
19:27
Speaker 3: see the inside of doctor Max's silver briefcase and he
19:31
Speaker 3: says no, but confirms there's a shit ton of drugs
19:34
Speaker 3: in there. It's worth noting doctor Max seems like a
19:38
Speaker 3: movie character. This part is weird. I didn't find a
19:41
Speaker 3: whole lot of references to doctor Max Shapiro outside of
19:46
Speaker 3: this episode. There's a timeline thing on a website that
19:50
Speaker 3: says Lisa Marie took a trip with him in nineteen
19:53
Speaker 3: seventy three, but that's about it. Granted I didn't spend
19:57
Speaker 3: an entire day looking for those references or anything like that,
20:01
Speaker 3: but if they're out there, they don't pop up immediately.
20:04
Speaker 3: There's a book out there called Doctor Feel Good about
20:07
Speaker 3: a doctor who treated Elvis JFK, a whole bunch of
20:10
Speaker 3: other famous people, But his name was Max Jacobson. Sorry,
20:14
Speaker 3: doctor Max Jacobson. For whatever reason, despite openly confessing to
20:19
Speaker 3: probably maybe over prescribing drugs on a national news program,
20:25
Speaker 3: it seems like none of the consequences that befall the
20:29
Speaker 3: next guy we're going to talk about ever come down
20:32
Speaker 3: on Doctor Max's head. I don't know why that is,
20:35
Speaker 3: But next, Toroaldo interviews doctor George Nicopolis aka doctor Nick.
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Speaker 3: This guy is a pretty notorious figure in Elvis fandom,
20:46
Speaker 3: good friend of Elvis. His personal physician, Heraldo, we find
20:50
Speaker 3: out from an article related to this ABC News story,
20:55
Speaker 3: just sort of ambushes doctor Nick. He shows up at
20:58
Speaker 3: his office and says, hey, hey, you can sit down
21:01
Speaker 3: with me for an interview right now, or I'll wait
21:04
Speaker 3: for you to leave for the day. I'll stick a
21:07
Speaker 3: microphone in your face. You can say no comment, and
21:10
Speaker 3: that's good enough. I'll be able to say whatever I
21:12
Speaker 3: want about you on this ABC News program. So doctor
21:16
Speaker 3: Nick sits down for an interview with Heraldo, and one
21:22
Speaker 3: thing that stands out about doctor Nick compared to Doctor Max,
21:29
Speaker 3: Elvis's dentist, who seems like he was cast to play
21:34
Speaker 3: a drug dealing dentist. When they ask him about prescribing
21:39
Speaker 3: these medications, he knows he did it, so he pushes
21:44
Speaker 3: back with stuff like, well, I don't want people to
21:47
Speaker 3: be in pain. That's my whole thing is I make
21:50
Speaker 3: sure my patients are never in pain. So yeah, I
21:53
Speaker 3: probably over prescribe. Doctor Nick, on the other hand, vehemently
22:00
Speaker 3: eyes that he prescribed drugs to Elvis to the degree
22:05
Speaker 3: that Heraldo is claiming he's got a soft voice. He
22:09
Speaker 3: seems very nervous, as anyone would probably be if a
22:14
Speaker 3: national news show came to your job and started asking
22:18
Speaker 3: you questions about the death of one of the most
22:22
Speaker 3: popular musicians of all time.
22:24
Speaker 6: The records indicate that, especially in the last year of
22:28
Speaker 6: his life, you prescribed certain medications to Elvis Presley in
22:35
Speaker 6: quite extraordinarily large amounts.
22:41
Speaker 5: Why I can't come in on that, and I don't
22:49
Speaker 5: believe that it's true.
22:52
Speaker 6: Well, the records we have, doctor, and I'll say this
22:55
Speaker 6: as gently as I possibly can, indicate that from January twentieth,
23:00
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy seven until August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven, the
23:03
Speaker 6: day he died, you prescribed to Elvis Presley, and the
23:09
Speaker 6: prescriptions are all signed by you. Over five thousand scheduled
23:15
Speaker 6: to narcotics and or amphetamines. That comes out to something
23:22
Speaker 6: like twenty five per day.
23:29
Speaker 5: I don't believe that.
23:31
Speaker 6: Well, is it something that you'd like to refresh your
23:34
Speaker 6: recollection on or is it something that you deny?
23:38
Speaker 3: He sticks to those denials throughout this whole interview. He
23:43
Speaker 3: is steadfast in his denial that no, he did not
23:47
Speaker 3: prescribe as many drugs as Peraldo is claiming. Before we
23:53
Speaker 3: get into that more, let's just take a quick break
23:56
Speaker 3: for a word from our sponsor.
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Speaker 3: Wrong, it writes, Big fucking pens you can strap them
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Speaker 3: to a jackhammer. That's not actually our sponsor. That commercial
24:26
Speaker 3: was just left in this video, and oh, I'm so
24:29
Speaker 3: happy it was. Have you ever seen a big pen
24:32
Speaker 3: shot out of a gun? I have send this video. Anyway,
24:36
Speaker 3: Let's get to one of Heraldo's complaints that is almost
24:38
Speaker 3: completely glossed over here. Here goes item.
24:42
Speaker 1: All the photographs taken of the death scene, all the
24:45
Speaker 1: notes of the medical examiner's investigator, and all of the
24:47
Speaker 1: toxicological reports allegedly prepared by the medical examiner are missing
24:52
Speaker 1: from the official files.
24:53
Speaker 3: That's convenient. No pictures of the death scene, no pictures
24:57
Speaker 3: of the autopsy. What an unfortunate but surely accidental miscarriage
25:04
Speaker 3: of proper procedure. There's also this guy item.
25:07
Speaker 1: Officials of the county government believe there's been.
25:09
Speaker 3: A cover up.
25:11
Speaker 4: The Elvis mystique completely pervades the Memphis area. And if
25:17
Speaker 4: there are individuals who are so concerned with the mystique
25:20
Speaker 4: that they do not care to know the truth. And
25:23
Speaker 4: I feel that somewhere along the way, someone has to
25:26
Speaker 4: take it upon himself to see that the truth.
25:28
Speaker 5: Is brought up.
25:29
Speaker 6: But you definitely feel there's a cover up.
25:31
Speaker 3: I'm positive about that. That one is important. That's doctor
25:35
Speaker 3: Vasco Smith, and he is confident that there was a
25:38
Speaker 3: cover up of some sort happening in the death of Elvis.
25:41
Speaker 3: He actually comes up in Gail Brewer Giorgio's book. He
25:45
Speaker 3: was approached years later by an outlet that was looking
25:50
Speaker 3: into claims of a cover up of some sort in
25:54
Speaker 3: Elvis Presley's death, and when they ask him about Elvis first,
25:58
Speaker 3: he says, I was more of a j As fan,
26:00
Speaker 3: which I like that. And then they're like, no, no, no, no no,
26:04
Speaker 3: we're asking about the cover up. You said that thing
26:07
Speaker 3: on the ABC twenty twenty report, and doctor Vasco Smith
26:11
Speaker 3: is like, nah, I'm not talking about that anymore. And
26:16
Speaker 3: people not wanting to talk specifically about this ABC twenty
26:19
Speaker 3: twenty report. Weirdly is going to become a pattern. And
26:23
Speaker 3: I know we love a pattern on the internet these days,
26:26
Speaker 3: right and for good reason. Very helpfully, the video I'm watching,
26:30
Speaker 3: which I will link to, tags a follow up report
26:34
Speaker 3: from a later episode about the indictment of the aforementioned
26:39
Speaker 3: doctor Nick. Several years later, he was finally indicted in
26:43
Speaker 3: the death of Elvis Presley. I say several years later.
26:46
Speaker 3: It was three nineteen eighty. I want to point out
26:49
Speaker 3: here that when I'm covering a documentary or a news
26:53
Speaker 3: report like this, I take notes as I watch, and
26:56
Speaker 3: sometimes my notes include my hunches as to where things
27:01
Speaker 3: might be going. I bring that up only to mention
27:04
Speaker 3: that my first note after watching that part of the
27:07
Speaker 3: twenty twenty report was this. Here's a quote from my
27:11
Speaker 3: own notes. This guy would have been really easy to
27:13
Speaker 3: set up as part of a fake death plot. End quote.
27:17
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. A lot of what has developed
27:19
Speaker 3: with this case in the years since. All of what
27:22
Speaker 3: I'm talking about right now centers around what we didn't
27:25
Speaker 3: know back in the nineteen seventies. And what's a thing
27:29
Speaker 3: that we didn't quite know as well in the seventies
27:33
Speaker 3: that we all pretty much know now. It's that the
27:36
Speaker 3: police are quite often quite shady. They were back then
27:41
Speaker 3: they are now. We just didn't have the video evidence
27:45
Speaker 3: to prove it back then. And yeah, we kind of
27:47
Speaker 3: did even then too. That's another episode. Let's listen to
27:51
Speaker 3: Heraldo's thoughts on the prosecution's case here.
27:54
Speaker 1: So, almost three years after the death of Elvis Presley,
27:57
Speaker 1: his longtime personal physician, has finally been indicted, in part
28:00
Speaker 1: because of the way he cared for his famous patients.
28:04
Speaker 1: If convicted, doctor Nikopolis would face between two and ten
28:07
Speaker 1: years in prison for each of the fourteen counts, and
28:11
Speaker 1: ABC News has learned that the prosecution feels the case
28:14
Speaker 1: against him is air tight.
28:16
Speaker 3: Okay, interesting and why does he think that case is
28:20
Speaker 3: air tight? Here's another clip.
28:22
Speaker 1: For instance, in April and again in July of nineteen
28:25
Speaker 1: seventy seven, doctor Nick's medical bag was reported stolen after
28:29
Speaker 1: the contents had been taken. The bags were recovered by
28:31
Speaker 1: the police. Before returning the bag to the doctor, the
28:34
Speaker 1: police apparently copied down his schedules for dispensing drugs to
28:38
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley. In other words, from the doctor's own notes
28:42
Speaker 1: found inside his own medical bag. The state knows exactly
28:46
Speaker 1: what he gave to Elvis and.
28:48
Speaker 3: When Okay, let's be honest. The police stole those bags, right,
28:52
Speaker 3: or at the very least they had those bags stolen
28:55
Speaker 3: in the lead up to one of the biggest conspiracy
28:58
Speaker 3: theories of all time, at least magically recovered a bag
29:02
Speaker 3: of stolen narcotics from the doctor at the center of
29:06
Speaker 3: all this twice within the span of three months, and
29:10
Speaker 3: before they return it to him, they crack it open
29:13
Speaker 3: and write down everything it says about Elvis I understand
29:17
Speaker 3: that this was an instantly accepted detail that elicited zero
29:21
Speaker 3: scrutiny in the late seventies when Barney Miller ruled the airwaves,
29:26
Speaker 3: But it is two k goddamn twenty four. We know
29:29
Speaker 3: how the cops do. If anyone could have been enlisted
29:34
Speaker 3: to plant evidence in a scheme to fake Elvis's death,
29:38
Speaker 3: it is literally any cop in the seventies, and no shit.
29:42
Speaker 3: This is presented as conclusive proof that this guy over
29:46
Speaker 3: prescribed Elvis a shit ton of drugs. Are you skeptical?
29:50
Speaker 3: You should be for a few reasons. For one thing,
29:53
Speaker 3: doctor Nick was acquitted when this finally went to a
29:56
Speaker 3: criminal trial twice. He was acquitted twice, so that should
30:01
Speaker 3: give you some pause, just on the surface. But also
30:05
Speaker 3: consider this. We're talking about the doctor who was accused
30:09
Speaker 3: of killing Elvis, and he went on trial in Elvis's
30:14
Speaker 3: home state and a jury acquitted him twice. You think
30:20
Speaker 3: the people of Tennessee wouldn't have loved to send doctor
30:24
Speaker 3: Nick straight to hell for murdering Elvis. Presley, sure they would,
30:29
Speaker 3: but they didn't. And I promise you it's not because
30:31
Speaker 3: of doctor Nick's personality. And Jois de Vive Also, I
30:35
Speaker 3: found an article from Memphis Magazine from back in the
30:39
Speaker 3: day where they interview the ABC producers behind the Heraldo report.
30:44
Speaker 3: I'll link to it. It reveals some highly interesting details
30:48
Speaker 3: that you don't see in that twenty twenty report. It
30:50
Speaker 3: was published while doctor Nick was before the medical board
30:54
Speaker 3: in Tennessee to decide if he got to keep his
30:56
Speaker 3: medical license for what it's worth, despite the claims that
31:00
Speaker 3: he basically murdered Elvis through medical negligence. His license was
31:04
Speaker 3: eventually suspended for all of three months that time in
31:08
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five, they eventually took it for good. Look,
31:12
Speaker 3: I'm not saying doctor Nick didn't over prescribe drugs, okay,
31:16
Speaker 3: But what's interesting about this article is that it gets
31:19
Speaker 3: into some of the behind the scenes details of that
31:21
Speaker 3: Heraldo report. That article is called how ABC Unearthed the
31:25
Speaker 3: Elvis Story by Tom Martin writing for Memphis Magazine. We'll
31:30
Speaker 3: link to it. They interviewed two ABC producers, Charlie Thompson
31:34
Speaker 3: and James Cole. They both claim that when a local
31:36
Speaker 3: reporter named eb Blackburn gre wrote for a Memphis outlet
31:40
Speaker 3: called Commercial Appeal, which still exists it's a USA Today property,
31:44
Speaker 3: found out that they had copies of Elvis's toxicology report.
31:48
Speaker 3: Cole and Thompson both claim he called and told them
31:51
Speaker 3: that there was nothing to see there. Elvis didn't die
31:54
Speaker 3: of drugs, and hey, you should just you know, destroy
31:57
Speaker 3: those reports before those responsible folks from the New York
32:01
Speaker 3: Times and the BBC come to town. But here's the thing. E. B.
32:05
Speaker 3: Blackburn denies that in the very next paragraph. Here's a quote.
32:10
Speaker 3: Charlie Thompson and I had a very brief conversation, and
32:13
Speaker 3: I certainly never called anyone irresponsible. I have no desire
32:17
Speaker 3: to get into any dispute with ABC or any other
32:21
Speaker 3: arm of the media. We pursued the story as far
32:25
Speaker 3: as we could go. At the time. We were the
32:27
Speaker 3: first news agency to ever hint that drugs were involved.
32:31
Speaker 3: We did print that toxicology data, and we tried to
32:35
Speaker 3: get the autopsy, but we ran into all the walls
32:38
Speaker 3: that everyone else has since run into. I'm satisfied that
32:42
Speaker 3: we pursued the story at the time as far as
32:45
Speaker 3: we could. I can't begin to tell you why ABC
32:49
Speaker 3: developed such a late interest in it. End quote. So
32:56
Speaker 3: this comes down to a matter of who do you believe.
33:00
Speaker 3: Heraldo Rivera and these two ABC News producers who sort
33:04
Speaker 3: of imply that local reporter Eb Blackburn is at least
33:10
Speaker 3: incompetent in his coverage of this story, if not maybe
33:15
Speaker 3: involved in a cover up of this story. Do you
33:18
Speaker 3: believe that or do you believe Eb Blackburn when he says, no,
33:22
Speaker 3: we published it and it wasn't as newsworthy as you think,
33:26
Speaker 3: because that's a big discrepancy Charlie Thompson and James Cole.
33:31
Speaker 3: On top of claiming that Eb Blackburn tried to shut
33:36
Speaker 3: down Heraldo's reporting on this toxicology report, they also claim
33:41
Speaker 3: that the outlet he worked for never published it, as
33:44
Speaker 3: if to imply that they had it but just kind
33:47
Speaker 3: of sat on it for what to hide the fact
33:50
Speaker 3: that drugs were involved in Elvis's death. But if they
33:52
Speaker 3: did publish it, that blows up Heraldo's theory entirely. And
33:57
Speaker 3: then the very next paragraph we get this quote. This
34:00
Speaker 3: is directly from the article. Here goes Beth Tamke, who
34:04
Speaker 3: has since been reassigned to the paper's Action Please column,
34:07
Speaker 3: refuses to discuss the matter. Now, I've kept my mouth
34:11
Speaker 3: shut for three years, and I'm not going to start
34:14
Speaker 3: talking now, she says, I'm an employee here and I
34:17
Speaker 3: fulfill my duties and that's as far as I go.
34:21
Speaker 3: End quote. So there's that it seems like people at
34:24
Speaker 3: this paper did report on it. They did all the
34:28
Speaker 3: things they were supposed to do in pursuit of this story.
34:32
Speaker 3: And then ABC News comes to town and one decides
34:37
Speaker 3: this story is a way bigger deal than it is,
34:39
Speaker 3: and two starts telling local news outlets that commercial appeal
34:44
Speaker 3: dropped the ball when it comes to reporting on the
34:46
Speaker 3: death of Elvis, And so again it comes down to
34:48
Speaker 3: who do you trust, which brings us back to the
34:52
Speaker 3: Doctor Nick interview. This article also reveals that there might
34:57
Speaker 3: have been some trickery involved there. Here's a direct quote
35:01
Speaker 3: from the article. I'm sorry, it's a little bit long.
35:03
Speaker 3: Rivera then pulled out a scrap of paper about the
35:06
Speaker 3: size of a prescription form. He asked once more if
35:09
Speaker 3: Nicopolis was sure he hadn't prescribed huge doses of narcotics
35:14
Speaker 3: to Presley. Nicopolis said nothing. As Cole later described it,
35:19
Speaker 3: I believe doctor Nick thought Heraldo was actually holding a prescription.
35:23
Speaker 3: In fact, he still believes to this day that we
35:27
Speaker 3: brought stolen prescriptions with us to the interview. He never
35:30
Speaker 3: asked Heroldo if the piece of paper was a prescription.
35:33
Speaker 3: If he had, I don't think Heraldo would have lied
35:35
Speaker 3: about it. But Heroldo did ask the questions with great
35:38
Speaker 3: authority and insistence. I can see how Nicopolis could have
35:42
Speaker 3: had the impression that we had some prescriptions with us.
35:46
Speaker 3: End quote. And again, doctor Nick is indeed very insistent
35:50
Speaker 3: that he did not prescribe drugs to Elvis in the
35:53
Speaker 3: manner that Heraldo is claiming. And I just want to
35:56
Speaker 3: remind people that we eventually found out that the details
36:00
Speaker 3: about how often he prescribed drugs to Elvis comes from
36:04
Speaker 3: what the police claim they found when they recovered his
36:07
Speaker 3: stolen bag and wrote down what was in his notes
36:11
Speaker 3: twice in the span of three months. Another reminder, the
36:15
Speaker 3: ultimate claim here is Elvis joined witness protection. If that happened,
36:20
Speaker 3: and death by combination of bad living in too many
36:23
Speaker 3: drugs is your cover story. Planning evidence on doctor Nick
36:27
Speaker 3: during those two stolen bag incidents that happened a few
36:30
Speaker 3: short months prior to Elvis dying would not be impossible
36:35
Speaker 3: at all, And I suspect that might have a lot
36:38
Speaker 3: to do with why he was acquitted. You know, we
36:40
Speaker 3: talk all the time about how true crime types love
36:43
Speaker 3: to parrot that police talking point that there's no such
36:47
Speaker 3: thing as a coincidence when you're talking about crime. Doctor
36:50
Speaker 3: Nick getting his bag stolen twice in three months and
36:54
Speaker 3: having it recovered both times by spy cops is not
36:59
Speaker 3: a coincidence. At least I have a hard time believing
37:02
Speaker 3: it's a coincidence. I said this about the Orion book
37:05
Speaker 3: last week, and I'll say it about doctor Nick this week.
37:08
Speaker 3: I don't know what the fuck is going on with
37:10
Speaker 3: doctor Nick, but something the fuck is going on with
37:13
Speaker 3: doctor Nick, maybe or maybe not. Again, I will reiterate
37:17
Speaker 3: what I said about this twenty twenty report at the
37:20
Speaker 3: top of the episode. If Elvis died in nineteen seventy seven,
37:24
Speaker 3: this is probably just good journalism that was aided in
37:27
Speaker 3: large part by questionable law enforcement activities. If Elvis did
37:32
Speaker 3: cooperate with the FBI on an investigation into a criminal
37:36
Speaker 3: syndicate called the Fraternity and then fake his death so
37:40
Speaker 3: he could join witness protection, I think it's at least
37:42
Speaker 3: possible that this twenty twenty report is a part of that,
37:45
Speaker 3: because it certainly shifted all of the public attention and
37:50
Speaker 3: controversy about a cover up in Elvis's death, not to
37:54
Speaker 3: did he fake his death, which is a thing people
37:57
Speaker 3: were also talking about a whole lot back when it happened,
38:00
Speaker 3: but instead to no, no, no, no, We're sure he died.
38:02
Speaker 3: We just want to know how. We disagree on how
38:05
Speaker 3: he died. That's definitely going to deflect the attention you
38:09
Speaker 3: want it to deflect. And the best part is that
38:11
Speaker 3: we will never never, ever, ever, ever know. I should
38:15
Speaker 3: mention that those tabloid articles out there that claim to
38:18
Speaker 3: know what's in the Elvis autopsy report, the quotes in
38:21
Speaker 3: those come from a guy named Dan Warlake, who was
38:24
Speaker 3: chief investigator for the Tennessee Office of the State Chief
38:28
Speaker 3: Medical Examiner. Here's a quote. Presley's chronic constipation, the result
38:33
Speaker 3: of years of prescription drug abuse and high fat, high
38:36
Speaker 3: cholesterol gorging, brought on what's known as Valsalva's maneuver. Put simply,
38:43
Speaker 3: the strain of attempting to defecate compress the singer's abdominal aorta,
38:49
Speaker 3: shutting down his heart end quote. And oh hey, look
38:52
Speaker 3: at that. Everyone's right. It was a heart attack caused
38:55
Speaker 3: by constipation, which was caused by drug abuse. That's if
38:59
Speaker 3: he really died. Of course, on next week's episode, I'm
39:03
Speaker 3: gonna wrap things up by tagging Gail Brewer Giorgio back
39:07
Speaker 3: in for the rubber match and diving into her mysteriously
39:11
Speaker 3: hard to find nineteen ninety seven book, Elvis Is Alive.
39:16
Speaker 3: It covers an FBI investigation called Operation Fountain Pen and
39:19
Speaker 3: her suspicion that Elvis was a cooperating witness in that
39:23
Speaker 3: investigation and faked his death to join witness protection. We
39:28
Speaker 3: already talked about it a little bit on an older
39:30
Speaker 3: episode of the pod, where we also get into some
39:33
Speaker 3: of the various clues and sightings over the years that
39:36
Speaker 3: point to Elvis maybe living a little longer than we
39:40
Speaker 3: all thought. Give that a listen to prep for next
39:42
Speaker 3: week's Elvis finale. If you want, I'll link to it
39:45
Speaker 3: in the show notes. And hey, that's it. Thanks everybody.
39:48
Speaker 3: We love you.
39:54
Speaker 7: People.
39:55
Speaker 2: You're trying to disgust to be sure, Stan stretch and
40:06
Speaker 2: stretch your bathers got to be extrad