September 19, 2024 • 66 mins
When Princess Diana died as a result of a horrendous car crash in Paris, the United Kingdom was shaken to the core. As more details emerged, some people became convinced that Diana's death was not an accident. Why? Tune in and learn more in this Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this Evening's classic episode. Do you guys remember
Princess Diana feels like a little softball?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
But well, I mean I didn't know her personally, but
she certainly loomed large in my childhood's on like the news,
you know. And then of course her tragic demise was
a massive media frenzy that you just could not be ignored.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, yeah, I recall a lot of positivity reported on
her in her life, at least here in the US,
but I know throughout the rest of the world and
in a lot of places, even in Great Britain, there
were other things swirling about her in the news and
in the rumor mills, and her death caused such, you know,
(00:44):
a shock to the system, I think globally. There were
so many things written about it and you know, proposed
about why her death occurred.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, it certainly reframed the way the world thought about Paparazzi.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Born on July one, nineteen sixty one, dead in a
horrific car crash only age thirty six on August thirty first,
nineteen ninety seven. People are still wondering, speculating about exactly
what happened. And here in our classic episode from twenty nineteen.
(01:20):
We dive all the way.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
In from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission Control deck, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here so cheer. You know
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know
a bit of a British episode for us today, we're
going across the pond Pip as they called it in
the Transatlantic Times. Not many people say over the pond
(02:12):
these days.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Helly ho sure, Yeah, that's all I got. I love
pit Pip. People need to bring that back.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I've I've been tremendously instrumental in bringing back tut tut,
such that some of my friends banned me from it
for a few months.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
There are times when, in a serious, somber moment in
someone's life, Matt, they don't need to hear the phrase
tut tut. It's as unhelpful as saying I told you so,
or that reminds me of a thing that happened to me,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It's just a verbal stand in for a finger wag,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It's a bit Yeah, I feel maybe a little aw
shuxi too, you know, like if a kid is scared
of a thunderstorm or something, it's like tut tied. I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I've definitely experienced a few. It's not erroneous tut tuts,
but just tut tut that appear out of nowhere and
when I'm not expecting them.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh, really, like in the wild, in the field, in.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
The field, Wait, doesn't Pooh Bear say tut tut? It
looks like rain Oh, I don't know it is? Yeah,
thank he does.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Tut tut is a small admonishment or disappointment.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That's That's exactly where I've been hearing it. I've got
a giant book of Winning the Pooh stuff and reading
and my son and he totally says, tut tut.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Uh, dude, your kid's so cool.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
You're so cool for bringing the Pooh man, bringing the.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Poop kind of bring the Pooh dude.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
None of my heroes wear pants. It's true. Why are
we talking about British nomenclature and terminology. It's a great question.
We can answer it now. It's a little bit of
a downer answer. It turns out that on August thirty first,
nineteen ninety seven, Diana, known as the Princess of Wales,
died in a Parisian hospital as the result of injuries
(03:52):
from a car crash. This is something that our fellow
listeners have been asking us about for I mean, since
we started this show. It's one of the first suggestions
we got, and we just never did it because again
we were originally video only.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yes, and our video did cover some of the main
things we will be discussing today, but we in this
format get to dig deep.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, it's gonna get weird. Her driver was a guy
named Henri Paul, her boyfriend was a guy named Dodi Fayed,
and her boyfriend's security guard when Trevor Rees Jones were
all in the car when the accident occurred, and we
were not to date the three of us too hard,
but we were all alive at this time. For those
(04:39):
of us who were residents of this part of the world.
That's right after the Olympics, like a year after the
nineteen ninety six Summer Olympics. And maybe we're too young
to remember where we were when we heard about this,
but a lot of people around the planet know exactly
where they were when the news broke. Do you guys
(05:00):
remember do you have any memories of this?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I was fourteen at my parents' house. I know that
for sure. Oh, you're just doing the math I'm just
doing the maths generally.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, we're roughly the same age, I believe, man, I
guess so. I think so. We've never really compared, but
it feels like we are.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I was probably in the neighborhood of fourteen. I remember
probably being at my neighbor's house. That's what I'm going
to say. I was at my neighbor's house heard.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, it's strange. It's for a lot of people in
the UK or in the Commonwealth, the impact of the
tragedy was similar to that of nine to eleven or
Pearl Harbor. They remember the exact moment that they heard
this news. And it's strange because the two tragedies I
(05:47):
just mentioned involved thousands of people, and this involves three
deaths and really just one that the public appeared to
care about.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But Diana was like a symbol, right, I mean, she
was seen as this he was this beloved princess. She
was seen as the epitome of goodness and lights, you know,
in their country. And then the death in and of itself,
of course was tragic, but it also uncovered a bit
of scandal that maybe tempered some of those feelings of
affection and admiration for this person.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And both of these instances have another thing in common,
where there are a tremendous number of people who believe
that there is something fishy about them, that perhaps there
was some kind of inside job at play.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Absolutely good point, well said. So here are the facts.
She's not born the Princess of Wales. Diana is born
Diana Francis Spencer on July first, nineteen sixty one. She's
already part of the long running one percent of the UK,
the aristocracy, the people who own most of the land
(06:53):
and have for hundreds and hundreds of years, which barely
you're not supposed to talk about there, But that's the
that's one of the huge problem of the country.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Everything's fine, keep gone yea yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, right right, don't ask questions. So Diana was a
child of Viscount and Viscountess Allthorpe. In February of nineteen
eighty one, she becomes engaged to Prince Charles. He's the
oldest son of the British Queen Elizabeth the Second, in
(07:22):
a very hamilton esque move, Charles had previously been engaged
to Diana's older sister, one Lady Sarah mccocodell, and Diana
and Charles went on about twelve dates before they announced
their engagement. So it's it's like Vegas style in terms
of the speed of their relationship. And they had met
(07:42):
previously before, when she was sixteen and he was twenty nine.
They were wed five months after announcing their engagement at
Saint Paul's Cathedral on July twenty ninth, nineteen eighty one.
People loved it. People all about the aristocrac and the
entire you know, the theater of that system. Yes, and so.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Can't just say, at the risk of being agists that
that age difference of twenty nine to sixteen is in
my mind personally a little bothersome, but you know, who
cares whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Just for the record, anybody wants to know the code
or the formula's half your age plus seven. Okay, that's
the official okay to date.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I feel that people, and this is not a ding
on you, man, but I feel I've heard that before,
and often when i've heard it, recite it that way.
It's it's from like we're friends, but it's from someone
that I don't trust. Because my immediate question, especially I
don't know them well, is how many times did you
run this formula? How many are you one of those guys?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, then, first of all, I'm being tongue in cheek
when I say that there's a magic formula that tells
you who you are and are not allowed to date.
But I agree with you, Ben. When someone really says
that with a straight face, then.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, it's like when someone knows the intricacies of a
weird series of laws, like they're like, look, you know,
I mean quayludes and in for intent to distribute.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It's really a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Of people think it's based just on the weight, but
it's also based on how it's packaged. You're like, cool, man,
I just wanted a sprite.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You didn't want any quayludes in your sprite?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
No, No, shout out to Church's chicken and shout out
to something else is completely irrelevant and we're gonna get
back on the topic soon.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But did you know that seven up used to have
lithium in it? And yes, up, it was like represented
like an up in your mood.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I knew about cocaine and coca cola, but I did
not know about lithium and seven up.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Opium as well, was quite common in a lot of
those curative drinks. We could go ahead, and that's a
good episode of Saber. Doesn't beat us to it.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Let's just switch gears, guys, let's talk about just jogg.
We'll just go for the rest of the episode and
pretend that it was about that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But not sprite. It was seven up. So so speaking
of fantastic segues. Uh, the Diana and Charles marriage produces
two sons, or they call them having issue. When you're
when you're when you're, you know, you win the genetic
lottery and your nobility and uh. These would go on
(10:17):
to be the tremendously popular princes William and Harry. The
marriage was the subject of tons of rumor, mungering and
muck raking, and the local tabloids, which makes sense. What
was it was in the old eleanor Roosevelt quote that said,
small minds talk about people, middling minds talk about events,
(10:41):
and great minds talk about ideas. There's always going to
be money in celebrity reporting. It's the banana stand of journalism.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, there's money in it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
There's money in it always. So despite the fact that
this marriage was seen as this continual source of like
Kardashian level reaction, TV showed vicarious train wreck scandals, Diana
herself was just as you said, Noel seen as a symbol,
a cultural icon, despite the reality of who she was
(11:14):
in society and where she came from. She was respected
for her charity work, which was serious, including using the
access to tremendous wealth and influence she had to support hospitals,
to advocate for the eradication of land mines and to
raise awareness of HIV AIDS, mental illness, and cancer. So
(11:37):
people people felt, you know, that they identified with her mission.
You know, more than a few folks would hear about
this work and say, that's what I would do, you
know what I mean, Like, if I had that power,
that's what I would do. And then add the human
element of being stuck in a bad relationship, and how
(11:59):
could you not care about this stranger a little bit?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Oh absolutely, I mean to have royalty care at all.
You know within the ivory towers of Royalty, that that
people are suffering from something, whether it is from from
cancer or family members and friends being under threat of
land minds everywhere. That's one of those those subjects that doesn't,
(12:23):
at least nowadays, get much attention at all. But that's
still a thing across the world, the danger of landmines.
And this was literally the princess who gave a crap.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Right right, and so people in general felt a little convicted.
People were very You hear this a lot in fiction nowadays,
when we're living through the stories of people on screen
or on a page. You hear someone say, I'm team whatever,
I'm team blah blah blah. There were people who were
(12:53):
team the establishment, you know, Buckingham, Team Buckingham, let's call
it that, and then team di Diana. But everybody pretty
much knew all was not well over in Chuck and
Diana's crib. The media was able to confirm extramarital affairs
on both sides of the bed, and eventually even Charles's
(13:14):
parents got involved. Let's try to talk these kids off
a ledge.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
So Charles's parents, Queen Elizabeth the second you know, Queen
Elizabeth is still kicking around, and Prince Philip met with
the couple.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
For kind of like an impromptu marriage counseling session and
intervention of sorts. Philip and Diana exchanged letters, very personal
letters that summer, and in which she expressed her disappointment
at both her and Charles's extra marital affairs and asked
her to see both of their slip ups from the
other person's point of view. Interesting and very seemingly progressive
(13:50):
for what you would think would be a very rigid,
high society kind of.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Situation, especially since Prince Philip is on record calling people
things like spear chuckers.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yes, oh that's right, Philip.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Isn't he the one who has a cargo cult?
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But like I think they recently took away his license
to drive, Yes, because he was crashing into stuff, because
he's like one hundred or something.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Now, Yeah, he's quite, he's quite elderly. He is not
he is not a perfect.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Person, yeah, exactly. At one point, Philip seemed completely just overwhelmed,
ready to give up, and he wrote, quote, I will
always do my upmost to help you and Charles to
the best of my ability, but I am quite ready
to concede that I have no talent as a marriage counselor.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I can I can only imagine, Yeah, someone who has
lived the life of Prince Philip, like trying to get
into those the deep interpersonal relationships in that way when
you're when the life that you live is so guarded
from other people just by its nature.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's very empathetic of you, you know what I mean.
I think that's really I think it's really generous of you.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay, No, it's true, Nat, because it is hard to
even understand how someone with this much privilege, raised this
much privilege, could even wrap their heads around or even
attempt to exercise this kind of understanding, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, well that's without me knowing it what it really is.
But that's my understanding of just the schedule that you
must keep, the the rigorous relationships of convenience, and just
all the things you have to do to uphold your image, right,
you know what I mean. Like, it's doesn't lead to
a lot of heartfelt talks. In my opinion, he.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Does sound like a like a genuinely concerned kind of parent,
you know what I mean. Like if you've ever been
on the ounce with a significant other. I'm sure many
of us listening have been in that situation where you're like, well,
it's not working out with the person i'm dating, but
her or his parents are amazing, you know what I mean.
And then they like give you advice. Yeah, you know,
(15:54):
it's my kid. Why can I say? They're kind of
like that sometimes. But you'll work it out, you'll work
it out.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
You're yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But in this case, they didn't work it out.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, they did not. Their attempts at reconciliation on all
sides were unsuccessful. In December, things start to hit the fan.
Prime Minister John Major publicly announces the pair's amicable separation,
reading a statement from the royal family. December twentieth, Buckingham
Palace announces that the Queen has written separate The British
(16:25):
Queen Elizabeth has written separate letters to the couple ordering
them to file for divorce as soon as possible. This
was a huge scandal. At the time. People were getting
their popcorn in bulk After considering the present situation, the
Queen wrote to both the Prince and the Princess earlier
this week and gave them her view, supported by the
Duke of Edinburgh. That's Philip, that an early divorce is desirable,
(16:50):
and boom boom, boom, snapcrackle pop. By August twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety six, the divorce was official.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Isn't that interesting? The divorce is desirable. Y'all are making
us look bad.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
They called it an early divorce. I don't don't drag this.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Out, just just get it over with. Let's move on.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Just your your relationship is old, yeller. Where at the
end of the story, just take it out back.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, you have to imagine too that I believe it
was Charles that first was discovered to have been cheating
on Diana's correct with Camilla Parker Bowles, who he is
now married to, which maybe led Diana to seek her
own extra marital affair, and then maybe at that point
it kind of becoming under became an understanding between the
two because they were certainly was They were not in
(17:35):
it to win it. They were going to maybe keep
it up for the for the public image of it all,
but even that I think became untenable because you see
pictures of them during these periods and they're sitting at
different tables with their backs to each other. It's a
very cold war, unfriendly kind of situation. Not any fun
to be in and try to keep up appearances, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
There's a sad moment in an interview where they're talking
about their engagement early on, and some reporter, I don't
know if they were in the Inner Circle, but some
reporters says, you know, oh, so you're in love blah
blah blah, And then the Diana character says, oh, yes,
we're in love, and then the Chuck says whatever that means,
(18:18):
ech dies or something like that, and it's just it's
not a good look. It's a cringe. But yeah, yeah,
you're right there. It's a political alliance as much as
a relationship. The idea of the idea of marrying and
being in a relationship at all for the purposes of
romance is relatively recent in our history, or it's rather
(18:39):
it's relatively recent for it to be a commonplace thing,
and so the old laws or the old mores probably
still hold in a lot of royal families, you know,
and it gets nasty. The public is loving this. Princess
Diana has a tell all interview with a BBC, which
is very rare for the royal family and all because,
(19:01):
as you said, Matt, they function under many constrictions or
I don't know, traditions about how they're supposed to be
regarded or speak to anyone who was again outside of
their inner circle.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Absolutely, And that interview was with Martin Basheer, and that's
a very memorable interview if you were alive then because
in it she talks about all kinds of details. She
again she talks about how she was unfaithful, she talks
about Charles's affair, and she has a very famous quote
that she gave while in that interview and she said,
(19:35):
there were three of us in this marriage, so it
was a bit crowded. And to that end she's talking
about Camilla Parker Bowles. It's pretty tough. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And again to Ben's point about how marriage for love
wasn't the thing, I mean, these two were completely paired
up for political reasons between these families, and Charles and
Kamla Parker Bowles had dated like in the seventies, like
they already had a relationship, and then when he got
paired off with Diana, she ended up marrying her, you know,
a former boyfriend of hers, and then they kind of reconnected.
(20:07):
So it's sort of like it was set up to fail.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, but Chuck did choose Diana over her sister, right,
I mean, that's one of the first things we set up. Now,
I guess I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I'm just saying the whole system of arranged marriages is
a little bit yeah kinky.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
There are people would argue that the whole system of
marriage in general is has problems here here yeah, hey,
I said there were people who would Okay, it's very
respectful and diplomatic, but yeah, you're there. These are great points. Still,
despite whatever weird traditions or cultural brainwashing may be in
(20:47):
place in these sorts of systems, you can't change the
fact that people are people, and these people are parents. Right,
so they have they have their divorce, but that doesn't
mean that just because they're not spouses doesn't mean they
can't be good parents. So after the divorce, despite all
(21:07):
the you know, bad blood, it's water under the bridge.
Charles and Diana worked together to be decent parents to
their kids after the divorce, and continue to do so
up until Diana's death in August nineteen ninety seven. I
didn't know how old she was at the time. She
was thirty six. Yeah, I just I guess I thought
(21:31):
she was older, because you know, she was she had
done so much with her life, because you know, she
didn't have to have a job or a mortgage or
student loans, do loans, or pay for insurance, or didn't
have to do anything.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
No, not really, it's so funny to me too. I
think to your point as well, Ben, that she's lifted
up as being this model person. But you have to
keep in mind that she was a model aristocrat who
had unlimited resources. So all it took was a little
bit of a streak of kindness that any people in
her position could have done. But the fact is most
(22:10):
of them just don't. So she was kind of like
the exception to the rule because she was an incredibly
wealthy person who very openly was kind to poor people
as opposed to it not seeming like just like a
tax write off. She was very much in the field
and visiting hospitals and all of this stuff. So I'm
just saying I'm not diminishing. I don't think you are
either been at all any of the good works that
she did. But it certainly easier to hold her up
(22:33):
as a shining example of someone of that station, because
a lot of them are, you know, pretty self serving
and awful.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
No matter what she existed in that framework, she did good.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And she was Oh and some of the most influential
work she did was making the royal family look good
for the people who support their existence.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So it was. It was as in the people of
the United Kingdom, right, yes, right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Right, well yeah, and all of the other territories who
also must at least tip their hat.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
To Can you imagine growing up in a council estate
and walking by Buckingham Palace. It takes some real, some
real well thought out rhetoric to make that feel like
a good idea, right for society. But that's you know what,
that's my opinion. I don't mean to dump on people's
choice of tradition. We will return after the break because
(23:31):
we have gotten to the pivotal night, the last night
that Diana, Princess of Wales spent on Earth. Travel back
with us folks It's August of nineteen ninety seven. Diana's
thirty six. She's dating a forty one year old man
(23:52):
named Dodi Fayid. He is the son of a man
named Mohammed al Fayed, a billionaire, the former owner of
Herod's department store. As a matter of fact, he owns
a lot of stuff. He owns a yacht that Dodi
and Diana are hanging out on and they leave the
yacht kind of a vacation excursion thing, and they arrive
(24:14):
in Paris.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And they're hanging out in Sardinia and they decide to
take off. So Diana leaves in a private jet earlier
on that same day, and she arrives in Paris with
Dody and they're just planning to stop over briefly on
their way to London. In Paris, and you know, they
spent nine days together on that yacht and they were
(24:36):
hanging out in the French and Italian riviera, just having
a really good time together, spending some time. And you
can see lots of photos surrounding this time of them
from paparazzi and the like, because you know, whenever, even
though she was outside of the of royalty, she was
still one of the most photographed humans on the planet. Now,
(24:56):
their plan was to stay at the Ritz Paris. This
is another property like all the Herods that Dodie's father owned,
and they dined at a place called Ritz El Espardon.
I don't know how to say that correcton and Diana.
We know this unfortunately because of autopsy and because of
(25:17):
you know, just records. But Diana had dover soul vegetable
tempora and an asparagus omelet, and that ladies and gentlemen
would prove to be her final meal.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
They were continually hunted by the press. If you've ever
read Watershipped Down, there's a fantastic mythology that the rabbits
and that story have about being the prince with a
thousand dedamies, you know, And they were in a kind
of watership down situation. They were always being pursued by
(25:51):
serious journalists, by tabloid journalists, by freelance photographers and so on.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It was terrifying. That's a terrifying thing. Yeah, I mean,
I can't say that I know what that's like, but
I can imagine because you're using the word hunted. Yeah,
and I would agree that that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Sometimes they'll say hounded, but it's a synonym at that point, right.
So now we return to a man named Henri Paul,
an employee of Al Fayed's Paris Ritz. He is the
deputy head of security at the hotel, and he has
been entrusted with the task of driving a rented black
nineteen ninety four Mercedes Bins S two eighty to elude
(26:31):
the press. The idea is this, that they're going to
send a decoy car out first, and that the photographers
and the press gang will follow that car, and then
the chauffeur, Paul, will take Dodi and Diana to an
(26:52):
apartment owned by Dowdy's father nearby, and they will spend
the night in that apartment, not in the Ritz, before
they continue to London. So this car, the car they're
actually in, has four passengers, the driver, Dody and Diana
in the back, and the guy Trevor Rhys Jones, a
member of the Fayed family security team, riding shotgun. It's late,
(27:15):
it's around twelve, it's after twelve twelve, twenty twelve, twenty
three or so. They're they're driving, and it turns out
the decoy did not work as well as they want.
The press is onto them. Picture people in motorcycles like
hauling their keysters off and swerve in Tokyo drift style,
(27:36):
while there's another person on the back of the motorcycle
leaning out at weird right angles to try to catch
the Mercedes in action, hoping against hope that one of
the tented windows is for some reason rolled down. Because
if you can get these people's faces in a photograph,
(27:57):
you have you know, you have paid your rent for
a month or so, you know what I mean, Because
unlike the people in the Mercedes, they had jobs and
mortgages stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Do you guys remember the Paparazzi mission and that Grand
Theft auto game. I think it was the one in
Los Santos, the most recent one. Yeah, you had to ride,
you had to do some very similar stuff. It was
like all about you know, literally stalking people on you know,
tailing them in cars, riding alongside with motorcycles that you
do in a game like that. But yeah, I mean
it's really really nasty stuff, right, Yeah, like more than
(28:32):
just invasion of privacy, literally putting people at risk.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Absolutely, which comes into play later because the driver loses
control on Repaul loses control of the Mercedes at the
entrance to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The car strikes
the right hand wall of the tunnel. It swerves to
the left of the two lane road before it collides
head on with one of the pillars, I think the
(28:58):
thirteenth pillars supporting the roof of the tunnel. At this time,
it's traveling about one hundred and five kilometers per hour
sixty five miles an hour. The reports will say between
sixty and seventy. The initial reports said one hundred and
five miles per hour, but surprise, surprise, somebody was lying
to sell more papers in.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
An enclosed space. No less, that kind of speed as
bad news.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You can see photographs of the Mercedes and it looks ugly.
You would think that everyone in there died instantly, especially
people in the front. Witnesses reported seeing smoke, and there
were a ton of witnesses. They also reported that the
area was swarming with photographers and they were all over
(29:44):
the car in motorcycles and other automobiles. Before the Mercedes
enters the tunnel. This meant that as the victims lay
in the vehicle, the press actually arrives before any emergency survey.
And this is where, this is where we can look
at the media in an antagonistic way, because a lot
(30:08):
of these folks, a lot of these photographers panicked. They
ran to the crash, you know, drop their motorcycles, run
out of their cars, and they start tugging on the doors,
trying to save the lives of these again, human people
who have just been in a terrible car accident. Within
other photographers stand back, waiting, hoping against hope that someone
(30:33):
pulls open that door of that Mercedes. Because sure, you
can pay rent for a month or two if you
get if you get someone's face in a photo, but
if you get the face of a dying princess, you
might be set. I mean, that might be a book
deal for you.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, which is horrific.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, that's grim all around, because there's gonna be hope,
you hope that there's a certain amount of guilt on it,
anyone who was pursuing that vehicle once once it crashes,
and the feeling of oh no, I need to help,
what have I done? Kind of thing. But you're right,
the self preservation in this self, the desire to, like
(31:13):
you said, pay a mortgage, something we hit on early
on in this it's such a strong desire, strong need
to you know, pay for rent, pay for whatever, to survive,
that it overtakes and that's what happens.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Or maybe they were just they were just competitive, you know,
it was a cutthroat industry. They didn't want other people
to get the shot.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Could be that too, either way.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Police later go on to seize film from seven different
photographers on this scene. Six of them are French, one
of them's from Macedonia. The cops ultimately take twenty rolls
of film, which have not been seen as morbid.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
As it may sound, kind of a good thing to
have so many photographs snapped of a scene as it happened,
as it took place in terms of solving the coman
out that it was any mystery as to what happened,
but right in terms of like evidence that could be
entered into the you.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Know, that's a good that's a very good point. You know,
we don't know how much of it was kept from
the public. We just have in this case of the
confiscated stills. We just have the statements of the people
who said their stuff was stolen.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
But there are a few images that you can find.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yes, there are there are you can see the car
when it's on the back of a tow truck.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, well, and there are a couple shots. This is
the one I'm just gonna shoot. Oh, there's there are
a couple of shots in particular that look to be
from the a car that is in front of their
vehicle that's shooting in and you can see the driver
and Trevor Reese Jones. Yeah, and you can kind of
(32:44):
see Princess Diana's the back of her head, but you
can see just from there that there's flash photography happening
in the vehicle in front of them.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, flash photography. That's gonna be that's gonna be a
huge part too, because we have to remember this took
place in the late nineties.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So what happens.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
We've got the scene of this car accident swarming with photographers,
some helping, some not, and where are the police?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So it takes the police ten minutes to arrive, and
then the ambulance five minutes after that, So fifteen minutes
and Henry Paul and Dodi Fayed were both dead or dying.
They died at the scene. Princess Diana was conscious and
she was in shock. She was removed from the car
(33:35):
at one am, and when she was moved, she went
into cardiac arrest, but was successfully resuscitated there on the scene.
She was in the ambulance by one eighteen and left
the scene around one forty one, and then finally she
made it to the hospital at around two six am.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Fayed and Paul were both declared dead at the scene
of the accident. Their bodies were not taken to a hospital.
They were taken to a mortuary in Paris, the Institute
Medico Legal Diana's internal injuries. Although she looked relatively okay
on the exterior, her internal injuries were extensive. Her heart
(34:15):
had been physically displaced to the right side of the
chest from impact, and this tore the pulmonary vein and
the pericardium. This means that despite lengthy resuscitation attempts, including
internal cardiac massage and emergency room work, the Princess of
(34:35):
Wales passed away at four a m on August thirty first.
An anaesthesiologist named Bruno Rio announced her death at six
am at a news conference held at the hospital, and
thus it came to pass that by dawn, bodyguard Trevor
Rhys Jones was the only survivor of the accident, and.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
As you can imagine, an investigation ensued, a large investigation,
and one person who will become one of the primary
I guess sources of information and speculation after this is
Mohammed al Fayed, Dody's father. He came forth, He came
(35:18):
out publicly and stated that his son, Dodi and Diana
were both murdered by the British royal family, and he
started using all of his influence to try and find
whatever evidence he could find that this was the case.
A billionaire is now facing the royal family, which is.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Honestly going to be one of the few forces that
would be effective in presenting a counter argument. Yeah, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Absolutely, And eventually al fay d totals up around one
hundred and seventy five very specific claims that support his
belief that it was indeed an inside job by the
royal family.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
The French government follows up on each of Fayed's claims
al Fayed's claims to the best of their ability. This
quickly becomes the most expensive road accident investigation in all
of French history, counting the time before the invention of
the automobile. Autopsy reports from the mortuary mentioned earlier found
(36:25):
that the driver on Repall had been impaired while operating
the vehicle. At point one seven to five grams of
alcohol per milliliter of blood. He was around three point
five times over the legal limit for driving in France. Additionally,
there were antidepressants in his system if you believe that autopsy.
(36:47):
There was also paint on the car which showed that
the Mercedes had made grazing impact with a white vehicle
later identified partially due to the chemical composition of the
paint as a Fiat Una. This French judicial investigation last
eighteen months. It concludes in nineteen ninety nine, and it says,
(37:08):
here's what happened. We looked over what you're claiming, mister
al fa Ed. The crash was caused by the chauffeur Henrepall.
He lost control of the vehicle at high speed because
he was intoxicated. We have made a six thousand page
report on this and someone's like, oh, cool, publish it
and they're like none, Yeah, they never did. But British
(37:34):
law has to be involved too. This is a former
member of the government, really, so The way British law
works is it requires an inquest to be held whenever
there's a sudden or unexplained death, and this leads us
to something called Operation Paget or Operation Paget, depending on
(37:55):
how you want to go with it. The Metropolitan Police
prepare a report eight hundred and thirty two pages long.
This one is published, it's made available to the public.
You can read it now. It has sixteen chapters. It
goes into what they see as the sixteen broad categories
that al Fayed is raising when he says there's something wrong.
They were essentially looking at the stuff that al Fay
(38:16):
had said would be inconsistent with an accident, a pure
chaotic interaction of chance and tragedy, or consistent with MI
six having ordered the assassination. And after this operation concluded,
they handed it over to a British inquest and six
years after demise, Michael Burgess, who was then the coroner
(38:39):
for the Queen's Household. The British Queen's Household held the
inquest two thousand and eight. Inquest wraps up a United
Kingdom jury with eleven members, finds that Henri Paul, the
driver of the Mercedes at the time of the crash
was culpable due to his gross negligence and that yes,
his blood alcohol level was cartoonishly high, three times higher
(39:01):
than a reasonable driver should have. Yeah, and they also
found that paparazzi, specifically photographers, were partially responsible for the
fatal car accident by driving dangerously, driving recklessly, by possibly
distracting an already inebriated driver with flash photography, which goes
(39:23):
on to be incredibly important. The coroner for this was
a guy named Lord Justice Scott Baker, and he described
these verdicts as the equivalent of manslaughter in a criminal court,
which is important. That means someone dies due to maybe negligence,
maybe you don't have the best intentions for them, but
you're not trying to kill them.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
At least, yes, And in this case is the driver
who wasn't trying to kill them as well as the paparazzi.
So no one was like fully attempting to murder anyone, right,
that's what he's saying.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, the French police cleared photographers are being directly linked
to it. But again, the Royal Court of Justice in
London heard multiple eyewitnesses talk about blocking cars that were
allegedly being used to try to slow down the Mercedes
or funnel it, you know, the way like you funnel
(40:19):
cattle to a slaughterhouse, into certain roots that they can predict.
They found the same thing. As far as the death
of dol de Fayed. They said, you know, it's drunk driver.
It's a drunk driver. It's a tragedy. The paparazzi is unethical,
but this is not murder. However, it should be no
surprise that some people still believe there's more to the story.
(40:43):
Quite a few people in Britain, here, in the US, Canada,
and around the world are convinced that the official explanation
is either somehow inaccurate or purposely a cover up. More
than twenty years after the fact, this conspiracy seems to
continue growing. It raises some fascinating points. We'll get to
them after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
What if Diana's car accident wasn't an accident at all?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, for people who believe that Princess Diana's death was
the result of a homicide or a conspiracy rather than
an accident, it goes all the way to Buckingham Palace
to Royalty, and you know, you wonder well, why in
the world would somebody want to take you know, the
former Princess Diana out. She's no longer in your hair,
she's no longer doing anything, she's not representing you anymore.
(41:40):
Why would you want to take her out?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh, this is so Game of thrones. There's the idea
that Diana was secretly pregnant with do de Fayette's kid,
as well as engaged to him, and that the British
Queen was, wait for it, royally poded by the idea
of a Muslim child being associated.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
With the family as a racist angleton somehow, yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Somehow they were. They were like, look, it's all well
and good, we live in an integrated society, but no
Muslims in the inner circle. There's not a lot of
evidence to support that. It's more like an attitude people
assume the royal family would have.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Then there's the one that Charles needed his ex wife
dead to somehow clear the way for this new marriage.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
And many of these claims would have faded off of
the mainstream radar probably were it not for Dodie's father,
Muhammad al Fayed. He remains convinced to this day in
twenty nineteen that the British Royal family or the forces
under their command murdered his son. There's something interesting here,
(42:50):
because you know, we have to be very human again
and remember that no parents should ever have to bury
their child. So of course you want to find for
such a horrific catastrophe to occur. So you'll hear people say,
sometimes diplomatically, sometimes in a somewhat callous manner, that this
(43:12):
man is just grasping its straws because he can't believe
that something as simple and chaotic as an accident could
have taken his child's life. But then we see these
strange breadcrumbs people have put together, and we're going to
give you a couple of those to hear and to
hear what you think, and we'd love to hear from
(43:34):
you afterwards as well, to let us and your fellow
listeners know where you find yourself in this story. Diana,
Princes of Wales, may have predicted her own death, at
least that's what her former butler Paul Burrell believes. When
he came forward in two thousand and three, he claimed
that the princess had given him a note a dated
(43:55):
signed note ten months before death as an insurance policy,
was written two months after her nineteen ninety six divorce
from Chuck. Diana claimed in the note she believed there
was a plan for an accident in my car, brake
failure and serious head injury to clear the wave for
her ex husband to marry their son's nanny, Tiggy leg Bork.
(44:20):
This letter is not universally accepted. It's got a lot
of press. Came forward in a book that the butler wrote,
But there are people who will claim that Burrell, as
her longtime butler, knew her handwriting well and was capable
of forging it.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, and at that point, it's who do you believe?
That's really what it comes down to you.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I wanted to ask, you know, what would a DNA
test be worthwhile on that thing, because I would assume
it doesn't necessarily prove anything since they were probably in
close contact.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
That's interesting in whoever has handled it since then, who
knows how it was kept? But also, you know handwriting analysis.
I haven't actually seen a full investigation into it.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. There are other there are other
big claims too.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Well, yeah, well, just the last thing with that is
that just because she was she had some fears about
her ex husband with this other person, does not mean
that he killed her for this reason. And I don't.
It's one of those tough it's a tough thing.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Just because her personal belief was there, even if it
was her sincere personal belief, it doesn't mean that that's
what happened.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
That's a fantastic point. I think that's something that many
of us accidentally clays over. But if we're thinking critically,
then we have to we have to acknowledge that. We
also have to acknowledge a lot of the I would
say the bulk of the conspiratorial claims on all fa
Ed's part concern secret connections to m I six the
(45:57):
Intelligent Services is are is essentially that the royal family
wanted his, his son, and and Princess Diana dead, but
that you know, the Queen's not going to be out
there with a sniper rifle. You know, Prince Charles isn't
gonna show up in like a weird mech or something
(46:21):
or pop tires. So they say am I six did
their dirty work.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Well, yes, and it let's just let's game here, really, fast.
If you are going to murder a former princess and
her lover, you cannot make it not look like an
accident because it will be such a high profile case
immediately no matter how the death occurs. If if you
(46:48):
were going to take out a princess or royalty, you
would have to make it look like an accident.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
So that's that's one of the other big things that
comes into play here because you got people talking about
I mean spy literally like the British people paying basically
with their taxes to have the princess murder.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
But are there any theories surrounding like it with the
paparazzis or plants and they were trying to distract the
driver and trying to force them off the road, Like
do we have any concrete was there, you know, supposedly
any manipulation done with the car, any like tampering with
I mean, I've never really seen anything like any of
those claims.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Well, well, the claim is you don't have to tamper
with the car if you've got the driver on your payroll, right.
That's that's when he goes back to Henri Paul and
you know, did he or did he not have any
kind of contacts with the world of intelligence or with
you know, people who conduct espionage.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Theorists as well as his friends and people who personally
knew him, will claim that he had extensive contacts in
the world of intelligence and spycraft. And they'll claim this
because of the nature of his employment at the RITZ.
The Ritz is a place where important people hang out.
It's good to have access there behind the curtain. Was
he in the pay of an intelligence agency? The evidence
(48:07):
to support this theory, or that purports to support this theory,
comes mainly from an unusual amount of money that was
found in his possession at the time of his death,
as well as his personal wealth, which doesn't People will
argue he makes more money than his position would imply,
and then the argument follows he was essentially framed for this,
(48:29):
or possibly drugged or had the results of his autopsy doctored.
I'm sorry, I couldn't help it to.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
The idea that he was not drunk of his own volition.
But he was not drunk of his own free will,
right right?
Speaker 1 (48:42):
So another and his friends and family said he liked
a beer, but he you know, he would love to
have a night on town with the boys, but he
wasn't like a problematic drinker. Another allegation concerns the reliability
of the blood tests that were carried out. The French
investigator's conclusion that he was drunk was made on an
(49:03):
analysis of blood samples, and this was according to a
September nineteen ninety seven report. A British pathologist hired by
al Fayed challenged these results and the French authorities carried
out more tests, but every time they said, we see
that he is at approximately three three and a half
(49:25):
times over the limit and taking antidepressants. That's the thing.
This is a point counterpoint opinion war between al Fayed
and the French government, or as he would say, the
royal family. There's another there's a more interesting angle though
than Henri Paul. We're not going to get the answers
(49:48):
for that, but maybe we can find out more from
Richard Tomlinson. Very interesting character. Reminds me of some of
the kind of wild West oss dudes we talked about
with the US and Intelligence services. Tomlinson worked for six
he was a He's someone who gave testimony to the
French inquiry in May of nineteen ninety nine. He said
(50:12):
under oath. Mind you six was involved in the crash.
The Security Service has documentation which will help you figure
out what's going on. You have to ask them. Furthermore.
I believe that Henri Paul was working for Security Services
maybe six, I don't know. They were working for someone
(50:32):
one of the spook squads, and that this Trevor Rees
Jones guy was a contact for British intelligence. He goes
on to say I six was monitoring Diana before her death.
He told Mohammad al Fayed himself that Henri Paul was
an I six agent, and he said to the guy,
(50:53):
he said, Al Fay ed the death of Princess Diana
and your son mirror's plans. I saw a few years ago,
back in nineteen ninety two for the assassination of then
President of Serbia, Slobodon Mololsovich. They used the strobe light
to blind his chauffeur. That was their plan.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Wow, and it's crazy too. You're talking about the strobe
light idea. That image you were talking about earlier in
the show, that is presumably one of these paparazzi images
that was taken through the front windshield of the car
incredibly close. It does look like you can see the
flashbulb in the driver's eyes, but he also has a
very odd look on his face, like a little doped
(51:37):
up looking.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I would concur with your assessment there, and it
does definitely feel strange. You got to remember that the
lens could be you know, pretty telephotos, so they could
Maybe the vehicle isn't as close as it appears. But
that flash, and that's the big thing here. The flash
is troublesome no matter how far away they are, if
(51:59):
it's coming directly in front of them.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
And if you're a photographer, if you know anything about photography,
you probably wouldn't use a flash in that situation, would you.
What do you think from that far away? Like, why
would you use a flash in a tunnel? Like I mean,
I guess you would. If you're moving really fast, you
might need to use a flash to get to capture
an image and not be blurry. Yeah, still seems odd
to use it from so far away on glass, because
(52:23):
if you're shooting through you know a window flash is
gonna reflect and mess up your shot, right.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
But ultimately your goal is to illuminate the interior of
the vehicle, right.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
So initially m I six doesn't deign this worthy of response,
but a source in I six later confirms that there were.
In fact, this is interesting. Here's their problem with with
the guy's testimony. They say, no, of course, we had
no plans for that. Our own government cleared us after
(52:53):
their investigation. And this guy is lying about this crazy
Kokammi plant caused car accidents through strobe light weaponization, and
they're like, oh, you never did that, and they're like, well, yeah,
we did, but it wasn't with Slovodam Melosevich. So clearly
you can't believe this guy at all. That was a different,
sketchy European dude that we were trying to kill. Anyway,
(53:16):
this interview was over, so Tomlinson's claims were never officially corroborated.
It's just off the record six and alleged I six
members backing him up. However, he was imprisoned in nineteen
ninety seven for breaking the Official Secrets Act. He sent
a snopsis of a book that he wanted to write
about his career with Six to an Australian publisher. He
(53:39):
served six months of a one year sentence, got paroled,
and then immediately skipped the country. The inquiry concluded by
dismissing his claims. They said it was an embellishment. It's
not a lie, but an embellishment, and he said, you know,
they said furthermore, his embellishment is dangerous because it's one
of the primary reasons people have these theories still that
(54:02):
the British elite murdered one of their own. Tomlinson was
also arrested by French authorities in two thousand and six
when they were doing their inquiry into the death. French
police at the time seized computer files and personal papers
from his home in can and then eventually kind of
(54:24):
got away. They said he wasn't worth prosecuting. In two
thousand and seven, he went ahead and published the book
The Big Breach. People describe him as kind of an
arrogant James Bond esque character.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, I'd say that seems about Ryan basing everything we know.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
So he was allowed to return to Britain in two
thousand and nine get royalties from his book. They dropped
the threat of charges against him as long as he
had sort of a gentleman's agreement to stop exposing the
skeletons in the six Closet. They were like, stop talking
to the press, stop talking about your old job, which
(55:01):
you know naturally leads us to conclude that he probably
had something on him. You know what I mean. They
didn't know what else you might.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Have, absolutely, because they basically just said, just leave it alone.
We'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Let's just stop. That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Let's do Let's do one Let's do one more thing.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Okay, you say one more thing.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
Let's talk about that Fiat you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Heck, yeah, Fiat, that white, that white paint, real smoke,
show those things.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
When I see white Fiat in print, I can't help
but think of the Starbucks beverage, the flat white, because
Fiat looks like flat on paper.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
That's a I didn't know that was a of a
flat white.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
No, Is it just milk? No, It's like an espresso
with milk on top of those like a little dot
of milk kind of So what about that white Fiat.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Well, there were witnesses who were there, obviously, there are
a lot of people who were in that tunnel at
the time, and seven of them said they saw a
white Fiat Uno, the one we mentioned earlier that may
or may not have made contact with a vehicle and
a motorcycle speeding out of the tunnel just seconds after
the crash, And there was a lot of testing afterwards.
(56:09):
The forensics basically confirmed that a white Fiat Uno collided
with the Mercedes carrying Diana Undti and everyone else, and
this collision was definitely a significant factor in the crash.
Now that's big, Yeah, that's really big. And then there
are other eyewitnesses who told the police that they saw
a powerful flash of light just seconds before the crash,
(56:30):
before the not they crash itself, like the impact flash
impact flash. Think about it this way, flash swerve impact, right,
which is you know that blinding that we were talking about,
which it most certainly would in a darkened tunnel like that,
if you had essentially headlights coming right at you all
of a sudden, there would be a blinding effect.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Here's the thing. The police say they have been unable
to locate either the vehicles, either the Fiat or the motorcycle,
or identify the driver or the passengers. However, there's a
guy Jean Paul James Andenson who is closely associated with
this white Fiat Oh and we should we should point
(57:12):
out they might sound strange. They were able to find
a specific make, model, of car based just on a pigment.
They were able to find that because it was a
factory pigment from Fiat, so they were able to match samples.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah. Together.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
There are things like that that are occurring all over
manufacturing these days, where you could easily identify a certain vehicle,
a certain table even, or a pencil or any of that.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Still, don't print out ransom notes on your printer.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
And he's supposed to use this magazine cutouts. That's what
you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Any printer that, any printer that you can commercially buy,
is going to have identifying pixels that are there for
a reason. The world's probably a slightly better place that
they're there. I'm not totally against it, to be honest,
only slightly, slightly slightly. But so back to this guy,
(58:04):
James Anderson, Jean Paul James Anderson, Uh, he is linked
with this. He is linked with this White Fiat. People
who believe there was a conspiracy, no homicide, are convinced
that he was intimately involved with this. He had been
threatening to write an expose a and explosive book. He
(58:27):
had links with the Secret Service. Apparently he met with
an author named Frederic Dard to discuss this book he said,
would blow the lid off a conspiracy. And then he
was found in a torched car, allegedly with two bullet
wounds in his head. Wow, and the authorities ruled that
it was suicide.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Dard also died.
Speaker 2 (58:51):
How do you torch your own car?
Speaker 3 (58:54):
You mean the junction man?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:56):
So the so he and the author both died.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Yes, yep. And Mohammed al Fayed urged police to reopen
the investigation into Anderson's death. But at this point it
didn't happen. And you know this, this story goes on
and on and on. Like the the British public. If
you were listening to this in the United Kingdom, you
(59:19):
are a member of the most one of the most
heavily surveiled populations on the planet. There are more closed
circuit television cameras or CCTV camps in the UK per
person than there are anywhere else on the planet. So
why didn't these catch more of the accident? That's one
(59:40):
al fay Add's questions. It's a fair question. The problem
is that's that number we just gave you about, you know,
being the most highly observed or surveilled. It's it's tricky.
It's number of cameras per person, but most of those
are private, so they're not looking out on the street.
They're looking out at the door of the business. The
off license are whatever, which is their name for liquor
(01:00:02):
stores that I that you know, so that they can
identify a burglar. They're not there to monitor traffic.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Yeah, the traffic monitors come much later. And we're still
talking nineteen ninety seven, so you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
So without without going into the entire we would have
to do a mini series on all the screwy things
about this tragedy. Without going into it entirely, I have
to say, still, there's one big problem with this, which
is that there are other more certain ways to kill anyone.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, that wouldn't be plastered all over the news and
have a gazillion photographs of it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
What do you mean, what an airplane crash?
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
But okay, yeah, there would still be photos everywhere, but
you wouldn't be able to prove it would be it
would be easier to just say, oh, it's an accident,
I guess maybe, or I.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Mean, you know the classic tales all this time movie devices,
fake somebody's suicide. There was strife in this relationship. They
could have written off a princess die suicide.
Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Yeah, say, I don't know, execute someone with bullets in
a car and then burn that vehicle.
Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Also true, and still not as weird as the guy
who uh got who got as fixated locked up in
a duffel bag.
Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Suicide, Yeah, suicide is a huge cause of death for
intelligence service operatives, it appears. But but yeah, I wonder
about that too. It seems a little bit not not
to be automatically dismissive. It seems first blush, kind of
(01:01:43):
Rube Goldberg esque, you know, unnecessarily complicated. It's why play
mouse trap? Why introduce all these other variables? There are
other people on the street, it's a public street. Why
flash strobe lights or other devices at people just in
the hopes that there's a chance that it causes an accident,
(01:02:03):
and then, furthermore, hope that there's a chance that of
the four people in the car, one of the ones
who dies will be the person you are quote unquote
trying to get like, I can see the sides of this,
I can see how the details are screwy, But what
do you guys think.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Yeah, I'm definitely with you. Oukham's razor is pretty darn
strong with this. Just the pressure that the proparazzi was
putting on the driver who was intoxicated or at least
his blood, especially when they tested his eye fluid, because
originally they were testing just you know, blood, they took
(01:02:41):
blood signals, they test that for blood alcohol. But then
they were using the I forget what they call. It's
not ocular fluid, but it's your eyes, and that gave
an even truer or in even harder to fake or introduce,
like falsely alcohol right because of the way it travels
through the capillaries and everything to get to your eye. Anyway,
(01:03:04):
once once that occurred, you can all in my mind
he was definitely drunk. The driver on re and the
paparazzi were definitely taking flash photographs, and they were definitely speeding,
and you put all that together, in my mind, you
get accident and and that to me is really all
you need. However, it's not that I'm not intrigued by
(01:03:24):
some of the some of the claims that Muhammad alf
I had had. They all though seem to be coming
or stemming from that Tomlinson character has he still has
the ghost apologies. Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
It's like you said, Ben, I mean, it's grief manifests
itself in all kinds of ways, and like you said, Matt,
one of them can be I need someone to blame
for this, and you can. It can become an obsession.
Sometimes there's something at the other end of that obsession.
Sometimes it's just an obsession, and it's like you're chasing ghosts,
you know, you're punching it shadows it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Also, regardless of what we think about this personally, it
also absolutely does not help that for all all virtual, practical,
forget it all literal purposes, the royal family is above
the law, you know what I mean. Yeah, there are
(01:04:19):
no consequences and the you know, if if the pr
turns bad for them, they can just have like a
Megan Markle take over the celebrity news for a while
and then some of the underlings and m I six
will you know, will take the fall for it. Yeah,
(01:04:43):
this is life without consequences. That's so it's it's pretty
It absolutely doesn't mean that they were like, hey, why
let's fake a suicide and then it doesn't mean it's
one turned around is like, no, let's be weird with it.
It just means that. It just means that, unlike the
(01:05:03):
vast majority of people on this planet, they would not
go to jail for a murder. They just wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Yeah, they would have plausible deniability no matter what.
Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Am I five and m I six do have licenses
to kill. Remember we did an episode on that that
was really depressing.
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Not just a clever catchphrase. Yeah, it turns out.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
And we're no different. But thank you for checking out
our show today. Folks, let us know where were you
when you heard about the death of do de fay Ed, Henri,
Paul and Diana and Princess of Wells. Do you think
it's an accident? Do you think there's more to the story.
If so, what and why? And that's our classic episode
(01:05:45):
for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Find this in the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook, x and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Call our number. It's one eight three three std w DYK.
Speaker 6 (01:06:01):
Leave a voicemail and if you have more to say,
we can't wait to hear from you at our good
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dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to this Evening's classic episode. Do you guys remember
Princess Diana feels like a little softball?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
But well, I mean I didn't know her personally, but
she certainly loomed large in my childhood's on like the news,
you know. And then of course her tragic demise was
a massive media frenzy that you just could not be ignored.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, yeah, I recall a lot of positivity reported on
her in her life, at least here in the US,
but I know throughout the rest of the world and
in a lot of places, even in Great Britain, there
were other things swirling about her in the news and
in the rumor mills, and her death caused such, you know,
(00:44):
a shock to the system, I think globally. There were
so many things written about it and you know, proposed
about why her death occurred.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, it certainly reframed the way the world thought about Paparazzi.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Born on July one, nineteen sixty one, dead in a
horrific car crash only age thirty six on August thirty first,
nineteen ninety seven. People are still wondering, speculating about exactly
what happened. And here in our classic episode from twenty nineteen.
(01:20):
We dive all the way.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
In from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission Control deck, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here so cheer. You know
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know
a bit of a British episode for us today, we're
going across the pond Pip as they called it in
the Transatlantic Times. Not many people say over the pond
(02:12):
these days.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Helly ho sure, Yeah, that's all I got. I love
pit Pip. People need to bring that back.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I've I've been tremendously instrumental in bringing back tut tut,
such that some of my friends banned me from it
for a few months.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
There are times when, in a serious, somber moment in
someone's life, Matt, they don't need to hear the phrase
tut tut. It's as unhelpful as saying I told you so,
or that reminds me of a thing that happened to me,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It's just a verbal stand in for a finger wag,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It's a bit Yeah, I feel maybe a little aw
shuxi too, you know, like if a kid is scared
of a thunderstorm or something, it's like tut tied. I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I've definitely experienced a few. It's not erroneous tut tuts,
but just tut tut that appear out of nowhere and
when I'm not expecting them.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh, really, like in the wild, in the field, in.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
The field, Wait, doesn't Pooh Bear say tut tut? It
looks like rain Oh, I don't know it is? Yeah,
thank he does.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Tut tut is a small admonishment or disappointment.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That's That's exactly where I've been hearing it. I've got
a giant book of Winning the Pooh stuff and reading
and my son and he totally says, tut tut.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Uh, dude, your kid's so cool.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
You're so cool for bringing the Pooh man, bringing the.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Poop kind of bring the Pooh dude.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
None of my heroes wear pants. It's true. Why are
we talking about British nomenclature and terminology. It's a great question.
We can answer it now. It's a little bit of
a downer answer. It turns out that on August thirty first,
nineteen ninety seven, Diana, known as the Princess of Wales,
died in a Parisian hospital as the result of injuries
(03:52):
from a car crash. This is something that our fellow
listeners have been asking us about for I mean, since
we started this show. It's one of the first suggestions
we got, and we just never did it because again
we were originally video only.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yes, and our video did cover some of the main
things we will be discussing today, but we in this
format get to dig deep.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, it's gonna get weird. Her driver was a guy
named Henri Paul, her boyfriend was a guy named Dodi Fayed,
and her boyfriend's security guard when Trevor Rees Jones were
all in the car when the accident occurred, and we
were not to date the three of us too hard,
but we were all alive at this time. For those
(04:39):
of us who were residents of this part of the world.
That's right after the Olympics, like a year after the
nineteen ninety six Summer Olympics. And maybe we're too young
to remember where we were when we heard about this,
but a lot of people around the planet know exactly
where they were when the news broke. Do you guys
(05:00):
remember do you have any memories of this?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I was fourteen at my parents' house. I know that
for sure. Oh, you're just doing the math I'm just
doing the maths generally.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, we're roughly the same age, I believe, man, I
guess so. I think so. We've never really compared, but
it feels like we are.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I was probably in the neighborhood of fourteen. I remember
probably being at my neighbor's house. That's what I'm going
to say. I was at my neighbor's house heard.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, it's strange. It's for a lot of people in
the UK or in the Commonwealth, the impact of the
tragedy was similar to that of nine to eleven or
Pearl Harbor. They remember the exact moment that they heard
this news. And it's strange because the two tragedies I
(05:47):
just mentioned involved thousands of people, and this involves three
deaths and really just one that the public appeared to
care about.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But Diana was like a symbol, right, I mean, she
was seen as this he was this beloved princess. She
was seen as the epitome of goodness and lights, you know,
in their country. And then the death in and of itself,
of course was tragic, but it also uncovered a bit
of scandal that maybe tempered some of those feelings of
affection and admiration for this person.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And both of these instances have another thing in common,
where there are a tremendous number of people who believe
that there is something fishy about them, that perhaps there
was some kind of inside job at play.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Absolutely good point, well said. So here are the facts.
She's not born the Princess of Wales. Diana is born
Diana Francis Spencer on July first, nineteen sixty one. She's
already part of the long running one percent of the UK,
the aristocracy, the people who own most of the land
(06:53):
and have for hundreds and hundreds of years, which barely
you're not supposed to talk about there, But that's the
that's one of the huge problem of the country.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Everything's fine, keep gone yea yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Right, right right, don't ask questions. So Diana was a
child of Viscount and Viscountess Allthorpe. In February of nineteen
eighty one, she becomes engaged to Prince Charles. He's the
oldest son of the British Queen Elizabeth the Second, in
(07:22):
a very hamilton esque move, Charles had previously been engaged
to Diana's older sister, one Lady Sarah mccocodell, and Diana
and Charles went on about twelve dates before they announced
their engagement. So it's it's like Vegas style in terms
of the speed of their relationship. And they had met
(07:42):
previously before, when she was sixteen and he was twenty nine.
They were wed five months after announcing their engagement at
Saint Paul's Cathedral on July twenty ninth, nineteen eighty one.
People loved it. People all about the aristocrac and the
entire you know, the theater of that system. Yes, and so.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Can't just say, at the risk of being agists that
that age difference of twenty nine to sixteen is in
my mind personally a little bothersome, but you know, who
cares whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Just for the record, anybody wants to know the code
or the formula's half your age plus seven. Okay, that's
the official okay to date.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I feel that people, and this is not a ding
on you, man, but I feel I've heard that before,
and often when i've heard it, recite it that way.
It's it's from like we're friends, but it's from someone
that I don't trust. Because my immediate question, especially I
don't know them well, is how many times did you
run this formula? How many are you one of those guys?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, then, first of all, I'm being tongue in cheek
when I say that there's a magic formula that tells
you who you are and are not allowed to date.
But I agree with you, Ben. When someone really says
that with a straight face, then.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, it's like when someone knows the intricacies of a
weird series of laws, like they're like, look, you know,
I mean quayludes and in for intent to distribute.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It's really a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Of people think it's based just on the weight, but
it's also based on how it's packaged. You're like, cool, man,
I just wanted a sprite.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You didn't want any quayludes in your sprite?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
No, No, shout out to Church's chicken and shout out
to something else is completely irrelevant and we're gonna get
back on the topic soon.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But did you know that seven up used to have
lithium in it? And yes, up, it was like represented
like an up in your mood.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I knew about cocaine and coca cola, but I did
not know about lithium and seven up.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Opium as well, was quite common in a lot of
those curative drinks. We could go ahead, and that's a
good episode of Saber. Doesn't beat us to it.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Let's just switch gears, guys, let's talk about just jogg.
We'll just go for the rest of the episode and
pretend that it was about that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But not sprite. It was seven up. So so speaking
of fantastic segues. Uh, the Diana and Charles marriage produces
two sons, or they call them having issue. When you're
when you're when you're, you know, you win the genetic
lottery and your nobility and uh. These would go on
(10:17):
to be the tremendously popular princes William and Harry. The
marriage was the subject of tons of rumor, mungering and
muck raking, and the local tabloids, which makes sense. What
was it was in the old eleanor Roosevelt quote that said,
small minds talk about people, middling minds talk about events,
(10:41):
and great minds talk about ideas. There's always going to
be money in celebrity reporting. It's the banana stand of journalism.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, there's money in it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
There's money in it always. So despite the fact that
this marriage was seen as this continual source of like
Kardashian level reaction, TV showed vicarious train wreck scandals, Diana
herself was just as you said, Noel seen as a symbol,
a cultural icon, despite the reality of who she was
(11:14):
in society and where she came from. She was respected
for her charity work, which was serious, including using the
access to tremendous wealth and influence she had to support hospitals,
to advocate for the eradication of land mines and to
raise awareness of HIV AIDS, mental illness, and cancer. So
(11:37):
people people felt, you know, that they identified with her mission.
You know, more than a few folks would hear about
this work and say, that's what I would do, you
know what I mean, Like, if I had that power,
that's what I would do. And then add the human
element of being stuck in a bad relationship, and how
(11:59):
could you not care about this stranger a little bit?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Oh absolutely, I mean to have royalty care at all.
You know within the ivory towers of Royalty, that that
people are suffering from something, whether it is from from
cancer or family members and friends being under threat of
land minds everywhere. That's one of those those subjects that doesn't,
(12:23):
at least nowadays, get much attention at all. But that's
still a thing across the world, the danger of landmines.
And this was literally the princess who gave a crap.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Right right, and so people in general felt a little convicted.
People were very You hear this a lot in fiction nowadays,
when we're living through the stories of people on screen
or on a page. You hear someone say, I'm team whatever,
I'm team blah blah blah. There were people who were
(12:53):
team the establishment, you know, Buckingham, Team Buckingham, let's call
it that, and then team di Diana. But everybody pretty
much knew all was not well over in Chuck and
Diana's crib. The media was able to confirm extramarital affairs
on both sides of the bed, and eventually even Charles's
(13:14):
parents got involved. Let's try to talk these kids off
a ledge.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
So Charles's parents, Queen Elizabeth the second you know, Queen
Elizabeth is still kicking around, and Prince Philip met with
the couple.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
For kind of like an impromptu marriage counseling session and
intervention of sorts. Philip and Diana exchanged letters, very personal
letters that summer, and in which she expressed her disappointment
at both her and Charles's extra marital affairs and asked
her to see both of their slip ups from the
other person's point of view. Interesting and very seemingly progressive
(13:50):
for what you would think would be a very rigid,
high society kind of.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Situation, especially since Prince Philip is on record calling people
things like spear chuckers.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yes, oh that's right, Philip.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Isn't he the one who has a cargo cult?
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But like I think they recently took away his license
to drive, Yes, because he was crashing into stuff, because
he's like one hundred or something.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Now, Yeah, he's quite, he's quite elderly. He is not
he is not a perfect.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Person, yeah, exactly. At one point, Philip seemed completely just overwhelmed,
ready to give up, and he wrote, quote, I will
always do my upmost to help you and Charles to
the best of my ability, but I am quite ready
to concede that I have no talent as a marriage counselor.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I can I can only imagine, Yeah, someone who has
lived the life of Prince Philip, like trying to get
into those the deep interpersonal relationships in that way when
you're when the life that you live is so guarded
from other people just by its nature.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's very empathetic of you, you know what I mean.
I think that's really I think it's really generous of you.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay, No, it's true, Nat, because it is hard to
even understand how someone with this much privilege, raised this
much privilege, could even wrap their heads around or even
attempt to exercise this kind of understanding, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, well that's without me knowing it what it really is.
But that's my understanding of just the schedule that you
must keep, the the rigorous relationships of convenience, and just
all the things you have to do to uphold your image, right,
you know what I mean. Like, it's doesn't lead to
a lot of heartfelt talks. In my opinion, he.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Does sound like a like a genuinely concerned kind of parent,
you know what I mean. Like if you've ever been
on the ounce with a significant other. I'm sure many
of us listening have been in that situation where you're like, well,
it's not working out with the person i'm dating, but
her or his parents are amazing, you know what I mean.
And then they like give you advice. Yeah, you know,
(15:54):
it's my kid. Why can I say? They're kind of
like that sometimes. But you'll work it out, you'll work
it out.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
You're yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But in this case, they didn't work it out.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, they did not. Their attempts at reconciliation on all
sides were unsuccessful. In December, things start to hit the fan.
Prime Minister John Major publicly announces the pair's amicable separation,
reading a statement from the royal family. December twentieth, Buckingham
Palace announces that the Queen has written separate The British
(16:25):
Queen Elizabeth has written separate letters to the couple ordering
them to file for divorce as soon as possible. This
was a huge scandal. At the time. People were getting
their popcorn in bulk After considering the present situation, the
Queen wrote to both the Prince and the Princess earlier
this week and gave them her view, supported by the
Duke of Edinburgh. That's Philip, that an early divorce is desirable,
(16:50):
and boom boom, boom, snapcrackle pop. By August twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety six, the divorce was official.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Isn't that interesting? The divorce is desirable. Y'all are making
us look bad.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
They called it an early divorce. I don't don't drag this.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Out, just just get it over with. Let's move on.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Just your your relationship is old, yeller. Where at the
end of the story, just take it out back.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, you have to imagine too that I believe it
was Charles that first was discovered to have been cheating
on Diana's correct with Camilla Parker Bowles, who he is
now married to, which maybe led Diana to seek her
own extra marital affair, and then maybe at that point
it kind of becoming under became an understanding between the
two because they were certainly was They were not in
(17:35):
it to win it. They were going to maybe keep
it up for the for the public image of it all,
but even that I think became untenable because you see
pictures of them during these periods and they're sitting at
different tables with their backs to each other. It's a
very cold war, unfriendly kind of situation. Not any fun
to be in and try to keep up appearances, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
There's a sad moment in an interview where they're talking
about their engagement early on, and some reporter, I don't
know if they were in the Inner Circle, but some
reporters says, you know, oh, so you're in love blah
blah blah, And then the Diana character says, oh, yes,
we're in love, and then the Chuck says whatever that means,
(18:18):
ech dies or something like that, and it's just it's
not a good look. It's a cringe. But yeah, yeah,
you're right there. It's a political alliance as much as
a relationship. The idea of the idea of marrying and
being in a relationship at all for the purposes of
romance is relatively recent in our history, or it's rather
(18:39):
it's relatively recent for it to be a commonplace thing,
and so the old laws or the old mores probably
still hold in a lot of royal families, you know,
and it gets nasty. The public is loving this. Princess
Diana has a tell all interview with a BBC, which
is very rare for the royal family and all because,
(19:01):
as you said, Matt, they function under many constrictions or
I don't know, traditions about how they're supposed to be
regarded or speak to anyone who was again outside of
their inner circle.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Absolutely, And that interview was with Martin Basheer, and that's
a very memorable interview if you were alive then because
in it she talks about all kinds of details. She
again she talks about how she was unfaithful, she talks
about Charles's affair, and she has a very famous quote
that she gave while in that interview and she said,
(19:35):
there were three of us in this marriage, so it
was a bit crowded. And to that end she's talking
about Camilla Parker Bowles. It's pretty tough. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And again to Ben's point about how marriage for love
wasn't the thing, I mean, these two were completely paired
up for political reasons between these families, and Charles and
Kamla Parker Bowles had dated like in the seventies, like
they already had a relationship, and then when he got
paired off with Diana, she ended up marrying her, you know,
a former boyfriend of hers, and then they kind of reconnected.
(20:07):
So it's sort of like it was set up to fail.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, but Chuck did choose Diana over her sister, right,
I mean, that's one of the first things we set up. Now,
I guess I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I'm just saying the whole system of arranged marriages is
a little bit yeah kinky.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
There are people would argue that the whole system of
marriage in general is has problems here here yeah, hey,
I said there were people who would Okay, it's very
respectful and diplomatic, but yeah, you're there. These are great points. Still,
despite whatever weird traditions or cultural brainwashing may be in
(20:47):
place in these sorts of systems, you can't change the
fact that people are people, and these people are parents. Right,
so they have they have their divorce, but that doesn't
mean that just because they're not spouses doesn't mean they
can't be good parents. So after the divorce, despite all
(21:07):
the you know, bad blood, it's water under the bridge.
Charles and Diana worked together to be decent parents to
their kids after the divorce, and continue to do so
up until Diana's death in August nineteen ninety seven. I
didn't know how old she was at the time. She
was thirty six. Yeah, I just I guess I thought
(21:31):
she was older, because you know, she was she had
done so much with her life, because you know, she
didn't have to have a job or a mortgage or
student loans, do loans, or pay for insurance, or didn't
have to do anything.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
No, not really, it's so funny to me too. I
think to your point as well, Ben, that she's lifted
up as being this model person. But you have to
keep in mind that she was a model aristocrat who
had unlimited resources. So all it took was a little
bit of a streak of kindness that any people in
her position could have done. But the fact is most
(22:10):
of them just don't. So she was kind of like
the exception to the rule because she was an incredibly
wealthy person who very openly was kind to poor people
as opposed to it not seeming like just like a
tax write off. She was very much in the field
and visiting hospitals and all of this stuff. So I'm
just saying I'm not diminishing. I don't think you are
either been at all any of the good works that
she did. But it certainly easier to hold her up
(22:33):
as a shining example of someone of that station, because
a lot of them are, you know, pretty self serving
and awful.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
No matter what she existed in that framework, she did good.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And she was Oh and some of the most influential
work she did was making the royal family look good
for the people who support their existence.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So it was. It was as in the people of
the United Kingdom, right, yes, right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Right, well yeah, and all of the other territories who
also must at least tip their hat.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
To Can you imagine growing up in a council estate
and walking by Buckingham Palace. It takes some real, some
real well thought out rhetoric to make that feel like
a good idea, right for society. But that's you know what,
that's my opinion. I don't mean to dump on people's
choice of tradition. We will return after the break because
(23:31):
we have gotten to the pivotal night, the last night
that Diana, Princess of Wales spent on Earth. Travel back
with us folks It's August of nineteen ninety seven. Diana's
thirty six. She's dating a forty one year old man
(23:52):
named Dodi Fayid. He is the son of a man
named Mohammed al Fayed, a billionaire, the former owner of
Herod's department store. As a matter of fact, he owns
a lot of stuff. He owns a yacht that Dodi
and Diana are hanging out on and they leave the
yacht kind of a vacation excursion thing, and they arrive
(24:14):
in Paris.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And they're hanging out in Sardinia and they decide to
take off. So Diana leaves in a private jet earlier
on that same day, and she arrives in Paris with
Dody and they're just planning to stop over briefly on
their way to London. In Paris, and you know, they
spent nine days together on that yacht and they were
(24:36):
hanging out in the French and Italian riviera, just having
a really good time together, spending some time. And you
can see lots of photos surrounding this time of them
from paparazzi and the like, because you know, whenever, even
though she was outside of the of royalty, she was
still one of the most photographed humans on the planet. Now,
(24:56):
their plan was to stay at the Ritz Paris. This
is another property like all the Herods that Dodie's father owned,
and they dined at a place called Ritz El Espardon.
I don't know how to say that correcton and Diana.
We know this unfortunately because of autopsy and because of
(25:17):
you know, just records. But Diana had dover soul vegetable
tempora and an asparagus omelet, and that ladies and gentlemen
would prove to be her final meal.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
They were continually hunted by the press. If you've ever
read Watershipped Down, there's a fantastic mythology that the rabbits
and that story have about being the prince with a
thousand dedamies, you know, And they were in a kind
of watership down situation. They were always being pursued by
(25:51):
serious journalists, by tabloid journalists, by freelance photographers and so on.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It was terrifying. That's a terrifying thing. Yeah, I mean,
I can't say that I know what that's like, but
I can imagine because you're using the word hunted. Yeah,
and I would agree that that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Sometimes they'll say hounded, but it's a synonym at that point, right.
So now we return to a man named Henri Paul,
an employee of Al Fayed's Paris Ritz. He is the
deputy head of security at the hotel, and he has
been entrusted with the task of driving a rented black
nineteen ninety four Mercedes Bins S two eighty to elude
(26:31):
the press. The idea is this, that they're going to
send a decoy car out first, and that the photographers
and the press gang will follow that car, and then
the chauffeur, Paul, will take Dodi and Diana to an
(26:52):
apartment owned by Dowdy's father nearby, and they will spend
the night in that apartment, not in the Ritz, before
they continue to London. So this car, the car they're
actually in, has four passengers, the driver, Dody and Diana
in the back, and the guy Trevor Rhys Jones, a
member of the Fayed family security team, riding shotgun. It's late,
(27:15):
it's around twelve, it's after twelve twelve, twenty twelve, twenty
three or so. They're they're driving, and it turns out
the decoy did not work as well as they want.
The press is onto them. Picture people in motorcycles like
hauling their keysters off and swerve in Tokyo drift style,
(27:36):
while there's another person on the back of the motorcycle
leaning out at weird right angles to try to catch
the Mercedes in action, hoping against hope that one of
the tented windows is for some reason rolled down. Because
if you can get these people's faces in a photograph,
(27:57):
you have you know, you have paid your rent for
a month or so, you know what I mean, Because
unlike the people in the Mercedes, they had jobs and
mortgages stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Do you guys remember the Paparazzi mission and that Grand
Theft auto game. I think it was the one in
Los Santos, the most recent one. Yeah, you had to ride,
you had to do some very similar stuff. It was
like all about you know, literally stalking people on you know,
tailing them in cars, riding alongside with motorcycles that you
do in a game like that. But yeah, I mean
it's really really nasty stuff, right, Yeah, like more than
(28:32):
just invasion of privacy, literally putting people at risk.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Absolutely, which comes into play later because the driver loses
control on Repaul loses control of the Mercedes at the
entrance to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The car strikes
the right hand wall of the tunnel. It swerves to
the left of the two lane road before it collides
head on with one of the pillars, I think the
(28:58):
thirteenth pillars supporting the roof of the tunnel. At this time,
it's traveling about one hundred and five kilometers per hour
sixty five miles an hour. The reports will say between
sixty and seventy. The initial reports said one hundred and
five miles per hour, but surprise, surprise, somebody was lying
to sell more papers in.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
An enclosed space. No less, that kind of speed as
bad news.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You can see photographs of the Mercedes and it looks ugly.
You would think that everyone in there died instantly, especially
people in the front. Witnesses reported seeing smoke, and there
were a ton of witnesses. They also reported that the
area was swarming with photographers and they were all over
(29:44):
the car in motorcycles and other automobiles. Before the Mercedes
enters the tunnel. This meant that as the victims lay
in the vehicle, the press actually arrives before any emergency survey.
And this is where, this is where we can look
at the media in an antagonistic way, because a lot
(30:08):
of these folks, a lot of these photographers panicked. They
ran to the crash, you know, drop their motorcycles, run
out of their cars, and they start tugging on the doors,
trying to save the lives of these again, human people
who have just been in a terrible car accident. Within
other photographers stand back, waiting, hoping against hope that someone
(30:33):
pulls open that door of that Mercedes. Because sure, you
can pay rent for a month or two if you
get if you get someone's face in a photo, but
if you get the face of a dying princess, you
might be set. I mean, that might be a book
deal for you.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, which is horrific.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, that's grim all around, because there's gonna be hope,
you hope that there's a certain amount of guilt on it,
anyone who was pursuing that vehicle once once it crashes,
and the feeling of oh no, I need to help,
what have I done? Kind of thing. But you're right,
the self preservation in this self, the desire to, like
(31:13):
you said, pay a mortgage, something we hit on early
on in this it's such a strong desire, strong need
to you know, pay for rent, pay for whatever, to survive,
that it overtakes and that's what happens.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Or maybe they were just they were just competitive, you know,
it was a cutthroat industry. They didn't want other people
to get the shot.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Could be that too, either way.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Police later go on to seize film from seven different
photographers on this scene. Six of them are French, one
of them's from Macedonia. The cops ultimately take twenty rolls
of film, which have not been seen as morbid.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
As it may sound, kind of a good thing to
have so many photographs snapped of a scene as it happened,
as it took place in terms of solving the coman
out that it was any mystery as to what happened,
but right in terms of like evidence that could be
entered into the you.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Know, that's a good that's a very good point. You know,
we don't know how much of it was kept from
the public. We just have in this case of the
confiscated stills. We just have the statements of the people
who said their stuff was stolen.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
But there are a few images that you can find.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yes, there are there are you can see the car
when it's on the back of a tow truck.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, well, and there are a couple shots. This is
the one I'm just gonna shoot. Oh, there's there are
a couple of shots in particular that look to be
from the a car that is in front of their
vehicle that's shooting in and you can see the driver
and Trevor Reese Jones. Yeah, and you can kind of
(32:44):
see Princess Diana's the back of her head, but you
can see just from there that there's flash photography happening
in the vehicle in front of them.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, flash photography. That's gonna be that's gonna be a
huge part too, because we have to remember this took
place in the late nineties.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So what happens.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
We've got the scene of this car accident swarming with photographers,
some helping, some not, and where are the police?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So it takes the police ten minutes to arrive, and
then the ambulance five minutes after that, So fifteen minutes
and Henry Paul and Dodi Fayed were both dead or dying.
They died at the scene. Princess Diana was conscious and
she was in shock. She was removed from the car
(33:35):
at one am, and when she was moved, she went
into cardiac arrest, but was successfully resuscitated there on the scene.
She was in the ambulance by one eighteen and left
the scene around one forty one, and then finally she
made it to the hospital at around two six am.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Fayed and Paul were both declared dead at the scene
of the accident. Their bodies were not taken to a hospital.
They were taken to a mortuary in Paris, the Institute
Medico Legal Diana's internal injuries. Although she looked relatively okay
on the exterior, her internal injuries were extensive. Her heart
(34:15):
had been physically displaced to the right side of the
chest from impact, and this tore the pulmonary vein and
the pericardium. This means that despite lengthy resuscitation attempts, including
internal cardiac massage and emergency room work, the Princess of
(34:35):
Wales passed away at four a m on August thirty first.
An anaesthesiologist named Bruno Rio announced her death at six
am at a news conference held at the hospital, and
thus it came to pass that by dawn, bodyguard Trevor
Rhys Jones was the only survivor of the accident, and.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
As you can imagine, an investigation ensued, a large investigation,
and one person who will become one of the primary
I guess sources of information and speculation after this is
Mohammed al Fayed, Dody's father. He came forth, He came
(35:18):
out publicly and stated that his son, Dodi and Diana
were both murdered by the British royal family, and he
started using all of his influence to try and find
whatever evidence he could find that this was the case.
A billionaire is now facing the royal family, which is.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Honestly going to be one of the few forces that
would be effective in presenting a counter argument. Yeah, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Absolutely, And eventually al fay d totals up around one
hundred and seventy five very specific claims that support his
belief that it was indeed an inside job by the
royal family.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
The French government follows up on each of Fayed's claims
al Fayed's claims to the best of their ability. This
quickly becomes the most expensive road accident investigation in all
of French history, counting the time before the invention of
the automobile. Autopsy reports from the mortuary mentioned earlier found
(36:25):
that the driver on Repall had been impaired while operating
the vehicle. At point one seven to five grams of
alcohol per milliliter of blood. He was around three point
five times over the legal limit for driving in France. Additionally,
there were antidepressants in his system if you believe that autopsy.
(36:47):
There was also paint on the car which showed that
the Mercedes had made grazing impact with a white vehicle
later identified partially due to the chemical composition of the
paint as a Fiat Una. This French judicial investigation last
eighteen months. It concludes in nineteen ninety nine, and it says,
(37:08):
here's what happened. We looked over what you're claiming, mister
al fa Ed. The crash was caused by the chauffeur Henrepall.
He lost control of the vehicle at high speed because
he was intoxicated. We have made a six thousand page
report on this and someone's like, oh, cool, publish it
and they're like none, Yeah, they never did. But British
(37:34):
law has to be involved too. This is a former
member of the government, really, so The way British law
works is it requires an inquest to be held whenever
there's a sudden or unexplained death, and this leads us
to something called Operation Paget or Operation Paget, depending on
(37:55):
how you want to go with it. The Metropolitan Police
prepare a report eight hundred and thirty two pages long.
This one is published, it's made available to the public.
You can read it now. It has sixteen chapters. It
goes into what they see as the sixteen broad categories
that al Fayed is raising when he says there's something wrong.
They were essentially looking at the stuff that al Fay
(38:16):
had said would be inconsistent with an accident, a pure
chaotic interaction of chance and tragedy, or consistent with MI
six having ordered the assassination. And after this operation concluded,
they handed it over to a British inquest and six
years after demise, Michael Burgess, who was then the coroner
(38:39):
for the Queen's Household. The British Queen's Household held the
inquest two thousand and eight. Inquest wraps up a United
Kingdom jury with eleven members, finds that Henri Paul, the
driver of the Mercedes at the time of the crash
was culpable due to his gross negligence and that yes,
his blood alcohol level was cartoonishly high, three times higher
(39:01):
than a reasonable driver should have. Yeah, and they also
found that paparazzi, specifically photographers, were partially responsible for the
fatal car accident by driving dangerously, driving recklessly, by possibly
distracting an already inebriated driver with flash photography, which goes
(39:23):
on to be incredibly important. The coroner for this was
a guy named Lord Justice Scott Baker, and he described
these verdicts as the equivalent of manslaughter in a criminal court,
which is important. That means someone dies due to maybe negligence,
maybe you don't have the best intentions for them, but
you're not trying to kill them.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
At least, yes, And in this case is the driver
who wasn't trying to kill them as well as the paparazzi.
So no one was like fully attempting to murder anyone, right,
that's what he's saying.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, the French police cleared photographers are being directly linked
to it. But again, the Royal Court of Justice in
London heard multiple eyewitnesses talk about blocking cars that were
allegedly being used to try to slow down the Mercedes
or funnel it, you know, the way like you funnel
(40:19):
cattle to a slaughterhouse, into certain roots that they can predict.
They found the same thing. As far as the death
of dol de Fayed. They said, you know, it's drunk driver.
It's a drunk driver. It's a tragedy. The paparazzi is unethical,
but this is not murder. However, it should be no
surprise that some people still believe there's more to the story.
(40:43):
Quite a few people in Britain, here, in the US, Canada,
and around the world are convinced that the official explanation
is either somehow inaccurate or purposely a cover up. More
than twenty years after the fact, this conspiracy seems to
continue growing. It raises some fascinating points. We'll get to
them after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
What if Diana's car accident wasn't an accident at all?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, for people who believe that Princess Diana's death was
the result of a homicide or a conspiracy rather than
an accident, it goes all the way to Buckingham Palace
to Royalty, and you know, you wonder well, why in
the world would somebody want to take you know, the
former Princess Diana out. She's no longer in your hair,
she's no longer doing anything, she's not representing you anymore.
(41:40):
Why would you want to take her out?
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh, this is so Game of thrones. There's the idea
that Diana was secretly pregnant with do de Fayette's kid,
as well as engaged to him, and that the British
Queen was, wait for it, royally poded by the idea
of a Muslim child being associated.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
With the family as a racist angleton somehow, yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Somehow they were. They were like, look, it's all well
and good, we live in an integrated society, but no
Muslims in the inner circle. There's not a lot of
evidence to support that. It's more like an attitude people
assume the royal family would have.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Then there's the one that Charles needed his ex wife
dead to somehow clear the way for this new marriage.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
And many of these claims would have faded off of
the mainstream radar probably were it not for Dodie's father,
Muhammad al Fayed. He remains convinced to this day in
twenty nineteen that the British Royal family or the forces
under their command murdered his son. There's something interesting here,
(42:50):
because you know, we have to be very human again
and remember that no parents should ever have to bury
their child. So of course you want to find for
such a horrific catastrophe to occur. So you'll hear people say,
sometimes diplomatically, sometimes in a somewhat callous manner, that this
(43:12):
man is just grasping its straws because he can't believe
that something as simple and chaotic as an accident could
have taken his child's life. But then we see these
strange breadcrumbs people have put together, and we're going to
give you a couple of those to hear and to
hear what you think, and we'd love to hear from
(43:34):
you afterwards as well, to let us and your fellow
listeners know where you find yourself in this story. Diana,
Princes of Wales, may have predicted her own death, at
least that's what her former butler Paul Burrell believes. When
he came forward in two thousand and three, he claimed
that the princess had given him a note a dated
(43:55):
signed note ten months before death as an insurance policy,
was written two months after her nineteen ninety six divorce
from Chuck. Diana claimed in the note she believed there
was a plan for an accident in my car, brake
failure and serious head injury to clear the wave for
her ex husband to marry their son's nanny, Tiggy leg Bork.
(44:20):
This letter is not universally accepted. It's got a lot
of press. Came forward in a book that the butler wrote,
But there are people who will claim that Burrell, as
her longtime butler, knew her handwriting well and was capable
of forging it.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, and at that point, it's who do you believe?
That's really what it comes down to you.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I wanted to ask, you know, what would a DNA
test be worthwhile on that thing, because I would assume
it doesn't necessarily prove anything since they were probably in
close contact.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
That's interesting in whoever has handled it since then, who
knows how it was kept? But also, you know handwriting analysis.
I haven't actually seen a full investigation into it.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. There are other there are other
big claims too.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Well, yeah, well, just the last thing with that is
that just because she was she had some fears about
her ex husband with this other person, does not mean
that he killed her for this reason. And I don't.
It's one of those tough it's a tough thing.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Just because her personal belief was there, even if it
was her sincere personal belief, it doesn't mean that that's
what happened.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
That's a fantastic point. I think that's something that many
of us accidentally clays over. But if we're thinking critically,
then we have to we have to acknowledge that. We
also have to acknowledge a lot of the I would
say the bulk of the conspiratorial claims on all fa
Ed's part concern secret connections to m I six the
(45:57):
Intelligent Services is are is essentially that the royal family
wanted his, his son, and and Princess Diana dead, but
that you know, the Queen's not going to be out
there with a sniper rifle. You know, Prince Charles isn't
gonna show up in like a weird mech or something
(46:21):
or pop tires. So they say am I six did
their dirty work.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Well, yes, and it let's just let's game here, really, fast.
If you are going to murder a former princess and
her lover, you cannot make it not look like an
accident because it will be such a high profile case
immediately no matter how the death occurs. If if you
(46:48):
were going to take out a princess or royalty, you
would have to make it look like an accident.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
So that's that's one of the other big things that
comes into play here because you got people talking about
I mean spy literally like the British people paying basically
with their taxes to have the princess murder.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
But are there any theories surrounding like it with the
paparazzis or plants and they were trying to distract the
driver and trying to force them off the road, Like
do we have any concrete was there, you know, supposedly
any manipulation done with the car, any like tampering with
I mean, I've never really seen anything like any of
those claims.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Well, well, the claim is you don't have to tamper
with the car if you've got the driver on your payroll, right.
That's that's when he goes back to Henri Paul and
you know, did he or did he not have any
kind of contacts with the world of intelligence or with
you know, people who conduct espionage.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Theorists as well as his friends and people who personally
knew him, will claim that he had extensive contacts in
the world of intelligence and spycraft. And they'll claim this
because of the nature of his employment at the RITZ.
The Ritz is a place where important people hang out.
It's good to have access there behind the curtain. Was
he in the pay of an intelligence agency? The evidence
(48:07):
to support this theory, or that purports to support this theory,
comes mainly from an unusual amount of money that was
found in his possession at the time of his death,
as well as his personal wealth, which doesn't People will
argue he makes more money than his position would imply,
and then the argument follows he was essentially framed for this,
(48:29):
or possibly drugged or had the results of his autopsy doctored.
I'm sorry, I couldn't help it to.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
The idea that he was not drunk of his own volition.
But he was not drunk of his own free will,
right right?
Speaker 1 (48:42):
So another and his friends and family said he liked
a beer, but he you know, he would love to
have a night on town with the boys, but he
wasn't like a problematic drinker. Another allegation concerns the reliability
of the blood tests that were carried out. The French
investigator's conclusion that he was drunk was made on an
(49:03):
analysis of blood samples, and this was according to a
September nineteen ninety seven report. A British pathologist hired by
al Fayed challenged these results and the French authorities carried
out more tests, but every time they said, we see
that he is at approximately three three and a half
(49:25):
times over the limit and taking antidepressants. That's the thing.
This is a point counterpoint opinion war between al Fayed
and the French government, or as he would say, the
royal family. There's another there's a more interesting angle though
than Henri Paul. We're not going to get the answers
(49:48):
for that, but maybe we can find out more from
Richard Tomlinson. Very interesting character. Reminds me of some of
the kind of wild West oss dudes we talked about
with the US and Intelligence services. Tomlinson worked for six
he was a He's someone who gave testimony to the
French inquiry in May of nineteen ninety nine. He said
(50:12):
under oath. Mind you six was involved in the crash.
The Security Service has documentation which will help you figure
out what's going on. You have to ask them. Furthermore.
I believe that Henri Paul was working for Security Services
maybe six, I don't know. They were working for someone
(50:32):
one of the spook squads, and that this Trevor Rees
Jones guy was a contact for British intelligence. He goes
on to say I six was monitoring Diana before her death.
He told Mohammad al Fayed himself that Henri Paul was
an I six agent, and he said to the guy,
(50:53):
he said, Al Fay ed the death of Princess Diana
and your son mirror's plans. I saw a few years ago,
back in nineteen ninety two for the assassination of then
President of Serbia, Slobodon Mololsovich. They used the strobe light
to blind his chauffeur. That was their plan.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Wow, and it's crazy too. You're talking about the strobe
light idea. That image you were talking about earlier in
the show, that is presumably one of these paparazzi images
that was taken through the front windshield of the car
incredibly close. It does look like you can see the
flashbulb in the driver's eyes, but he also has a
very odd look on his face, like a little doped
(51:37):
up looking.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I would concur with your assessment there, and it
does definitely feel strange. You got to remember that the
lens could be you know, pretty telephotos, so they could
Maybe the vehicle isn't as close as it appears. But
that flash, and that's the big thing here. The flash
is troublesome no matter how far away they are, if
(51:59):
it's coming directly in front of them.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
And if you're a photographer, if you know anything about photography,
you probably wouldn't use a flash in that situation, would you.
What do you think from that far away? Like, why
would you use a flash in a tunnel? Like I mean,
I guess you would. If you're moving really fast, you
might need to use a flash to get to capture
an image and not be blurry. Yeah, still seems odd
to use it from so far away on glass, because
(52:23):
if you're shooting through you know a window flash is
gonna reflect and mess up your shot, right.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
But ultimately your goal is to illuminate the interior of
the vehicle, right.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
So initially m I six doesn't deign this worthy of response,
but a source in I six later confirms that there were.
In fact, this is interesting. Here's their problem with with
the guy's testimony. They say, no, of course, we had
no plans for that. Our own government cleared us after
(52:53):
their investigation. And this guy is lying about this crazy
Kokammi plant caused car accidents through strobe light weaponization, and
they're like, oh, you never did that, and they're like, well, yeah,
we did, but it wasn't with Slovodam Melosevich. So clearly
you can't believe this guy at all. That was a different,
sketchy European dude that we were trying to kill. Anyway,
(53:16):
this interview was over, so Tomlinson's claims were never officially corroborated.
It's just off the record six and alleged I six
members backing him up. However, he was imprisoned in nineteen
ninety seven for breaking the Official Secrets Act. He sent
a snopsis of a book that he wanted to write
about his career with Six to an Australian publisher. He
(53:39):
served six months of a one year sentence, got paroled,
and then immediately skipped the country. The inquiry concluded by
dismissing his claims. They said it was an embellishment. It's
not a lie, but an embellishment, and he said, you know,
they said furthermore, his embellishment is dangerous because it's one
of the primary reasons people have these theories still that
(54:02):
the British elite murdered one of their own. Tomlinson was
also arrested by French authorities in two thousand and six
when they were doing their inquiry into the death. French
police at the time seized computer files and personal papers
from his home in can and then eventually kind of
(54:24):
got away. They said he wasn't worth prosecuting. In two
thousand and seven, he went ahead and published the book
The Big Breach. People describe him as kind of an
arrogant James Bond esque character.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, I'd say that seems about Ryan basing everything we know.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
So he was allowed to return to Britain in two
thousand and nine get royalties from his book. They dropped
the threat of charges against him as long as he
had sort of a gentleman's agreement to stop exposing the
skeletons in the six Closet. They were like, stop talking
to the press, stop talking about your old job, which
(55:01):
you know naturally leads us to conclude that he probably
had something on him. You know what I mean. They
didn't know what else you might.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Have, absolutely, because they basically just said, just leave it alone.
We'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Let's just stop. That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Let's do Let's do one Let's do one more thing.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Okay, you say one more thing.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
Let's talk about that Fiat you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Heck, yeah, Fiat, that white, that white paint, real smoke,
show those things.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
When I see white Fiat in print, I can't help
but think of the Starbucks beverage, the flat white, because
Fiat looks like flat on paper.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
That's a I didn't know that was a of a
flat white.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
No, Is it just milk? No, It's like an espresso
with milk on top of those like a little dot
of milk kind of So what about that white Fiat.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Well, there were witnesses who were there, obviously, there are
a lot of people who were in that tunnel at
the time, and seven of them said they saw a
white Fiat Uno, the one we mentioned earlier that may
or may not have made contact with a vehicle and
a motorcycle speeding out of the tunnel just seconds after
the crash, And there was a lot of testing afterwards.
(56:09):
The forensics basically confirmed that a white Fiat Uno collided
with the Mercedes carrying Diana Undti and everyone else, and
this collision was definitely a significant factor in the crash.
Now that's big, Yeah, that's really big. And then there
are other eyewitnesses who told the police that they saw
a powerful flash of light just seconds before the crash,
(56:30):
before the not they crash itself, like the impact flash
impact flash. Think about it this way, flash swerve impact, right,
which is you know that blinding that we were talking about,
which it most certainly would in a darkened tunnel like that,
if you had essentially headlights coming right at you all
of a sudden, there would be a blinding effect.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Here's the thing. The police say they have been unable
to locate either the vehicles, either the Fiat or the motorcycle,
or identify the driver or the passengers. However, there's a
guy Jean Paul James Andenson who is closely associated with
this white Fiat Oh and we should we should point
(57:12):
out they might sound strange. They were able to find
a specific make, model, of car based just on a pigment.
They were able to find that because it was a
factory pigment from Fiat, so they were able to match samples.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah. Together.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
There are things like that that are occurring all over
manufacturing these days, where you could easily identify a certain vehicle,
a certain table even, or a pencil or any of that.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Still, don't print out ransom notes on your printer.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
And he's supposed to use this magazine cutouts. That's what
you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Any printer that, any printer that you can commercially buy,
is going to have identifying pixels that are there for
a reason. The world's probably a slightly better place that
they're there. I'm not totally against it, to be honest,
only slightly, slightly slightly. But so back to this guy,
(58:04):
James Anderson, Jean Paul James Anderson, Uh, he is linked
with this. He is linked with this White Fiat. People
who believe there was a conspiracy, no homicide, are convinced
that he was intimately involved with this. He had been
threatening to write an expose a and explosive book. He
(58:27):
had links with the Secret Service. Apparently he met with
an author named Frederic Dard to discuss this book he said,
would blow the lid off a conspiracy. And then he
was found in a torched car, allegedly with two bullet
wounds in his head. Wow, and the authorities ruled that
it was suicide.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
Dard also died.
Speaker 2 (58:51):
How do you torch your own car?
Speaker 3 (58:54):
You mean the junction man?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:56):
So the so he and the author both died.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Yes, yep. And Mohammed al Fayed urged police to reopen
the investigation into Anderson's death. But at this point it
didn't happen. And you know this, this story goes on
and on and on. Like the the British public. If
you were listening to this in the United Kingdom, you
(59:19):
are a member of the most one of the most
heavily surveiled populations on the planet. There are more closed
circuit television cameras or CCTV camps in the UK per
person than there are anywhere else on the planet. So
why didn't these catch more of the accident? That's one
(59:40):
al fay Add's questions. It's a fair question. The problem
is that's that number we just gave you about, you know,
being the most highly observed or surveilled. It's it's tricky.
It's number of cameras per person, but most of those
are private, so they're not looking out on the street.
They're looking out at the door of the business. The
off license are whatever, which is their name for liquor
(01:00:02):
stores that I that you know, so that they can
identify a burglar. They're not there to monitor traffic.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Yeah, the traffic monitors come much later. And we're still
talking nineteen ninety seven, so you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
So without without going into the entire we would have
to do a mini series on all the screwy things
about this tragedy. Without going into it entirely, I have
to say, still, there's one big problem with this, which
is that there are other more certain ways to kill anyone.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, that wouldn't be plastered all over the news and
have a gazillion photographs of it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
What do you mean, what an airplane crash?
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
But okay, yeah, there would still be photos everywhere, but
you wouldn't be able to prove it would be it
would be easier to just say, oh, it's an accident,
I guess maybe, or I.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Mean, you know the classic tales all this time movie devices,
fake somebody's suicide. There was strife in this relationship. They
could have written off a princess die suicide.
Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Yeah, say, I don't know, execute someone with bullets in
a car and then burn that vehicle.
Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Also true, and still not as weird as the guy
who uh got who got as fixated locked up in
a duffel bag.
Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Suicide, Yeah, suicide is a huge cause of death for
intelligence service operatives, it appears. But but yeah, I wonder
about that too. It seems a little bit not not
to be automatically dismissive. It seems first blush, kind of
(01:01:43):
Rube Goldberg esque, you know, unnecessarily complicated. It's why play
mouse trap? Why introduce all these other variables? There are
other people on the street, it's a public street. Why
flash strobe lights or other devices at people just in
the hopes that there's a chance that it causes an accident,
(01:02:03):
and then, furthermore, hope that there's a chance that of
the four people in the car, one of the ones
who dies will be the person you are quote unquote
trying to get like, I can see the sides of this,
I can see how the details are screwy, But what
do you guys think.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Yeah, I'm definitely with you. Oukham's razor is pretty darn
strong with this. Just the pressure that the proparazzi was
putting on the driver who was intoxicated or at least
his blood, especially when they tested his eye fluid, because
originally they were testing just you know, blood, they took
(01:02:41):
blood signals, they test that for blood alcohol. But then
they were using the I forget what they call. It's
not ocular fluid, but it's your eyes, and that gave
an even truer or in even harder to fake or introduce,
like falsely alcohol right because of the way it travels
through the capillaries and everything to get to your eye. Anyway,
(01:03:04):
once once that occurred, you can all in my mind
he was definitely drunk. The driver on re and the
paparazzi were definitely taking flash photographs, and they were definitely speeding,
and you put all that together, in my mind, you
get accident and and that to me is really all
you need. However, it's not that I'm not intrigued by
(01:03:24):
some of the some of the claims that Muhammad alf
I had had. They all though seem to be coming
or stemming from that Tomlinson character has he still has
the ghost apologies. Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
It's like you said, Ben, I mean, it's grief manifests
itself in all kinds of ways, and like you said, Matt,
one of them can be I need someone to blame
for this, and you can. It can become an obsession.
Sometimes there's something at the other end of that obsession.
Sometimes it's just an obsession, and it's like you're chasing ghosts,
you know, you're punching it shadows it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Also, regardless of what we think about this personally, it
also absolutely does not help that for all all virtual, practical,
forget it all literal purposes, the royal family is above
the law, you know what I mean. Yeah, there are
(01:04:19):
no consequences and the you know, if if the pr
turns bad for them, they can just have like a
Megan Markle take over the celebrity news for a while
and then some of the underlings and m I six
will you know, will take the fall for it. Yeah,
(01:04:43):
this is life without consequences. That's so it's it's pretty
It absolutely doesn't mean that they were like, hey, why
let's fake a suicide and then it doesn't mean it's
one turned around is like, no, let's be weird with it.
It just means that. It just means that, unlike the
(01:05:03):
vast majority of people on this planet, they would not
go to jail for a murder. They just wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Yeah, they would have plausible deniability no matter what.
Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Am I five and m I six do have licenses
to kill. Remember we did an episode on that that
was really depressing.
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Not just a clever catchphrase. Yeah, it turns out.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
And we're no different. But thank you for checking out
our show today. Folks, let us know where were you
when you heard about the death of do de fay Ed, Henri,
Paul and Diana and Princess of Wells. Do you think
it's an accident? Do you think there's more to the story.
If so, what and why? And that's our classic episode
(01:05:45):
for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Find this in the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook, x and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Call our number. It's one eight three three std w DYK.
Speaker 6 (01:06:01):
Leave a voicemail and if you have more to say,
we can't wait to hear from you at our good
old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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