August 1, 2026 • 18 mins
George Noory and Coast guest host Richard Syrett explore some of the biggest mysteries around famous rock musicians, like the tragedies connected to Led Zeppelin being the result of a curse from the occultist Alistair Crowley, if Elvis Presley was murdered because of his manager's gambling debts, and Buddy Holly's girlfriend having a dream about the plane crash that killed him and Ritchie Valens.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back George Nora along with our friend Richard
Sarah to talking about his book Tales from the Rock
and Roll Twilight Zone. The foward to his book is
written by our friend Jim Harold from Campfire Stories. By
the way, Richard, there's a song that the real Paul
McCartney US now eighty four years old, refuses to sing,
and it was John Lennon's. Imagine, because he wants to
(00:26):
continue to pay homage to John, he won't sing it.
Have you heard that story?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
No, I wasn't aware of that. So he won't sing
it because he just thinks that's there's only one person
that can sing that, and that's John Lennon.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I guess jud it's John Lennon's song.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
That's right, Yeah, absolutely it is.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's pretty good to honor for him. Our senior producer
Tom Danhuis is a big led Zeppelin fan. You've looked
into Jimmy Page's fascination with Alister Crowley.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh, indeed, Jimmy Page wasn't just asually interested in Alistair Crowley.
I mean he became one of the world's largest private
collectors of Crowley artifacts, books, manuscripts, paintings, ritual objects. He
even opened an occult bookstore in London called the Equinox
(01:18):
and which contained all of Crowley's books and et cetera.
But then the prize possession for Jimmy Page is when
he purchased Alistair Crowley's house on the shores of Loch Ness,
Boluskin House. And this was not just any ordinary country estate.
(01:38):
It was the place where Crowley had attempted the infamous
a Brammelain ritual or a Brammelain operation. And according to
a cult tradition, that ritual involves summoning and eventually dismissing
dangerous spiritual entities before establishing contact with one's holy guardian angel.
(02:03):
Now he wouldn't refer to them as demons, but I'm
an Orthodox Christian. I would refer to these entities as demons.
So the story goes that Crowley abandoned this ritual before
properly closing it. In other words, he didn't properly bind
these entities once they came through the portal, and he
(02:24):
got called off to Paris and left the house. And
as I say, he didn't bind these spirits, and so
he sort of left this door open. Now, Jimmy Page
spent surprising, a little, surprisingly little time at Boleskin House
when he bought it. But strange stories started to happen.
(02:46):
Visitors reported oppressive atmospheres, unexplained sounds, odd accidents, And you know,
whether you believe any of that is another matter. But
now look at what happened led Zeppelin. Robert Plant and
his wife nearly die in a horrific car crash in Greece,
and then tragically, their young son, Karric dies unexpectedly. John
(03:10):
Bonham drinks himself to death. Jimmy Page becomes addicted to heroin,
Kenneth Anger publicly claims to have cursed him. The band collapses. Now,
am I saying that Crowley cursed led Zeppelin? No, But
you look at fame, drugs, alcohol, exhaustion. You know, those
(03:34):
things explain a great deal. But here's what I find interesting.
Jimmy Page wasn't simply fascinated by dark symbolism. He immersed
himself in it. He surrounded himself with it, He collected it,
he lived inside it. And I think if history teaches
us something, it's if you spend enough time knocking on
certain doors, Eventually something might answer.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're right about that. And one of the fascinating in
Aslick's all of this was the death of Elvis Presently
in nineteen seventy seven. Died at the age of forty two.
You think something sinister might have happened there, don't you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think it is quite likely. You know, it's interesting
his autopsy was sealed by his family in nineteen seventy seven,
and it's for fifty years. Well the fiftieth anniversary is
next year, twenty twenty seven, so it'll be interesting to
see what mysteries are still in that autopsy. But here's
(04:29):
the interesting thing. One he died and he was found
face down in the shag carpeting of his bathroom on
the second floor of Graceland in Memphis. There was a
rush to judgment. The medical examiner for Shelby County, where
Memphis is located, ruled almost immediately that Elvis had died
(04:51):
of a heart attack, and this was before receiving any
of the toxicology reports from Well. There were three separate
toxicol reports. Two of them reported that there were only
therapeutic levels of prescribed medication in Elvis in his body,
in his blood therapeutic levels, and he was on a
(05:13):
number of prescribed medications. He had insomnia, he had constipation,
he had glaucoma. So there's no question that Elvis took
a lot of prescribed drugs, but nothing there that would
explain his death. The third toxicology report was a real outlier.
It was conducted by Biosciences Lab in California. And let
(05:35):
me first say I should I need to give a
lot of credit here to someone who I interviewed, who's
in the book, and I know he's a great friend
of Coast to Coast, and that's Steve Hugh Bainey. He
did a lot of amazing, amazing research and his book
Who Murdered Elvis? I don't know how many hundreds of
thousands of copies he sold. But he pointed out that
(05:58):
this toxicology report from Biosciences Lab in California claimed that
there was eleven times the lethal dose of codeine in
Elvis's system. Eleven yes, but that doesn't make sense because
Elvis was allergic to codeine. Everybody knew Elvis was allergic
(06:18):
to codeine. He would never have gone anywhere near it,
and they during the autopsy. Dan Warlick, who Steve Ubaaney
got to know quite well before he passed, and he
was an investigator with the coroner or the medical officer,
a medical examiner's offices as well. He held Elvis's larynx
in his hands during the autopsy. Imagine that, you know,
(06:41):
one of the greatest voices of the twentieth century. He's
got his larynx in his hands. There was no inflammation,
There was no swelling, no sign whatsoever of anything that
would cause anaphylaxis. If you're allergic to codeine, you go
into an anaphylaxis event, and there was none of that.
(07:01):
So this outlier toxicology report, who knows how that happened.
Whether someone got to them, someone influenced them, someone blackmailed them,
bribed them, I don't know. But there was no codeine
in Elvis's system. He didn't die from a drug overdose.
(07:22):
And as for the heart attack, that doctor Jerry Rodriquez
or doctor Jerry forgotten his last name anyway, he said
a heart attack. That was a rush to judgment. Elvis's
heart was dissected three hundred times in that autopsy. There
was no indication of a catastrophic cardiac event on the horizon.
(07:45):
Elvis had also undergone a rigorous medical examination three weeks earlier,
as was required because he was about to go on
tour again. He was in fact going to go on
tour on the day that he died. That medical exam
said that Elvis was healthy, there was no heart attack,
(08:09):
there was no drug overdose. But there's plenty of motive
I believe for murder.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And that corner was doctor Francisco was.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Thank you, Doctor Jerry Francisco, thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
But I know you're going to want some after hearing this.
This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. Now I understand that Malachi,
who is eight almost nine years old now, was suffering
with not just one or two warts, but I mean
a significant outbreak of warts all over his body, so
significant it impacted his ability to really function.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil to right.
It was Ty's book. Actually they got me thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
It is an amazing immuno modulator, and so I can
see that it would work. And so at what point
did you see that there was actually improvement, it's really
going to work.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well, look, we.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Really to notice it. Around twelve weeks. You can see
these things actually getting smaller and smaller and then going
down to the with just little red marks. The whole
things are gone and we're talking about what's you know
one that size for Warner?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I thought, no way that's gonna Wow.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
It's just been miraculous to see him get into a
pair of shoes.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yes, how wonderful.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
It's great to see him so happy and yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Confident, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Friends that have seen it, that is blown away.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
TI, this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Another amazing story. Why we're talking about Carnivora. Call them
to awaken your immune system and protect yourself now called
one eight six six eight three six eighty seven thirty five.
That's one eight six six eight three six eighty seven
thirty five. Or visit carnivora dot com c A R
niv O R carnivora dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, if he didn't die the way they officially said
he did, you think he was murdered, Well, let's look
at his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Now Colonel Tom Parker was neither a colonel, nor was
he actually named Tom Parker. He was from Holland. He
was essentially an undocumented or an illegal immigrant into the
United States. He slipped into the country. He was allegedly
involved in the death of an individual possible manslaughter. He
(10:25):
was escaping justice in Europe, came to the United States.
He signed Elvis to an unbelievable contract where he took
fifty cents of every dollar that he made a fortune
from Elvis a fortune, yes, yes, And at a certain
point Colonel Tom Parker got indebted to the mob. He
(10:46):
was a gambler in Las Vegas. He was into the
mob apparently for about thirty million dollars. That's why he
had Elvis touring and performing in Las Vegas endlessly to
pay off his gambling debts. At the same time, the
FBI were very interested in the Mob, who were running
Las Vegas. At that time. Many of the casinos were
(11:07):
run by the Mob. The FBI infiltrated Elvis's entourage and
even his massive backup band as cover, and they were
there spying on the mob. So now the mob goes
to Colonel Tom Parker. According to this theory, and says
wait a minute, your guy is spying on us, you
(11:30):
owe us thirty million dollars. I mean, you better do
something about the situation. So there's a motive right there.
There's also Operation Fountain Pen This was a major FBI
operation that was investigating white collar crime. In particular, certain
(11:50):
corporations that were connected to the Mob were involved in
some financial shenanigans. Let's say Vernon Presley, Elvis's father, got
caught up in this trap. He was a victim. What
happened was he was going to sell one of Elvis's
private jets, the hound Dog, too, and he sold it
(12:11):
to one of these Mob connected companies that were doing
illegal financial activity. And so it's quite likely that Elvis
Presley would have been called as a witness against the mob.
He wasn't the only victim of this scheme, but he
was certainly the most high profile. Imagine Elvis Presley taking
(12:33):
the stand in a court case against the mob. The spotlight,
the media attention. So there's another reason where the mob
why the Mob was not too happy with Elvis Presley.
Then Colonel Tom Parker also realized at a certain point,
as Elvis was getting tired, Colonel Tom Parker would would
drive Elvis into the ground, exhaust him physically emotionally. He pushed,
(12:57):
he pushed, he did. He would drag him my of
his sick bed and tell his handlers to stick his
head in a bucket of ice to revive him so
he could push him out onto the stage. Elvis was
starting to break down a little bit. The colonel discovered
that Elvis was worth more dead than alive. This, this
new enterprise of plastering a celebrity's face on T shirts
(13:21):
and buttons, was just in its early stages, and Colonel
Tom Parker was one of the pioneers in this field,
and he realized, Hey, I can make more money selling
T shirts and buttons and records. I don't need Elvis anymore.
So you add all those things up, and to me,
I think the probability that Elvis was murdered is quite high.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
There was a YouTube clip of Elvis attempting to sing
are You Lonesome Tonight? And he's into it, flooding the words,
just going. It was just. It was sad. It was sad,
and his life was going downhill, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
He was a very lonely man. In fact, you know
that bathroom I mentioned was kind of his personal sanctuary.
He didn't just go in there to, you know, use
the bathroom. He would sit in there and he would read,
and he would go in there to escape. He had
so many hangers on and extended family members that were
basically he was supporting them. And Vernon Presley was his
(14:28):
father again, was about to buy all accounts, sort of
get the house in financial order, which meant maybe cutting
a lot of those people off, which who knows, maybe
that played into the motive as well. But Elvis was
very lonely. It's a very tragic story what happened to him,
and I think he knew that he was being not
(14:49):
only used and manipulated by his own manager, but maybe
even by members of his extended family.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Maybe so February third, nineteen fifty nine, the day the
music died, that horrible play crash that took delives of
Buddy Holly, Richie Vellens, JB. The Big Bopper, and the
Pilot Roger Peterson. You've looked at that too.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I got to know Peggy Sue Garon a little bit,
the real Peggy Sue who was immortalized in the song
Peggy Sue by Buddy hauling their crickets. Yes, yeah, that's
the one, and Peggy Sue got married, which was kind
of the sequel, which was later the inspiration for a movie.
But Peggy Sue described to me dreams and premonitions involving
(15:32):
Buddy Hawley's death. Uh, and these weren't simply vague feelings
that something bad might happen. She never claimed to be
a psychic, but she had a series of three dreams,
and in the most striking account, she dreamed of an
aircraft in trouble, spinning and descending, and she heard screaming,
and she says she felt the nausea and the terror
(15:52):
of the people aboard, and she awoke deeply shaken, and
she attempted to warn Buddy every time, please don't chart
her an airplane. Of course, he just kind of laughed
it off, brushed her off. But what makes the account
especially haunting is the specificity of the emotional and mechanical imagery,
not just death, but a small aircraft losing control in darkness.
(16:14):
And as I say, there were other premonitions surrounding the flight.
Richie Vallence, who also died on that plane, he had
a lifelong fear of flying after witnessing about a or
I shouldn't say witnessing. He learned about this mid air collision,
airplane collision that took place over his school in California,
(16:36):
and the debris from this crash above his school rained
down onto the school ground and killed students. He coincidentally
was away at his grandfather's funeral, and in fact, there
was one particular tree in the school yard where he
used to sit with his guitar and entertain his classmates
and sing, and some of the debris struck where he
(16:58):
normally would sit. And yet, despite that and that fear
of flying, on the night of the crash, Richie Vallens
desperately wanted a seat on that plane because this was
during the winter dance tour.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And he had a cold or something, didn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
He did, he did. They were all sick. Their drummer,
Carl Bunch, was in hospital with frostbite because they were
driving on this bus that didn't have a proper heater.
It was February in Iowa, if you can imagine horrible conditions.
So Buddy Hawley wanted to charter a plane to get
ahead to the next tour stop and maybe get some
laundry done. Richie Vallens was so desperate to get on
(17:38):
that plane and he lost it or he won. He
thought he won a toin costs a coin toss rather
with someone else who was supposed to be on that plane.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It was away Lund Jennings, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Well, Whalen did give up his seat. He gave it
up to the Big Bopper. And this is kind of
a sad story because the their final exchange, Whalen Jennings
went to the airport to see them fly off, and
of course he gave up his place to the Big
Bopper in exchange for a sleeping bag so he could
be warm, warm on the on the bus. But he
(18:12):
Buddy joked to h Whale and he said, uh, Whale,
and I hope you're you're gonna freeze your butt on
that bus. And Whalen unfortunately and regretted this for the
rest of his life. He said to Buddy Holly, well,
I hope you're playing crashes.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Listen to more Coast to Coast Am every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back George Nora along with our friend Richard
Sarah to talking about his book Tales from the Rock
and Roll Twilight Zone. The foward to his book is
written by our friend Jim Harold from Campfire Stories. By
the way, Richard, there's a song that the real Paul
McCartney US now eighty four years old, refuses to sing,
and it was John Lennon's. Imagine, because he wants to
(00:26):
continue to pay homage to John, he won't sing it.
Have you heard that story?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
No, I wasn't aware of that. So he won't sing
it because he just thinks that's there's only one person
that can sing that, and that's John Lennon.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I guess jud it's John Lennon's song.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
That's right, Yeah, absolutely it is.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's pretty good to honor for him. Our senior producer
Tom Danhuis is a big led Zeppelin fan. You've looked
into Jimmy Page's fascination with Alister Crowley.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh, indeed, Jimmy Page wasn't just asually interested in Alistair Crowley.
I mean he became one of the world's largest private
collectors of Crowley artifacts, books, manuscripts, paintings, ritual objects. He
even opened an occult bookstore in London called the Equinox
(01:18):
and which contained all of Crowley's books and et cetera.
But then the prize possession for Jimmy Page is when
he purchased Alistair Crowley's house on the shores of Loch Ness,
Boluskin House. And this was not just any ordinary country estate.
(01:38):
It was the place where Crowley had attempted the infamous
a Brammelain ritual or a Brammelain operation. And according to
a cult tradition, that ritual involves summoning and eventually dismissing
dangerous spiritual entities before establishing contact with one's holy guardian angel.
(02:03):
Now he wouldn't refer to them as demons, but I'm
an Orthodox Christian. I would refer to these entities as demons.
So the story goes that Crowley abandoned this ritual before
properly closing it. In other words, he didn't properly bind
these entities once they came through the portal, and he
(02:24):
got called off to Paris and left the house. And
as I say, he didn't bind these spirits, and so
he sort of left this door open. Now, Jimmy Page
spent surprising, a little, surprisingly little time at Boleskin House
when he bought it. But strange stories started to happen.
(02:46):
Visitors reported oppressive atmospheres, unexplained sounds, odd accidents, And you know,
whether you believe any of that is another matter. But
now look at what happened led Zeppelin. Robert Plant and
his wife nearly die in a horrific car crash in Greece,
and then tragically, their young son, Karric dies unexpectedly. John
(03:10):
Bonham drinks himself to death. Jimmy Page becomes addicted to heroin,
Kenneth Anger publicly claims to have cursed him. The band collapses. Now,
am I saying that Crowley cursed led Zeppelin? No, But
you look at fame, drugs, alcohol, exhaustion. You know, those
(03:34):
things explain a great deal. But here's what I find interesting.
Jimmy Page wasn't simply fascinated by dark symbolism. He immersed
himself in it. He surrounded himself with it, He collected it,
he lived inside it. And I think if history teaches
us something, it's if you spend enough time knocking on
certain doors, Eventually something might answer.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're right about that. And one of the fascinating in
Aslick's all of this was the death of Elvis Presently
in nineteen seventy seven. Died at the age of forty two.
You think something sinister might have happened there, don't you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think it is quite likely. You know, it's interesting
his autopsy was sealed by his family in nineteen seventy seven,
and it's for fifty years. Well the fiftieth anniversary is
next year, twenty twenty seven, so it'll be interesting to
see what mysteries are still in that autopsy. But here's
(04:29):
the interesting thing. One he died and he was found
face down in the shag carpeting of his bathroom on
the second floor of Graceland in Memphis. There was a
rush to judgment. The medical examiner for Shelby County, where
Memphis is located, ruled almost immediately that Elvis had died
(04:51):
of a heart attack, and this was before receiving any
of the toxicology reports from Well. There were three separate
toxicol reports. Two of them reported that there were only
therapeutic levels of prescribed medication in Elvis in his body,
in his blood therapeutic levels, and he was on a
(05:13):
number of prescribed medications. He had insomnia, he had constipation,
he had glaucoma. So there's no question that Elvis took
a lot of prescribed drugs, but nothing there that would
explain his death. The third toxicology report was a real outlier.
It was conducted by Biosciences Lab in California. And let
(05:35):
me first say I should I need to give a
lot of credit here to someone who I interviewed, who's
in the book, and I know he's a great friend
of Coast to Coast, and that's Steve Hugh Bainey. He
did a lot of amazing, amazing research and his book
Who Murdered Elvis? I don't know how many hundreds of
thousands of copies he sold. But he pointed out that
(05:58):
this toxicology report from Biosciences Lab in California claimed that
there was eleven times the lethal dose of codeine in
Elvis's system. Eleven yes, but that doesn't make sense because
Elvis was allergic to codeine. Everybody knew Elvis was allergic
(06:18):
to codeine. He would never have gone anywhere near it,
and they during the autopsy. Dan Warlick, who Steve Ubaaney
got to know quite well before he passed, and he
was an investigator with the coroner or the medical officer,
a medical examiner's offices as well. He held Elvis's larynx
in his hands during the autopsy. Imagine that, you know,
(06:41):
one of the greatest voices of the twentieth century. He's
got his larynx in his hands. There was no inflammation,
There was no swelling, no sign whatsoever of anything that
would cause anaphylaxis. If you're allergic to codeine, you go
into an anaphylaxis event, and there was none of that.
(07:01):
So this outlier toxicology report, who knows how that happened.
Whether someone got to them, someone influenced them, someone blackmailed them,
bribed them, I don't know. But there was no codeine
in Elvis's system. He didn't die from a drug overdose.
(07:22):
And as for the heart attack, that doctor Jerry Rodriquez
or doctor Jerry forgotten his last name anyway, he said
a heart attack. That was a rush to judgment. Elvis's
heart was dissected three hundred times in that autopsy. There
was no indication of a catastrophic cardiac event on the horizon.
(07:45):
Elvis had also undergone a rigorous medical examination three weeks earlier,
as was required because he was about to go on
tour again. He was in fact going to go on
tour on the day that he died. That medical exam
said that Elvis was healthy, there was no heart attack,
(08:09):
there was no drug overdose. But there's plenty of motive
I believe for murder.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And that corner was doctor Francisco was.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Thank you, Doctor Jerry Francisco, thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
But I know you're going to want some after hearing this.
This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. Now I understand that Malachi,
who is eight almost nine years old now, was suffering
with not just one or two warts, but I mean
a significant outbreak of warts all over his body, so
significant it impacted his ability to really function.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil to right.
It was Ty's book. Actually they got me thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
It is an amazing immuno modulator, and so I can
see that it would work. And so at what point
did you see that there was actually improvement, it's really
going to work.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well, look, we.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Really to notice it. Around twelve weeks. You can see
these things actually getting smaller and smaller and then going
down to the with just little red marks. The whole
things are gone and we're talking about what's you know
one that size for Warner?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I thought, no way that's gonna Wow.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
It's just been miraculous to see him get into a
pair of shoes.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yes, how wonderful.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
It's great to see him so happy and yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Confident, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Friends that have seen it, that is blown away.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
TI, this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Another amazing story. Why we're talking about Carnivora. Call them
to awaken your immune system and protect yourself now called
one eight six six eight three six eighty seven thirty five.
That's one eight six six eight three six eighty seven
thirty five. Or visit carnivora dot com c A R
niv O R carnivora dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, if he didn't die the way they officially said
he did, you think he was murdered, Well, let's look
at his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Now Colonel Tom Parker was neither a colonel, nor was
he actually named Tom Parker. He was from Holland. He
was essentially an undocumented or an illegal immigrant into the
United States. He slipped into the country. He was allegedly
involved in the death of an individual possible manslaughter. He
(10:25):
was escaping justice in Europe, came to the United States.
He signed Elvis to an unbelievable contract where he took
fifty cents of every dollar that he made a fortune
from Elvis a fortune, yes, yes, And at a certain
point Colonel Tom Parker got indebted to the mob. He
(10:46):
was a gambler in Las Vegas. He was into the
mob apparently for about thirty million dollars. That's why he
had Elvis touring and performing in Las Vegas endlessly to
pay off his gambling debts. At the same time, the
FBI were very interested in the Mob, who were running
Las Vegas. At that time. Many of the casinos were
(11:07):
run by the Mob. The FBI infiltrated Elvis's entourage and
even his massive backup band as cover, and they were
there spying on the mob. So now the mob goes
to Colonel Tom Parker. According to this theory, and says
wait a minute, your guy is spying on us, you
(11:30):
owe us thirty million dollars. I mean, you better do
something about the situation. So there's a motive right there.
There's also Operation Fountain Pen This was a major FBI
operation that was investigating white collar crime. In particular, certain
(11:50):
corporations that were connected to the Mob were involved in
some financial shenanigans. Let's say Vernon Presley, Elvis's father, got
caught up in this trap. He was a victim. What
happened was he was going to sell one of Elvis's
private jets, the hound Dog, too, and he sold it
(12:11):
to one of these Mob connected companies that were doing
illegal financial activity. And so it's quite likely that Elvis
Presley would have been called as a witness against the mob.
He wasn't the only victim of this scheme, but he
was certainly the most high profile. Imagine Elvis Presley taking
(12:33):
the stand in a court case against the mob. The spotlight,
the media attention. So there's another reason where the mob
why the Mob was not too happy with Elvis Presley.
Then Colonel Tom Parker also realized at a certain point,
as Elvis was getting tired, Colonel Tom Parker would would
drive Elvis into the ground, exhaust him physically emotionally. He pushed,
(12:57):
he pushed, he did. He would drag him my of
his sick bed and tell his handlers to stick his
head in a bucket of ice to revive him so
he could push him out onto the stage. Elvis was
starting to break down a little bit. The colonel discovered
that Elvis was worth more dead than alive. This, this
new enterprise of plastering a celebrity's face on T shirts
(13:21):
and buttons, was just in its early stages, and Colonel
Tom Parker was one of the pioneers in this field,
and he realized, Hey, I can make more money selling
T shirts and buttons and records. I don't need Elvis anymore.
So you add all those things up, and to me,
I think the probability that Elvis was murdered is quite high.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
There was a YouTube clip of Elvis attempting to sing
are You Lonesome Tonight? And he's into it, flooding the words,
just going. It was just. It was sad. It was sad,
and his life was going downhill, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
He was a very lonely man. In fact, you know
that bathroom I mentioned was kind of his personal sanctuary.
He didn't just go in there to, you know, use
the bathroom. He would sit in there and he would read,
and he would go in there to escape. He had
so many hangers on and extended family members that were
basically he was supporting them. And Vernon Presley was his
(14:28):
father again, was about to buy all accounts, sort of
get the house in financial order, which meant maybe cutting
a lot of those people off, which who knows, maybe
that played into the motive as well. But Elvis was
very lonely. It's a very tragic story what happened to him,
and I think he knew that he was being not
(14:49):
only used and manipulated by his own manager, but maybe
even by members of his extended family.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Maybe so February third, nineteen fifty nine, the day the
music died, that horrible play crash that took delives of
Buddy Holly, Richie Vellens, JB. The Big Bopper, and the
Pilot Roger Peterson. You've looked at that too.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I got to know Peggy Sue Garon a little bit,
the real Peggy Sue who was immortalized in the song
Peggy Sue by Buddy hauling their crickets. Yes, yeah, that's
the one, and Peggy Sue got married, which was kind
of the sequel, which was later the inspiration for a movie.
But Peggy Sue described to me dreams and premonitions involving
(15:32):
Buddy Hawley's death. Uh, and these weren't simply vague feelings
that something bad might happen. She never claimed to be
a psychic, but she had a series of three dreams,
and in the most striking account, she dreamed of an
aircraft in trouble, spinning and descending, and she heard screaming,
and she says she felt the nausea and the terror
(15:52):
of the people aboard, and she awoke deeply shaken, and
she attempted to warn Buddy every time, please don't chart
her an airplane. Of course, he just kind of laughed
it off, brushed her off. But what makes the account
especially haunting is the specificity of the emotional and mechanical imagery,
not just death, but a small aircraft losing control in darkness.
(16:14):
And as I say, there were other premonitions surrounding the flight.
Richie Vallence, who also died on that plane, he had
a lifelong fear of flying after witnessing about a or
I shouldn't say witnessing. He learned about this mid air collision,
airplane collision that took place over his school in California,
(16:36):
and the debris from this crash above his school rained
down onto the school ground and killed students. He coincidentally
was away at his grandfather's funeral, and in fact, there
was one particular tree in the school yard where he
used to sit with his guitar and entertain his classmates
and sing, and some of the debris struck where he
(16:58):
normally would sit. And yet, despite that and that fear
of flying, on the night of the crash, Richie Vallens
desperately wanted a seat on that plane because this was
during the winter dance tour.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And he had a cold or something, didn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
He did, he did. They were all sick. Their drummer,
Carl Bunch, was in hospital with frostbite because they were
driving on this bus that didn't have a proper heater.
It was February in Iowa, if you can imagine horrible conditions.
So Buddy Hawley wanted to charter a plane to get
ahead to the next tour stop and maybe get some
laundry done. Richie Vallens was so desperate to get on
(17:38):
that plane and he lost it or he won. He
thought he won a toin costs a coin toss rather
with someone else who was supposed to be on that plane.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It was away Lund Jennings, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Well, Whalen did give up his seat. He gave it
up to the Big Bopper. And this is kind of
a sad story because the their final exchange, Whalen Jennings
went to the airport to see them fly off, and
of course he gave up his place to the Big
Bopper in exchange for a sleeping bag so he could
be warm, warm on the on the bus. But he
(18:12):
Buddy joked to h Whale and he said, uh, Whale,
and I hope you're you're gonna freeze your butt on
that bus. And Whalen unfortunately and regretted this for the
rest of his life. He said to Buddy Holly, well,
I hope you're playing crashes.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Listen to more Coast to Coast Am every weeknight at
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dot com for more
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George Noory
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