David Gardner - Legends - Murder, Lies, and Cover-ups Who Killed Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Princess Diana?

Copyright 2016 by David Gardner

First published by John Blake Publishing Limited, London, England

First Skyhorse edition 2018

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photos are in the public domain.

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3140-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3141-7

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

F ew deaths have affected so many lives as the five examined in this book. The passing of Princess Diana and President John F. Kennedy changed the way entire nations perceived themselves. Losing Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson was, for millions, akin to a death in the family, so entrenched were they in the fabric of our lives. More than half a century after Marilyn Monroe died, alone and naked in her bedroom, her image lives on in every high street.

In each case the deaths were sudden, shocking and way too young. Somewhat surprisingly, Jackson was the oldest at fifty, JFK was forty-six, Elvis, forty-two and both Princess Diana and Marilyn were thirty-six.

All five deaths were also, inevitably, the subject of an enormous amount of dissection, both by the authorities and the media. But because we were spoon-fed so much about them when they were alivethese strangers we discussed, critiqued and worshipped as though they were our closest friendswe were content to largely accept the versions we were presented of the way they died and the reasons they were no longer with us.

Of course, we heard about all the conspiracy theories surrounding President Kennedys assassination but didnt we really just want to believe it was the work of one deranged Commie with a magic bullet?

Despite his chequered past with young boys, Jackson was the innocent victim of a financially stretched playboy doctor. Conrad Murray was busy talking on the phone to his girlfriends close to the time he had administered a powerful anaesthetic to Jackson to help him sleep. Jackson never woke up.

Monroe, always walking the tightrope between fame and insecurity, fell into such a pit of despair that her final cry for attention was a fatal overdose of barbiturates.

Similarly, Presley, fried peanut-butter sandwiches, pills and paranoia transforming him into a bloated caricature of his Blue Suede Shoes prime, was a victim of his own indulgence.

And Diana? Well, the Paris car crash was an accident, wasnt it?

As a journalist, I covered two of these tragedies at first hand and so I knew back then that there was much more to the stories surrounding Princess Diana and Michael Jackson than ever became public. In Dianas case, the establishment drove the narrative with a patriotic intensity that set out to destroy former Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed, the father of Dodi Fayed, who also died in the crash, with a ruthlessness that smacked of Johnny-foreigner racism. I dare anyone who reads this account of the events leading up to, during and after Dianas death to believe it was accidental.

Paul Burrell, who was Dianas butler at the time, claimed that the Queen told him that dark forces were at work. The facts, examined through the lens of hindsight, clearly show that such sentiments were no exaggeration.

In Jacksons case, I sat through almost every day of Dr Conrad Murrays 2011 trial in Los Angeles and came to the conclusion that the vain physician was indeed being made the scapegoata necessity for any media-conscious law enforcement agency investigating a high-profile crime. His behaviour was unethical and dishonest but he was far from alone. Others shared the blame but were allowed to get off scot-free.

As with Princess Dianas death, powerful forces had high stakes in how JFKs assassination was portrayed. Some may argue that, when national security is an issue, the line between right and wrong becomes more blurred but consider this: more than one hundred people with links to the Dallas murder died in the wake of the shooting, many of them in distinctly sinister circumstances. This was not the act of a lone gunmannot even close.

Some of those same forces at the apex of government and organised crime in the United States collided to determine Monroes fate. It wasnt until latermuch laterthat FBI files kept on the blonde bombshell disclosed gossip about her affairs with both JFK and his younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy. There was no easy exit from such a tangled web.

As for Elvis, he was closeted in life and death by his Memphis Mafia entourage of friends, leeches and hangers-on, so much so that they were willing to lie that he was found dead in his bed, rather than tell the truth that he was discovered with his pyjamas around his ankles after falling headlong from the toilet. No one would deny that Elvis was struggling with his demons later in life but he was turning things around and hoping to get back with ex-wife Priscilla. The more you get to know about his final days, the less likely it seems that his death was a mistake or a suicide and the larger the likelihood of murder looms.

Im not telling you what to believe here. Some of what you will read in the ensuing pages you will have read before, some explanations have already been dismissed as conspiracy theories. But you will find that a simple recounting of what is known to be true offers more credibility to these theories and taints the established versions with a heavy whiff of corruption.

As I started examining these deaths, I was astounded at just how many of the facts had either been covered up or twisted. Lies run like honey through all of these cases, trying to smooth over the dark, jagged edges and make it seem like all is well; that there is no reason to worry or delve any further.

The very opposite is true. In each of these five cases, there are very disturbing causes for concern. Questions remain but I suggest we should be very suspicious of the answers we have been given up to now.

MARILYN MONROE

T he candle in the wind flickered and died on a balmy California night in August 1962.

To the immense shock of Marilyn Monroes millions of fans around the world, the movie goddess who, on the surface, seemed to have everythingstunning looks, powerful suitors and riches beyond her wildest dreamshad taken her own life.

Or had she

Sure, there were empty bottles of Nembutal sleeping pills at her side and it was certainly no secret shed been struggling under the weight of her fame and the bitter disappointments of her turbulent personal life.

Discovered naked and lying face down on her bed, still clutching a white telephone in one hand, it was the script-perfect tragic ending to a fairytale life gone sour. She had had too much too soon and flamed out like the candle Sir Elton John would use many years later to sing farewell to her and, in a poignantly rewritten version, to Princess Diana.