by PL

The Nancy Rooks claim re: David Stanley from her 1984 book, “The Maid, the Man, and the Fans”:

This “bodyguard” referred to by Nancy Rooks was David Stanley, according to Stanley’s own account of the exchange. Rooks places the time that Stanley left Graceland at “around eleven o’clock” that morning, but if that is accurate, what was David Stanley doing there, presumably “on duty,” at 11:00am? Was he covering for his brother, Rick, who was “zonked out” on Demerol? If so, how did he know that Rick was incapacitated?

But the larger question here is the time references Rooks mentions. She says that David Stanley (the “bodyguard”) left the property at 11:00am to “take a friend home,” but unless there was a second person that Stanley had to drive home that day, then we must assume that Rooks is referring to Mark White and is thus approximately 3.5 hours off in her time estimate (going by “the story”). To place this on the timeline, Rooks is saying that Stanley was on duty an hour before his scheduled noon shift, left at that point to drive a friend home (Mark White), and returned to Graceland after 3:30pm. What happened to playing pool in the basement? What happened to Stanley’s claim that he came on duty at noon and was onsite at the time of Elvis’s emergency? How did Nancy Rooks make these (apparently) conflicting time references and yet not notice that they make no sense? If this account of Stanley’s absence is accurate, where was he for 4.5+ hours? If he arrived “back” at Graceland just as the ambulance was arriving, and then went to Baptist Memorial Hospital with Billy Smith, then we still have the 11:00am-2:30pm block of time where David Stanley’s location is unknown.