by PL

Where was Dean Nichopoulos on August 16, 1977? Dick Grob and Dr. Nichopoulos said Dean was at Graceland, working security, answering phones, and paying close attention to everything that was going on. But was he?

Let’s start here:

Going by Dean’s own words, he was at the mall a little bit south of Graceland (a 5-minute drive) just after 4:00pm when the official announcements were made on TV and radio, having come into town “that night” (presumably the evening of August 15). We can conclude, then, that he was not at Graceland that morning and early afternoon, right? So, let me set this up: In 2009, Dr. Nichopoulos released a book in which he claimed his son, Dean, somewhere between about 4:30pm and 5:00pm, told him in detail about all the goings-on at Graceland during the critical hours surrounding (before and after) Elvis’s death. Dr. Nichopoulos wrote that Dean told him about the trip to the dentist, the racquetball game, and just about every other little detail we’ve heard over all these years. This, from someone who wasn’t there, and even if he had rushed to Graceland from the mall he didn’t have time to learn the particulars of this narrative by 4:30pm. The initial conclusion we can reach here is that what Dean was really doing was telling his father the exact same story that Dick Grob had told (and sold) for so many years. (Or, a secondary/alternate conclusion, see below.) But here is the tragic part of this, again, for emphasis: Dean Nichopoulos was not even at Graceland that day (“I had been out of town,” and he does not mention being at Graceland that day), and thus it would have been impossible for him to have described any of this to his father. And, he could not have been at Graceland at 2:20pm or he would have known what was happening. So, who is more dishonest here, Dick Grob, Dr. Nichopoulos, or Dean Nichopoulos?

Dick Grob knew when he read Dr. Nichopoulos’s book that the story Dean was supposedly telling was, in fact, his story, the same story he had peddled for years. The anti-Ginger story. The “Ginger Done It!” story. All Elvis fans should know the schtick by now. And yet he said nothing to correct this. In fact, in his own book (1995’s extremely thick “The Elvis Conspiracy?”), Grob places Dean at the mansion during the critical time period, while by Dean’s own admission, he wasn’t there (and no one else, other than his father, has placed him there). Grob wrote that when he (Grob) was at the mansion just prior to 4:00pm (to talk to Vernon about the autopsy permission form), he, “yelled for Dean who was answering the phones.” So, while Grob places Dean at the mansion prior to (or at) 4:00pm, Dean says he heard the announcement of Elvis’s death when he was at the mall, which had to have been after 4:00pm.

Dr. Nichopoulos, a former physician, should be someone the public can rely on to be honest and ethical, and yet in his book he lies outright about the events at Graceland that day, and attributes the story to his son (clearly showing he was not brave/reckless enough to make these claims himself). “Hey, son, I want to promote a whole bunch of conspiracy stuff that isn’t true, but I am too afraid to put my name on it, so I am gonna say you said it.” (In his 1990 book proposal, he had no problem [upon future publication] libeling/defaming Ginger Alden on his own; his son is not cited at all.) In his 2009 book, Dr. Nichopoulos places Dean at Graceland, writing, “Dean had been working security at the mansion while I was at the hospital for the emergency. He could hardly wait to get me out of the house to tell me what had been said behind the scenes at Graceland after Elvis was taken away in the ambulance.” Dr. Nichopoulos is telling us that Dean was at the mansion from roughly 2:47pm to 4:30pm.

Dean Nichopoulos: It is 2021 as I write this, and Dr. Nichopoulos’s book came out in 2009. Dean Nichopoulos, then, has known the lie his father told (this one, at least) for no less than 12 years, and yet he has never, to my knowledge, admitted to the lie or even acknowledged the disparity in these accounts. I’d ask Dean Nichopoulos if he understands that his father, as a doctor (prior to losing his medical license), simply regurgitated Grob’s nonsense to unjustly attack and disparage Ginger Alden, used his son’s name to do it, and for 12 years Dean has not said a word about it…? Dean made the statements seen above in his 2016 Facebook posts, but in these comments he comes across as if he doesn’t understand the context. Certainly he knew in 2016 what his father had done. Or, was he on-board with his father using his name this way back in 2009? Pages 11-14 in Dr. Nichopoulos’s book cover the detailed narrative Dean allegedly provided to his father that day.

There’s another interesting point here to consider. In Grob’s 1979 synopsis, he states that he is relying on the Memphis Police Department incident report for the information concerning Ginger Alden and what happened at Graceland that afternoon. Grob also states that he interviewed a number of people and obtained information through these conversations, as well. Specifically, in the synopsis he says that he spoke with Joe Esposito, Al Strada, and Charlie Hodge about Ginger’s appearance that afternoon after the emergency call had been placed (see below), and each replied with the same observations: Ginger was “fresh,” as though she had showered, was dressed, had “made up” her hair, and had put on her makeup. Again, this is from 1979, and Grob is referring to conversations he had with Esposito, Strada, and Hodge in 1977.

In his 1995 pile of paper, “The Elvis Conspiracy?,” Grob changes his story, though, and says that he observed Ginger’s appearance that afternoon:

So in 1979, he cited three other people as eyewitnesses, then in 1995 he cited himself as an eyewitness. In this passage, Grob notes that it would take Ginger at least two hours to get ready.

In Dr. Nichopoulos’s book from 2009, we see a similar observation supposedly from Dean Nichopoulos:

However, this is not a firsthand observation by Dean Nichopoulos, it is a reference to what “the maids” had observed. Does Dean name these maids? No, he does not. Did Dean speak with these maids? No, he did not. (Where did he get this information? No one knows.) The story that Dean Nichopoulos relates to his father, describing the full day leading up to the present time (4:30pm or so on 8/16/77, driving to BMH), is referencing the story that Dick Grob concocted and laid out in his 1995 book. Dean is not describing the details of this narrative that were available in 1977. This is where the hit job comes into play: Dr. Nichopoulos is using his son to introduce a (supposedly) contemporaneous account of the day (8/16/77) when in fact the account is based largely (but not entirely) on information from nearly two decades later. Simply, if Dean were describing this scenario in 1977 to his father while they were driving to the hospital, he would not have known some parts of the story; it was only years later that Grob published some of these “new” details.

Grob 1979: Two maids heard the shower running at approximately 11:30am. No mention of the “thump,” but there is a mention of “a loud noise.” Note that the word “thump” is not used. No mention of lights on the kitchen phone.

Grob 1995: Two maids heard a “thump” sometime between 12:00pm and 1:15pm. These same two maids also heard the shower running, and saw lights on the kitchen phone.

Nichopoulos 2009: “The maids” (plural) heard a “loud thump” sometime after 1:00pm. They also heard the shower running, and saw lights on the kitchen phone.

Question: Looking at the information provided in the Nichopolous book from 2009, which prior source material would the storyteller logically be referring to, Grob 1979 or Grob 1995?

Grob 1995. Clearly.

As I have written elsewhere, Dr. Nichopoulos gratuitously introduced the Ginger attack for reasons that only he could have explained, and he used his son’s name to facilitate the attack. Nichopoulos’s mistake, though, was that he structured the narrative around information from 1995, not from contemporaneous information obtained in 1977. It is clear, then, that Dick Grob’s later claims as published in 1995 were the source for Nichopoulos’s book, and that Nichopoulos tried to pass it all off as something his son told him years before.

The only conspiracy, then, involves Dick Grob, Dr. Nichopoulos, and Dean Nichopoulos.