by PL

[Continuing from previous posts (here, here, and here) on this and related topics/questions]

As we’ve been told numerous times by the Stanley brothers over the years, Elvis instructed that he was “not to be disturbed” until a 4:00pm wake-up call, with the caveat “under no circumstances” sometimes thrown in for good measure. From an interview with Rick Stanley for the 20/20 TV show (“The Death of Elvis,” page 233): 

During the second trip upstairs, Ricky said he talked with Elvis briefly. ”Elvis looked at me and said, ‘Rick, if I need you, I’ll give you a call.’ And he damned near said he didn’t want to be disturbed. So I just left and went down to my own room.” 

He “damned near said”? Ah, but he didn’t say he didn’t want to be disturbed, did he? Rick Stanley and David Stanley have said again and again and again that Elvis didn’t want to be disturbed that late morning and early afternoon, and therefore they (according to the Stanley logic) were pretty much off-duty. But Elvis, according to Rick, really didn’t say this at all. He simply said that if he (Elvis) needed him (Rick), he’d call for him, which, as we know, was the standard method of operation, anyway: if Elvis needs something, he calls for an aide. Simple. The only missing component is that Rick did not check on Elvis for the remainder of his shift, and because of this alleged “do not disturb” order passed on to him at noon, David Stanley didn’t check on Elvis, either. Evidence of how silly this logic is can be seen in the fact that Elvis called for Rick a short time later and Rick could not be located. So of course he was still on duty, as David would have been at noon, as well. Certainly both Rick and David knew this, but this “do not disturb” story served them later as a means to explain their actions.

But here is where things get interesting: Rick knew that they were leaving on a tour later that day, so why did he then take so much Demerol that he became essentially incapacitated? Why did David bring a friend with him to “work,” and then, according to Aurelia Dupont, spend the late morning and early afternoon getting drunk and stoned, eventually returning to the house on Timothy Drive and declaring, “We just killed Elvis!”? Here we have two employees who were supposed to be on duty, and yet both of them behaved in ways that indicated they knew they would not be on duty. 

What did they know, and when did they know it? 

Remember the alleged phone calls to James Kirk of the National Enquirer? The first call, according to his daily log, came in at 1:30pm*, from a female caller, presumably from Graceland. But look at Kirk’s log from earlier that day: a 10:00am call to Graceland trying to reach David Stanley, and another attempt to reach Stanley at 11:30am (plus three calls to the mansion at 2:30pm, 2:35pm, and 3:10pm). Why was Kirk trying to reach Stanley, five times, on this day of all days? And where was David Stanley at 1:30pm? According to Dupont, he was back at the Timothy Drive house. Who else was there? Aurelia Dupont, Shelly White, and Mark White. So who called Kirk at 1:30pm, telling him to “watch the mansion”? Hmmm. (Anyone else of note live nearby…?)

Then we have Kirk trying to reach Stanley at Graceland for a third time at 1:50pm, but there’s no answer. He tries again at 2:15pm but is told that David Stanley is “not available.” David Stanley has told us numerous times that between 12:00pm and 2:20pm he was downstairs shooting pool with Mark White, and yet here, at 2:15pm, someone at Graceland says he is “not available.” Where was he? Kirk then claims that he received a second call at 2:30pm* “from G. Alden” (according to his notes) informing him that Elvis is dead, but this is simply not possible, for reasons outlined elsewhere. So who was the female caller making this second call to Kirk (his reference to Ginger Alden proves that he believed the first female caller was the same as the second female caller)? It wasn’t Ginger Alden, and we see a clear connection between James Kirk and David Stanley, to the point that Kirk had a phone number into Graceland. 

(*Kirk told the authors of “The Death of Elvis” that these two calls came in at 12:30pm and 2:00pm, the second call ordering Kirk to “come at once and bring money.” He also said he believed the caller was Ginger; he did not say that he knew the caller was Ginger.)

So just after 9:00am, Rick Stanley incapacitates himself with Demerol, while on duty, and hours later David Stanley, while on duty, is drunk and stoned and wandering around Whitehaven, showing up at Aurelia Dupont’s residence at 1:30pm saying, “We just killed Elvis,” and at the same time a call goes out to a National Enquirer reporter, the same reporter who was trying numerous times that day to reach David Stanley at Graceland. And people ask questions about Ginger?

Note: Later in Kirk’s log we see that he reached David Stanley by phone at 5:35pm, though Kirk does not mention if Stanley was at Graceland or some other location. Kirk says that he advised Stanley “of my status as a reporter,” which is very interesting because it would lead to the conclusion that Stanley did not previously know that Kirk worked for the National Enquirer. Is that possible?