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"Now you listen to me; the only thing that's important is that that man is on stage tonight – nothing else matters – nothing!"

- Larry Geller, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours-

If you want the same regurgitated Elvis Presley fluff that's been written over the past several decades, stop reading now.

There are hundreds of books that worship The King and soft-pedal his tragic death. They were intended to do nothing more than profit from the specter of the man and monetarily feast on his legacy. They ask no difficult questions and deliver no real worth.

This book, instead, was written with two purposes in mind – one, to dispel the myth and fantasy that surround this man's untimely death; and two, finally set the record straight. Elvis Presley was murdered, there’s new evidence that proves it, and it's time to rewrite the history books.

Since Presley’s death millions of fans around the world have been expected to just accept what they were told about his untimely and very suspicious demise. They were just supposed to repeat what they had been told and roll over on command.

But after a time even the most casual observers would begin asking questions and these were questions that no one had answers for. For me that day was August 16th, 2007 – the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. On this date there were televised festivities from Graceland and another candlelight vigil for the fallen idol.

The ceremony was almost an identical rerun of every major Presley-death anniversary, except for a startling set of interviews. These interviews, broadcast to a worldwide audience made no sense.

On this particular anniversary a reporter interviewed the members of Presley’s staff who were eye witnesses to the discovery of Presley’s body. One after another, the television captured short video clips and none of the stories were the same.

In fact, the witnesses couldn't even agree on the simplest of details – what color pajamas Elvis wore, where the body was found or even what time of day it was. I witnessed these interviews in disbelief. How could these “witnesses” be telling different stories, and why hasn't anyone investigated these accounts?

This book, for the first time, connects the disparate snippets of information into a final and believable event. Finally the world will know what happened. But before answers come questions. Exactly who was the real Elvis Presley?

The name itself flashes mental images of the glamor and excitement that embodies Americana. From curled lip to swiveled hip, no entertainer riveted his audience and changed the societal landscape like this one man. Men wanted to be him, women wanted to bed him and Hollywood lusted to invent anyone with such an intoxicating persona.

Born in the most impoverished of circumstances and the only remaining sibling of a stillborn identical twin, Elvis Presley's stature in life didn't look promising. This shy, sad and unattractive boy tip-toed his way through childhood, living an unpopular existence.

He was a mama's boy who looked different than the other kids and was bullied throughout his childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi. His popularity didn't improve when the family uprooted and moved to Memphis in 1948, where his flashy clothing and James Dean haircut offended everyone in his conservative “Brush Cut” community.

In Memphis, the adolescent Presley attended high school, worked nights and added to his gospel-music roots by watching black performing artists Arthur Crudup, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King. Elvis was unsophisticated, poor and an untrained musician who played entirely by ear.

High School was especially tormenting for the young Presley as classmates hurled insults, apples and eggs at the kid who dressed like a freak and played what they considered to be raunchy rockabilly music.

By 1953, Presley had gathered enough courage to saunter into Sun Records and try his hand at recording. Sun Records was a local recording studio that was owned by Sam Phillips who was always on the lookout for new music trends. Unfortunately Phillips was unimpressed and young Presley left with only the recording that he'd paid for and not much else, but what happened in the next few months changed the world.

Regardless of what claims have been made over the years, the person who discovered the greatest natural talent in music history was Marion Keisker, and she was the secretary at Sun Records. During that now famous first recording session, she understood that Elvis had the perfect blend of styles to fit what Sam Phillips was looking for.

More than a year passed before Phillips finally gave in to Keisker's repeated attempts to put him on Presley's trail. After all, Phillips was searching for a white kid who sounded black, and could merge the two profitable markets into one. Eventually Phillips agreed to give him studio time with randomly selected band members who had never met.

Phillips attempted to have Elvis sing a variety of old “staple” country songs that almost every artist at the time had done versions of, and the recordings were a disaster. Out of frustration everyone broke for lunch but Elvis remained in the studio. He picked up his guitar and sang a few of his favorite songs that Keisker had secretly recorded. When Phillips returned from lunch she played for him the tape that she had recorded and he was amazed at the difference. He soon realized that when Elvis did his own thing the sound was exactly what Phillips was searching for. After many musical tweaks, the second half of the recording session was a tremendous success and a star was born.

Those recordings led to local radio air time, and live appearances that created a public spectacle. By 1955 Presley’s act had caught the attention of Tom Parker, a savvy music-industry veteran since his promotion of Minnie Pearl, Hank Snow, Gene Austin, June Carter, Roy Acuff and Eddy Arnold in the early 1940s. Parker had many industry ties and had frequented Las Vegas when Sin City was a town of just 10,000 residents.

In 1945, Parker struck an exclusive managerial agreement with Eddy Arnold for a 25% cut of the profit, with Arnold paying the business expenses. This was a double-edged sword for Arnold. Parker was a good manager but he wanted to control and dominate every facet of Arnold's life. Parker was also was selling merchandise that Arnold didn’t get profits from and he was secretly managing other performers on Arnold's dime.

These side deals happened frequently with those in power at RCA Victor and although Arnold needed Parker’s management skills he knew that he was being exploited. While Parker transformed Arnold from a country bumpkin into a superstar with radio shows, movies and appearances in Las Vegas, the two men eventually loathed each other and their arrangement ended badly.

Elvis' mother, Gladys Presley, distrusted Tom Parker on sight and warned Elvis to stay away from him. A similar warning came from Eddy Arnold himself, but Elvis ignored them. The young Presley had stars in his eyes and pockets that were both tattered and empty. To Elvis, any deal that would launch his career and fill his wallet sounded good, so the deal was inked.

Parker agreed to represent Elvis for 25% commission on all monies, and charged Elvis for all business expenses. Parker also peddled Elvis buttons, posters and other souvenirs from his vendor's apron and would eventually conjure up huge side deals with RCA Victor that Elvis would never profit from. Their agreement was eerily similar to Eddy Arnold’s as every trick that Parker pulled on Presley he'd done to perfection years before. Amazingly, when Parker managed Roy Acuff he even gave him the moniker of "The King of Country Music."

From the first minute of Parker’s management over Presley, things would be different than they were under Sam Phillips and Sun Records. Parker never let Elvis do interviews and intentionally kept him away from TV talk shows which turned Elvis into an object of limitless fantasy. The control over interviews made Elvis more exotic, mysterious and obscure. It also forced fans to pay a handsome sum to see him, which was highly desirable.

By 1956 Elvis and Parker had signed a contract with the William Morris talent agency under the major recording label of RCA Victor and the worlds of race, culture and music had changed forever. It was not smooth sailing as Presley’s act outraged conservative America.

In late 1956, a Florida judge declared that Presley's music undermined the youth of America as his gyrations were viewed as “a self-gratifying striptease with clothes on”. In many cases, he was seen as a savage, depraved, sexual pervert and Colonel Parker knew it would only be a matter of time before Elvis Presley's life would be threatened, and it was.

Amazingly, the same FBI that had carefully monitored Presley's every move to protect the general public against this vulgar new star had now been called upon to protect him from assassination. The bull's-eye on Elvis became larger every day as a portion of society rallied against this obscene and radical new music that had hijacked the innocent American youth. Despite the attempts by judges, parents and the sensational tales planted by the FBI to vilify Elvis' character, it appeared that nothing could stop the rising star – a rise driven, in part, by Colonel Parker's behind-the-scenes manipulation.

Beyond the resistance of black disc jockeys who didn't want to play a record by a “white boy” because he'd been accused of "stealing" Negro rhythm-and-blues, and the full-scale rebuke of conservative adults who rejected the image of teenage rock-n-roll rebellion, other more sinister factors lay at work. Parker understood the sinister undertow of the music business and knew how to manipulate the players. In the same way that fight promoters owned the top contenders that other fighters must face to become a champion, the mafia owned the entire entertainment industry and the price tag attached to any climb toward stardom.

In 1958, while under contract with Paramount Pictures for seven pictures, and in the midst of shooting his fourth feature film, King Creole, Elvis received a letter from the Memphis draft board, ordering him to report for service in the US Army. Panic-stricken with fear they'd be sued by the movie studio for breach of contract, Colonel Parker pulled every string possible to get a favorable outcome and the Army granted Elvis a 60-day extension to complete the film.

A "favor" from the US Army was as impossible then as it is today, but Parker's contacts completed this seemingly impossible task a mere 16 days after the letter was opened. Nowhere in the US government does business happen so swiftly without incredible pull, and Tom Parker had it. He asked precious favors from people in very high places, and those favors would have to be paid back at a time of their choosing.

Elvis, like the rest of the American public, was totally unaware that the CIA and FBI were deeply involved in various domestic programs that murdered or removed anyone whom they felt pushed the government or society along an ill-favored path. With the Cold War just beginning the CIA had launched many new projects to ward off the Red Scare of Communism in the United States. Programs such as Operation Chaos, The Merrimac and various other Resistance Programs were designed and used to infiltrate, disrupt and destroy dissident groups by any means necessary.

Mark Zepezauer writes about such projects in his book The CIA's Greatest Hits: "...the CIA used its domestic organizations to spy on thousands of US citizens whose only crime was disagreeing with their government's policies." These programs are not the work of conspiracy theorists or the fantasies of those using their over active imaginations. They actually existed for a specific purpose (and I tremble to think of what might exist today). To those in power, it was cheap insurance to preserve the nation’s agenda and keep everyone on the same page.

Even today the US government’s population is viewed as “inventory”, in fact that is the exact word that the IRS (Internal Revenue System) uses to refer to the American people. In that sense we are nameless and faceless. We are merely masses of people to be organized and manipulated away from major uprisings that could alter and damage the nation. While it was true that the government would have to break a few constitutional laws, target certain groups and even murder a few citizens, they viewed it as a small price to pay for delivering control to the general public and maintaining order.

A perfect example of this is the murder of Malcom X by the FBI for his connection with the black militant group, the Black Panthers. In the mid 1960’s the US government was horrified at the power that Black Panthers had and they viewed the murder of their recruitment mouthpiece, Malcom X, as a small price to pay to maintain order. In the government’s eyes they were doing nothing more than “managing their inventory.”

While Elvis Presley wasn't Stalin, Malcom X or public enemy No. 1, he'd managed to gyrate himself to the full attention of both the FBI as his stage hysteria was deemed a danger to the morals of the nation. Parents and teachers were outraged and complained to the TV networks in droves and they all wanted him off camera.

There was no salvation for Elvis Presley records in churches in those days either, as churches across the nation assembled themselves to burn and break his records. Religious organization even went so far as to boycott record stores that sold Presley’s music.

The governmental powers had no choice but to act in a way that would ease the uproar to their inventory. The only logical thing for the US government to do was to find a way to get Elvis out of society and drafting him in the Army was the answer. It was the path of least resistance for the bureau to manage their inventory. Besides, back in 1958, sending someone to Germany to serve in the Army was the equivalent of sending them to another planet, which solved the FBI’s issue with Presley well. They saw him as a bump and grind musical fad, and they thought he'd fizzle out, but there was another side the story.

At that time in history, organized crime that circled within both the entertainment industry and the US government knew that sending Elvis a draft notice while he was under contract and in the midst of filming a movie would put him in an obvious breach of contract with Paramount Pictures. It was designed to happen that way because it would pinch Tom Parker into a desperate move: he'd run to the mob and ask for powerful favors to circumvent the problem. Either way, both the US government and the mob pulled off this well-planned maneuver and put both Elvis Presley, and more importantly, Tom Parker in their debt for years to come.

For many reasons, drafting Elvis Presley worked for both the mob and the government, and the two definitely weren't strangers. Drafting Elvis to soothe society’s uproar worked so well it was repeated years later. In 1964 Cassius Clay defeated "Sonny" Liston and won the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Days later Clay informed the press that he'd converted to the Nation of Islam and his new name was Muhammad Ali. The Nation of Islam, at that time, was well connected with black militants, such as the Black Panthers, who were creating a great deal of unrest for the FBI in America’s inner cities. Interestingly, at that time, Muhammad Ali was a best friend of Malcom X.

Almost immediately Cassius Clay was "reclassified" and drafted into the US Army to remove him from society. Clay was removed from society one way, and Malcom X was removed from society another way. In the same way that Tom Parker had honed his skills to perfection on Eddy Arnold, the FBI had honed their skills with the drafting of Elvis Presley, or whoever they deemed to be a menacing newcomer of the day.

As Elvis' Army life passed, so did his beloved mother and the trip back to Graceland complicated things for Colonel Parker. Handling Elvis' business affairs and maintaining his country-boy image before the general public that once called him "a savage" was no easy task, but now a solemn Elvis returned to Graceland to mourn his mother (who was also his best friend).

His father Vernon Presley, who'd already remarried a divorcee named Davada (Dee) Stanley, and her three small sons Billy, Rick and David were also new residents. Joining Elvis on his return trip were his usual high school friends Lamar Fike, Red West, Sonny West, his cousin Billy Smith and new Army buddies Charlie Hodge, Joe Esposito and Marty Lacker.

This core group of best friends and confidants later came to be known as the "Memphis Mafia" – a term coined by the media as they were seen driving up to Las Vegas hotels in suits, sunglasses and limousines. Although the term Memphis Mafia was nothing more than a tag that labeled Elvis Presley's loyal friends / employees, the real mafia didn't like the term at all.

Even the hint of Elvis with the mafia would start people digging for answers and who knew what they'd find. Exposure is the one thing that neither the mob nor Parker could withstand. Elvis and his family were equally petrified by this term as the general public was unaware that members of organized crime had attempted to take over Presley's career.

Unfortunately, and without their knowledge, it had already happened. Back at Graceland, Elvis' new band of brothers (the Memphis Mafia) had soon given way to 24-hour tomfoolery that was despised by Parker and Vernon alike. The two men initially distrusted these members and saw them as "hangers-on" who surrounded the star with unhealthy influences.

Eventually each was given a job necessary to the business and the situation eased. Since the friends weren't on Parker's payroll and they helped with the function of the business, they were eventually accepted by Parker but in his mind they were always kept at arm’s length. The exception was Joe Esposito.

When Parker learned that the heartbroken Elvis was courting a 14-year-old girl named Priscilla when he was stationed in Germany, and that she was the daughter of a career officer in the Air Force, he turned irate and scolded both Elvis and his father for their stupidity. Parker knew a disaster when he saw one and he knew that even the slightest hint of sexual relations between Elvis and a 14-year-old girl would end Presley's career and the honest image that took so much effort to create.

Parker reminded them that the same thing had happened years earlier to another rock-n-roll star, Jerry Lee Lewis as the mention of him dating a teenager ruined his career. There was no guesswork surrounding the issue: Parker knew damage control was needed immediately to safeguard the star's reputation.

To do it, Parker needed to control the release of information in the entertainment industry. That put him face-to-face once again with the only source that controlled it, the mob. Once again they had saved Elvis Presley, but debts were mounting. By 1960 the time had come for Elvis to appear on television again and Tom Parker received a call from those who held the organized crime strings in the entertainment industry.

Their favorite son, Frank Sinatra, had teamed up with ABC and Timex for a four show special starring Sinatra as the host, and the series was in trouble. Sinatra's first three shows had flopped and this, his fourth and final show, needed to be a hit. The long-awaited return of Elvis Presley was a guaranteed ratings grab and Parker owed the mob a favor, so Elvis appeared for the first time in 3 years at a much reduced rate.

The show was a great success with 41.5% of the ratings as everyone clamored for a look at "the cleaned-up Elvis" who was fresh out of the Army. Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra shared a checkered past. When Elvis first appeared on the music scene, Sinatra was less than kind to him in saying, "His kind of music is deplorable," and that it was "A rancid-smelling aphrodisiac." The public was surprised to see the two of them together looking like old friends, but to anyone who knew what was really going on, it was no surprise at all. Elvis and Frank were both owned by the same people. It was little wonder that the rest of the Rat Pack were also repeatedly featured on the ailing TV show.

It was during this time that rumors began to circulate that Elvis was dating Nancy Sinatra, another clever ploy by Tom Parker. That way even if news of Priscilla were leaked, it wouldn’t have been believed. The connection between Frank Sinatra, Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and mafia crime bosses was very real and cannot be over emphasized. So real in fact that Sinatra’s FBI file is a whopping 2,403 pages in length and the verbiage is peppered with associations to organized-crime figures.

On October 8, 2000, the CBS show 60 Minutes conducted an interview with Sinatra's daughter entitled Tina Sinatra: Mob Ties Aided JFK. In the interviews, the famous singer's daughter is quoted as saying: "Frank Sinatra served as a liaison between John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign for president and mobster Sam Giancana in a scheme to use Mafia muscle to deliver union votes."

The interview continued: "Tina Sinatra, 52, says her father told her that Kennedy patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy wanted the Mafia's help in delivering the union vote in the 1960 West Virginia primary, in which John Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, faced Sen. Hubert

Humphrey of Minnesota. The elder Kennedy asked Frank Sinatra to make a request to then-Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana.” “Giancana told Frank Sinatra he would do it, telling the singer, according to his daughter, 'It's a couple of phone calls.' Soon after Kennedy won the tight race for president, the deal brokered by Sinatra came back to haunt him when the Kennedy administration cracked down on the Mafia – an effort led by Robert Kennedy, the president's brother and attorney general.”

For those of us who were born after ‘the good old days’ and have no recollection of the way America really functioned, it could be easily said that a handful of men and their minions ran America from behind the scenes. They could make or break movie stars and politicians at will. They could fix any sports event and were quite competent at running casinos and major industries. These men were intelligent, powerful and for the most part kept very silent.

Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley were the two biggest legendary acts in American history and they were huge cash cows. There was simply no way their management would be allowed to stray as they were nothing short of obedient servants to the powers that made and kept them.

Immediately after the "Welcome Home" television appearance with Frank Sinatra, Elvis was commanded to star in as many motion pictures as humanly possible to fulfill his “contract” and quickly sign another. Initially Parker promised that none of the music in the movies would be sold on record, but Parker double-crossed Elvis and acted against his client's wishes with an RCA Victor side deal.

Elvis was embarrassed about the movie singles and never thought that they were up to the quality of his other songs. When he learned that they were going to be released for sale, and that his movie scripts were continually getting poorer, he was furious and flatly refused to do any more movies. Soon, the management relationship took an ugly turn.

RCA Victor, plus the entertainment powers behind them, accompanied by Tom Parker, burst into Presley’s California mansion for a surprise meeting. During the meeting it was made forcefully clear to Elvis that they owned him and if he resisted he wouldn’t be around too do anything else. In the DVD Elvis by the Presley’s Jerry Schilling tells of the conversation he had with Elvis over his movie scripts.

Schilling remembered Elvis’ comments: “Two pictures ago I was a racecar driver, the last picture I was a speed boat racer, this picture they want me to be a motorcycle racer. It’s the same script!” Jerry Schilling continues: “He was furious. He didn’t go to the studio the next day. This was one of his first times to rebel, and it wasn’t long that the studio came up, Colonel came up, and I even think there was somebody from the record company, and bottom line, it was put to Elvis, you will do this and you will do your contracts or you won’t do anything.”

They weren’t threatening Presley’s career, they were threatening his life. From the moment Elvis Presley kowtowed to those powers, his life would never again be the same, and in 1964 when the Beatles invaded America he was already locked into a ridiculous multiyear movie contract that was not in the best interest of his career.

The money continued to flow from the B rate films, which padded the pockets of the hidden powers but Elvis felt neutered and humiliated. They were prostituting the greatest star in the world for their own personal gain and making him into a laughing stock in the process.

Elvis despised musicals and never wanted to sing in his movies. His true ambition was to develop into a serious dramatic actor and when Barbara Streisand offered him the lead role in A Star is Born, Parker quickly killed the idea. Parker jacked the price on Elvis appearing in the film up so high that it made Elvis’ chances of getting the part impossible.

Parker had no management experience handling Hollywood actors and he would have lost his meal ticket. He feared that if Elvis went in that direction he would have been out of his element so he found a way to kill the idea. Parker's job was to keep Elvis under his authoritative thumb so RCA-Victor and the William Morris agency could keep the gravy train rolling, and roll it did.

With William Morris taking 10% off the top of his musical beach movies, and Parker filling his pockets as well, Elvis' chances of breaking into serious acting were virtually impossible. Just in case anyone thought that Elvis Presley wasn't a great actor, think again; he managed to make everyone believe that he was having a good time making B-rate movies when he was truly in misery.

Photo permission: University of Nevada, Las Vegas Library, Special of Collections

Pictured in this 1960 photograph taken on the set of GI Blues from left to right are Moe Dalitz, Elvis Presley, Juliet Prowse, Wilbur and Toni Clark, Cecil Simmons and Joe Franks (standing behind Wilbur Clark); you’ll notice that the only person in the photograph not smiling is Elvis Presley.

His somber facial expression exemplifies the pressure that these figureheads, led by Tom Parker, had on his life. From the late 1950s through the late 1960s, no one had more power in Las Vegas than Moe Dalitz. Morris Barney "Moe" Dalitz ran a leading criminal organization of gangsters called the Cleveland Syndicate known for its violence and criminal ways while running liquor from Canada and Mexico during prohibition. In Las Vegas, Dalitz bought The Desert and The Stardust so he could be a “hands on ally” to Jimmy Hoffa, Meyer Lansky and their entire organized crime network.

John L. Smith of the Las Vegas ReviewJournal writes of Moe Dalitz: "Early in his life, Dalitz was a bootlegger and racketeer mentioned in the same breath as Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. In Cleveland, one longtime member of law enforcement would tell the Kefauver Commission, "Ruthless beatings, unsolved murders and shakedowns, threats and bribery came to this community as a result of gangsters' rise to power."

Dalitz was the main member of organized crime who helped Frank Sinatra get his big break in show business. Frank Sinatra was responsible for helping Tom Parker get the motion picture and recording connections that he needed to make Elvis the star that he was. Knowing the obvious connection between Tom Parker, Frank Sinatra and various other mob members, it should surprise no one that Elvis Presley's co-star in one of his biggest hits of the late 1960s was none other than Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra's daughter.

The added publicity was done as a favor and although Nancy Sinatra was a very capable actress and co-star, it is doubtful her name would have come up for the role without the stark inside influence. Script after script from 1956 through 1969 would punish Presley's brand as he was commanded to sing sub-par songs that were written by unknown composers.

He cowardly suffered through the most moronic and repetitious movie plots in the business. This horror started slowly by Elvis filming one movie a year, but eventually grew to three movies a year until all 31 feature films were completed. These movies were so low budget and so rushed to completion that movies like Girl Happy and Spinout were shot in a mere 30 days. This was an inhuman pace that no entertainer could withstand. Elvis and his Memphis Mafia took to popping pills and staying up for days at a time to meet filming deadlines so Parker’s money flow would remain uninterrupted.

On at least one occasion Elvis had a bloody nose that simply wouldn't stop. When the doctor was called to examine him it was discovered that he was so depleted of sleep brought on by overwork that the nose bleeds wouldn't stop until he got some rest and his resistance could be restored. Finally, with Elvis on the verge of total physical collapse, Parker’s people agreed to give him a few days off.

While Elvis and the Memphis Mafia were keeping busy starring in foolish B rate films, Colonel Parker was adding another famous mobster to his book of contacts. To make the circle of Tom Parker's relationship to the mob complete, enter Las Vegas staple, Milton Prell. Prell had been kicking around Las Vegas as long as there was sand in the desert and had his start in the business of Las Vegas gaming just after the end of World War II.

Prell's first project in Las Vegas, The Bingo Club, was opened in 1947. In 1952 it was closed for renovation and re-opened as "The Sahara – The Jewel in the Desert." Prell was the rumored front-man for the Detroit mob and it was widely rumored that the money that built the Sahara was bookie, extortion and west-coast race-wire profits. Parker went out of his way to become close to Prell, showing him the ultimate in respect and consideration.

Alanna Nash clarifies this in her novel The Colonel where she writes: "The Colonel took a liking to Prell.” - “The two formed an intimacy unlike any other in Parker's personal history, and Prell became the one man the Colonel turned to whenever he needed a favor in Vegas." The two men were soon joined at the hip and when Parker learned that Prell’s neighbor in Palm Springs was none other than Presley movie producer Hal Wallis, Parker became an eager resident. Palm Springs was also the favorite hangout for Frank Sinatra, his friends in the syndicate and many of the seasoned Hollywood celebrities of the day.

Milton Prell with Elvis Presley

Parker, becoming totally absorbed in his life of power began to lose his promotional genius and when Presley’s movie career came to an end Parker was so drunk with power that he has lost his foresight. The radical '60s had taken hold of America and the music scene had become mired in the psychedelic and rock rebellion of the Vietnam era.

There was a new generation afoot that Parker didn't understand. Not because he couldn’t, his attention was elsewhere. By 1967, Presley’s movie contract was almost complete and the next career move was uncertain. Elvis turned restless and soon disobedient. He rebelled against Parker and the result was an impromptu meeting and strong lecture. Parker began to reorganize and take control of everything. He now ran the Memphis Mafia, Elvis' friends and every facet of Elvis' home life.

Parker even dictated who Elvis could spend time with, who had to be removed from his inner group and even the types of books he was permitted to read. After Parker ended the meeting where he laid down the law, he pulled Elvis aside and announced that his managerial percentage for handling him was going to be increased to an even 50% / 50% split.

Then, almost as if he was punishing Elvis, he back dated the new contract to the first day of the year. After all, with all of Parker’s new pull in the mob, who was going to stop him from taking the additional monies that he didn’t deserve? The answer was no one. Elvis knew that he was outmatched and many of the members in his group were amazed at how quickly he signed the new 50% partnership agreement; Marty Lacker was among them.

After the new contract was signed and the other 25% started to leave the Presley payroll to satisfy Parker’s new mob partner the two men became obsessed with personal safety. Bars started appearing over the windows and doors of their homes, and they both wired their homes with extensive security systems.

Elvis, who was already a high-degree black belt in karate, started getting his personal bodyguards enrolled in such training and bringing in additional security staff such as Dick Grob, who was a police sergeant, Dave Hebler, who was a martial arts master, and Sam Thompson, a former Shelby County Sheriff Deputy. Around this time, Elvis also went gun crazy carrying three to five handguns at a time.

Guns became a daily part of his life from this moment on and they lay strewn all over the house. They could be found lying on sofa cushions, on counters and even in bathrooms. He also went to great lengths to make sure everyone around him knew that he was highly armed to ward off anyone that wanted to get cute.

He began working martial arts skits in his performances and appearing in photos with his favorite gold-plated revolvers. He went so over the edge that as best man at Sonny West's wedding, he'd stand at the altar wearing five loaded firearms, including one in his boot. Elvis was definitely sending a message.

When Elvis married, Parker arranged every detail as if it were his own wedding. He selected the guests, found the location and even arranged the transportation. The secret location was at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas – a place that Parker knew very well as it was owned by none other than Milton Prell.

The transportation was also provided by the mafia; it was Frank Sinatra’s private jet. Elvis was in such a cage that he couldn't even plan or enjoy his own wedding without Parker, Sinatra, and Prell calling the shots for him, just as Eddy Arnold had foreseen and warned Elvis against years earlier.

Parker flexed his new mob muscles and assembled the wedding but behind the scenes he never wanted Elvis to marry and did everything to disrupt the couple's happiness. He was good at this: he'd broken up the marriage of both his right-hand men Tom Diskin and Byron Raphael.

This is covered at length in Alanna Nash’s book The Colonel. There she explains that Parker kept the men away from home and talked their brides into divorcing before the ink was dry on their marriage licenses. When the deed was done and he finally got his way Parker handled every aspect of the divorce. The Presley marriage went against everything Parker wanted.

He felt that the marriage of the No. 1 sex symbol in the world would hurt Presley’s sexpot punch from a marketing point of view and he had secret plans to make Elvis single again – quickly. After what seemed like a five-minute honeymoon, Parker pushed Elvis apart from Priscilla and thrust him into yet another labor-intensive project, the 1968 TV concert. Parker had picked December as the month for the special, and planned it to be a Christmas special, but network producer Steve Binder had other ideas.

After meeting with Elvis for several days and making the ever-sheltered Presley understand that his career was almost shot, Binder realized that this was a grand opportunity to re-energize Elvis' career and recapture the raw talent that still lay within. The TV special would soon go from Parker's White Christmas to a black leather unplugged concert that reunited Elvis with his old band members.

The show was renamed Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback and it was an instant success. The deviation from Parker's demands set him into a rage. This newcomer had proven himself to be more effective than Parker could have ever been. Parker's advancing age put him out of touch with the popular trends in music and he feared that he was no longer an effective manager.

Parker had always been terrified that one day someone younger and a little sharper would steal his bread and butter, and Parker saw Steve Binder as this man. He had every reason to be worried: Steve not only got along better with Elvis, he understood the current trend in the music industry and most importantly, he wasn't afraid of Tom Parker.

After the show was complete, Steve Binder and Elvis Presley parted ways, but not before vowing to remain in contact. Elvis shared his private phone number and they looked forward to many years of friendship, but thanks to Parker not one of Binder's repeated phone calls reached their target.

It would have been the best thing for Elvis Presley, but not for Tom Parker. So the friendship, along with all contact, was prevented. Call after call, year after year, was intercepted at Parker's insistence. Immediately after the success Elvis and Binder had enjoyed, Parker put the finishing touches to Presley’s marriage by booking him in Las Vegas and keeping Elvis and Priscilla separated.

It was sad, but Elvis and Priscilla never got to enjoy their marriage. Parker did everything possible to keep the newlyweds separate. With a baby girl involved, the strain on the both of them was simply too much for their relationship to bear. Also thrown into the mix at Parker's request were people surrounding Priscilla filling her head with as much ‘women’s lib’ ideas as possible, designed to transform the subservient young bride into the feminist that Elvis truly despised.

Presley’s increased workload, the time away from his wife, newborn baby, and Pricilla’s newfound independence were all manipulated. Little by little Elvis Presley’s velvet jail was tightening as every aspect of his life became directly, or indirectly mob controlled.

While most performers in today's world would take substantial time off when they're first married to enjoy the moment and raise children, Parker would have none of it. It was supposed to have been the happiest and most enjoyable part of the couple’s lives but Parker had other plans. With the help of his silent partner he used his juice to capitalize on the concert success that Steve Binder had orchestrated to negotiate Presley’s Las Vegas contract. Rumors widely circulated up and down the Vegas strip that the money that put the deal together came from none other than Milton Prell.

Elvis performed to sellout crowds at the new International Hotel (which later became the Las Vegas Hilton) and he would eventually sign a five-year contract to play one month of solid performances two times a year.

Presley was well paid at $125,000 per week and he was doing two shows a night (sometimes three) for an hour and fifteen minutes per show, seven days a week. At first, Elvis, Parker and everyone in the Memphis Mafia were having a blast in sin city. The food, parties, girls, glitz and glamour seemed to be bliss on tap for everyone all the time.

This was an exciting new adventure and everyone was treated like royalty. But by the second and third year into the contract, the daily grind became exhausting and Elvis had no breathing room. Alana Nash quotes Lamar Fike: "Nobody goes to Vegas and plays four weeks anymore – they do five days, tops...And Elvis had such a high energy show that when he would do an honest hour and fifteen minutes twice a night, he was so tired he was cross-eyed."

While Parker toured every casino in the town, dropping money everywhere he went, Elvis, who was suffering from severe depression, would have to pop even more uppers and downers to keep up with the high demand of his grueling show schedule.

The crew was up all night, slept all day and didn't see sunlight for weeks or even months at a time. Everyone had seen enough of Las Vegas, especially Elvis, who was bored to tears with the same songs, and the repetitious nature of it all. It was the same show day in and day out, but Parker wouldn't allow any variations because he was making the mob money with a proven winner.

To get his point across, Elvis would intentionally do lackluster shows just to piss the old man off. He would sing lying on his back on stage, do karate exhibitions and even talk with the audience members instead of perform. He thought surely this would wake Parker up and send a message to him that a change was needed, but Parker only cared about the money.

By the third year of the contract Presley was in total torment and it became very clear that the only thing Tom Parker cared about was the flashing lights and the excitement of the tables. Exactly how bad was Parker’s gambling habit? This is best explained by two members of Presley's entourage in the DVD entitled Elvis: The Last 24 Hours. Lamar Fike, one of Elvis' oldest and closest friends, explains in the DVD: "Colonel Parker was probably one of the most degenerate gamblers I have ever known in my life. In Nevada they used to say his money wasn't worth anything. In a period of an hour and a half he lost over a million and a quarter."

In the same DVD, Larry Geller, another of Presley's close friends, recalls a time when he was walking through the casino and saw a crowd of people around a man gambling. As he drew closer, he saw that the area was roped off and the man gambling and creating such a stir was Tom Parker.

Parker spotted Larry and asked him to sit by him for good luck. Larry explains what he saw: "The Colonel was there for hours (playing the wheel of fortune game with stacks of chips), upon hours until 5 o'clock in the morning, and he lost one and a half million dollars that night."

According to the National Average Wage Index, the average wage in 1969 was $5,893.76, and Parker was gambling away millions of dollars without batting an eye. Parker was totally out of control and had lost sight of his fiduciary responsibly to his client. He also thought his job was done: Elvis was booked, and now the shows were up to Elvis. Unfortunately, the talent that Parker had for promotional skill, he lacked in humanity and human compassion. Tickets to Elvis' shows were very inexpensive at a mere $40.

That price included the ticket to the show and a gourmet meal. Anyone in Las Vegas would have easily paid double, as Elvis was the hottest ticket in town. After a time it appeared obvious that Parker was “giving Elvis away” just to be close to the gambling tables. All totaled Elvis played over 835 shows in Las Vegas and would become the biggest icon the town had ever seen, but he paid a tremendous cost to do so.

The physical and emotional punishment of his contract was crippling. A day had dawned in the music world and 1969 was a very pivotal year in America. Elvis was on his way to making a huge comeback and John Lennon had been actively involved in many anti-war protests trying to stop the Vietnam War.

Lennon's two famous "Bed-Ins" were staged in Amsterdam and Montreal, both receiving worldwide media attention against the American administration's war policies. This was giving the Nixon administration silent fits of rage as it was in conflict with its foreign policy and turned the youth against the administration’s military ambitions.

Needless to say, Lennon was not a fan of the American government and the feeling was mutual. However, since Lennon was outside the country, there really was nothing that could be done about him. That changed in 1971 when Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono came to America and began to protest on US soil.

The events were a massive protest to the entire Vietnam War effort and spat in the face of the country's agenda. Because Lennon wasn't an American citizen, the FBI started to monitor and record information on him as his powerful hold over the youth might stage a governmental takeover.

The Nixon administration, which viewed Lennon as both a national security threat and a social nuisance, started to hear rumors of his intent to hold a concert opposite the Republican National Convention. Both Nixon and Herbert Hoover suspected that this was an attempt by Lennon to disrupt and make a mockery of the American government.

The White House knew that something had to be done to win over the youth of the nation. At the same time, Elvis Presley had many things going through his head, and all roads went through Washington DC. Elvis was fiercely patriotic and didn't like the radical uproar that he saw in America. He was also as fed up with Parker's pushy mob buddies as he was the greasy-haired, drug-infested protesters on the evening news. To Presley, it was a personal call to arms.

He reasoned that a visit to see President Nixon to offer his help in saving America would help solve both of these problems. Presley was very eager to help the US Government as a snitch as long as it was kept private. This was clearly evident in the letter Elvis had written to President Nixon.

This is a typed version of his letter which I acquired copyright at the National Archives. The first sentence of the last paragraph states “I am glad to help just so long as it is kept very private”.

After a short meeting with President Nixon, Elvis outlined his concerns regarding the anti-American sentiment that he believed came from John Lennon. Elvis offered his help and the two men were in total agreement.

When Elvis returned home he made the announcement of his new federal credentials. From that moment on, Tom Parker and the mobsters behind him had a very big problem. Elvis now had the federal badge that allowed him to carry a pistol in Memphis, Las Vegas or anywhere in the country his plane would fly him.

If the mob was gunning for Elvis, they now had the whole federal government behind him to deal with. Suddenly Elvis was much less expendable. With his newfound federal powers, which gave him a sense of confidence against Parker and his thugs, Elvis decided the time was right to dump Colonel Parker once and for all. If he'd said it once, he'd said it a thousand times: "I hate that old man and I'm tired of the old bastard threatening me".

The resentment between the two men had festered and blossomed to the point where almost anything could produce a screaming match. Elvis, tired of being the Colonel's puppet, fumed over the lack of control and was furious over the lack of a worldwide tour that Parker said years ago was in the works.

Millions of dollars in offers continued to pour in from all parts of the globe, including an offer to play at the great pyramids of Giza. All would go unanswered as Parker conjured up one excuse after another. One screaming match in particular started when Elvis heard that an employee of the Hilton was fired while his wife was sick and just diagnosed with cancer.

Elvis blew his stack on stage about the matter, hurling insults at Barron Hilton, then president of the Hilton Hotel chain. This was a direct and public insult to a mob friendly hotel. A hush sprawled over the audience as they listened to what Elvis had to say. The Colonel was purple with rage when he appeared in Presley's dressing room immediately after the show and the two men went ‘nose to nose’.

The tirade continued upstairs in Presley's thirteenth-floor suite. Finally, after the Colonel pounded the floor with his cane for nearly three hours and his pudgy purple face quivered with humiliation, Elvis did what he'd been threatening to do for years: he fired him. With both men threatening to hold a press conference before the other to break the news, they continued to trade threats and insults. The next day Parker produced a bill with itemized expenses for Elvis to buy him out of his contract.

The bill was several million dollars that Elvis simply didn't have and the Colonel knew it. Parker had trumped another ace and because Elvis couldn’t buy him out of his contact he had no choice but to take him back, but bigger troubles were on the horizon for Presley that dwarfed his dislike for the Colonel. Unbeknownst to President Nixon, a mafia leak from within the White House sought to alert his cronies from coast to coast that Elvis had obtained federal agent credentials.

The White House informer quietly contacted one of the mob’s reporters in their many media outlets and the secrecy that Presley demanded in his letter to President Nixon was forever blown. The Washington Post published the following information for all eyes to see. The following article was also acquired at the National Archives.

From the moment this article hit the press Elvis Presley was no longer seen as an entertainer. He was a marked man. This unforeseen media event devastated Presley and put him at great risk but paled in comparison to what followed in his personal life. Back at home Priscilla was succumbing to the pressures of life alone and she was no longer satisfied with the time apart from her husband. The long and secret affair she was having with Elvis' friend and karate instructor would be exposed and prove to be the ultimate insult.

Many women have affairs, but when it's done with your husband's friend, it cuts far deeper into the male ego. Priscilla was much more than just a wife for Elvis; she was a very important part of his mental makeup. She was the one person he poured his guts out to when his mother died, and she became the ultimate confidant and transitional object. In her, Elvis finally had someone whom he could completely and thoroughly trust, but when that ended, his world totally collapsed.

In August of 1972, they filed for divorce and Tom Parker finally got what he wanted all along, but not the way he wanted it. He managed to contort Elvis' marriage into ruin, but Parker now had to deal with a man whose raging drug addiction would prove to be a far bigger nuisance than his marriage ever was.

Presley's lawyer worked out the amicable terms of the settlement. Priscilla would receive $100,000 in a lump sum, plus $1,000 monthly for expenses and $500 monthly for child support. Each went their separate ways and the divorce was finalized.

Most people take drugs to escape physical pain, Elvis took drugs to escape mental pain, and as 1972 turned into 1973 there was plenty of mental anguish to go around. Elvis was on the brink of financial collapse, his wife had left him and was living with one of his friends, and his creativity was being stifled by Parker and the mob.

The stormy relationship between Presley and Parker continued as Presley's drug use escalated. Trying to satisfy the numerous requests and offers from around the globe for Elvis to do a worldwide tour, Parker set up a television broadcast via satellite and arranged to have it pumped into every country.

The show, called Aloha from Hawaii, was to air on January 14, 1973 and was the world's first live-concert satellite broadcast, reaching two billion viewers. To prepare for this major event, Presley dieted down to a mere 175 pounds and stayed off his medication for weeks. He also designed the now-famous jeweled eagle motif for the jumpsuit that he wore. The double album that was created from this show would stay on the charts for 36 weeks and would prove to be his first chart-topping LP in nearly a decade.

By February it was selling over a million copies in the US alone and far more in foreign countries. Sadly, it would prove to be his last and final moment as a glorious superstar – it would be his last No. 1 album in his lifetime. For many, the next time they'd see an image of Elvis Presley, it would be on the front cover of a tabloid magazine in his casket.

As 1973 wore on, Presley and Parker continued to battle. They fought over Elvis' insistence to record his music in Memphis and the new gospel group that Elvis had just signed on for $100,000. Parker was furious and remixed Presley’s songs, not releasing the version that Presley had approved. This was discovered as Elvis was riding in a car with Jerry Schilling and his new song was announced for the first time on the radio, and the version played was nothing Elvis had heard before.

The suppression of creativity that no one understood, combined with the business end of entertainment that he had no say in, put Elvis into deep depression. Interestingly both Presley and Parker had succumbed to their compulsions. Parker wanted desperately to return to the green felt of the casinos but needed to pay off his gambling marker that Hal Wallis, RCA and the Hilton were still holding, and Presley needed to get over this financial hump and go back to losing money the old-fashioned way – by paying for all the expenses and splitting the profits with Parker.

Later that year, Elvis' ex-wife reopened the divorce settlement, claiming that she'd settled for far too little. This time around she'd receive $725,000 in cash, $4,200 a month spousal support for a year (which had ballooned to $6,000 a month for a total of ten years), along with $4,000 in monthly child support.

Added to this she'd also receive 5% of Elvis' publishing companies and half of their house in California. Elvis, now with his finances in shambles and in desperate need of a cash injection, doubled his work schedule. Soon Parker told Elvis that he had a way for him to net a quick $4.5 million.

He coaxed Elvis to sell his music royalties for a lump sum of cash to RCA. With both men needing a financial shot in the arm, the Colonel made the deal. Parker's longtime friends at RCA quickly signed the sweet deal that got Parker off the hook for his gambling debts. Likewise, the deal got Elvis off the hook for the money he owed his ex-wife and the world turned - right? Wrong.

This was possibly the worst business deal ever concocted in music history. The two men got $10.5 million in total, and under their new 50/50 split, Elvis got $4.5 million before taxes. After the taxman and his ex-wife took their chunk nothing remained. Literally everyone gained something in this deal but Elvis Presley. RCA got profits, Parker settled his gambling debts, Priscilla went on her merry way and Elvis got the shaft.

The lump-sum payment was far too cheap for possibly the most valuable recordings in all of popular music. It became clear that this wasn't a contract - this was a crime. An official investigation after Elvis' death discovered that "both Colonel Parker and RCA acted in collusion against Presley's best interests. Colonel Parker was guilty of self-dealing and overreaching and had violated his duty to both Elvis and to the estate."

This quote, from ElvisInfoNet.com, originated from official estate documents. It serves as proof positive that Colonel Parker took advantage of a financially desperate and emotionally drained man to fill his own pockets. www.TCB-World.com contains the following quotes regarding the RCA deal in March of 1973: "Jack Soden of EPE (Elvis Presley Enterprises) describes the deal as being right up there with the Indians selling Manhattan for $24. Seven years later, a lawyer for the Presley Estate, Blanchard Tual, concluded that Colonel Parker and RCA were probably guilty of collusion, conspiracy, fraud and misrepresentation."

As the year progressed, so did the tension and at the end of the summer session in Las Vegas, Elvis and Colonel Parker were red-faced and nose-to-nose again. Elvis ended the final show of his tour with the words "To Hell with the Hilton Hotel," and Elvis met Parker backstage for a showdown in front of his entire entourage. This time Elvis put it in point-blank terms: "I don't want to play here anymore. You son-of-a-bitch, don't book me here again!"

Parker fired back with "I'm the manager and I'll book you where I see fit!" Elvis was tired of Las Vegas, tired of the Colonel and told Parker on the spot, "You can gamble in Las Vegas on another singer's dime – you're fired!“ Elvis then publicly named Concert West manager Tom Hulett as Parker's replacement. It was different this time and Colonel Parker knew it, Elvis had already named his new manager.

When Elvis told him that he wasn't going to play the Hilton anymore, Colonel Parker knew that his gambling days in Las Vegas on Elvis’ dime were over. The Hilton was the only hotel that was bold enough to hold Parker's debt marker – the rest of the major casinos had shut him off.

With his gambling marker now reaching $7 million the risk of being stiffed on payment was far too great. With Parker fearing for his gambling life and not having 50% of Elvis' wage anymore, he soon cowered to Presley's demands. Parker knew that Elvis was getting wise to his manipulations and wasn't going to stand for many more gambling holidays in the Hilton sweatshop.

Bending to Presley’s demands the Colonel joined the rest of the entertainment world and started booking concerts in city arenas. During these years Elvis gave nearly 1,200 concert performances, playing 100 towns a year. This was an inhuman workload that bordered on entertainment servitude. His grueling tour schedule would regularly include gigs in a different town each night, covering 200 or 300 miles between concert locations at breakneck speed.

As Presley's music grew more diverse and operatic his band and supporting crew also grew. Nearly 100 people including a backing vocal group, soloists, an entire orchestra, two planes and many buses were now part of Presley’s stage show. With his monstrous and expanding payroll, the lack of tax shelters, no more royalties from his songs and a 50% split with Colonel Parker of everything he made, Elvis had to work himself into total exhaustion just to keep his financial head above water. Although he continued to play to sellout crowds and made an astounding wage, he was always one tour away from financial meltdown.

As Elvis slipped deeper into his own universe of depression and exhaustion, he avoided Parker at every turn using buffers – typically Joe Esposito – to communicate his will. In 1975, as Elvis' 40th birthday approached, he remained secluded at his Graceland compound complete with armed guards, soundproof walls and wrought-iron fences between himself and the outside world.

Fueling his depression were magazines that ran cover stories about Presley’s 40^th birthday showing unflattering photos of the man with captions like “Elvis: fat and forty”. By 1976 Elvis was pushed to the very breaking point resulting in exhaustion and hospitalization. Larry Geller was on tour with Elvis in Louisville, Kentucky, witnessing the horror that had become Presley's life.

In his own words he sums the situation up in “Elvis: The Last 24 hours”: " Dr. Nick was holding Elvis' head, Elvis was in the bed, semi-conscious, almost comatose and he was moaning and he was in such bad shape and Dr. Nick was dunking Elvis's head into a bucket of ice water to revive him –[Colonel Parker Entered]- the door closed, and I thought immediately: Okay, this is good, this is good, now the old man, Parker, is going to see what's going on here, and he's going to see the bad shape Elvis is in and he's going to do something about it.

I mean you can't allow this to go on, it's inhuman! Ninety seconds later the door opened up, Colonel Parker walks up to me and I get up and we stand toe to toe, and he stares coldly into my eyes and says: 'Now you listen to me; the only thing that's important is that that man is on stage tonight – nothing else matters – nothing.'"

As Elvis remained holed up in his man cave, he was unaware that Colonel Parker was trying to sell his contract. During the negotiation, someone leaked the story to the Nashville Banner claiming that a group of businessmen had expressed interest.

The article continued to quote sources from both Memphis and Los Angeles. The news shocked the country and put everyone on high alert that there were major problems brewing in the Presley camp. Although Parker's financial desperation was mounting, the negotiation ended unsuccessfully leaving Parker a desperate and hostile man.

The Memphis Mafia was rotting from within and everyone seemed to have a new bone to pick with the King of Rock n Roll. Joe Esposito and a group of investors wanted money from Elvis to open a chain of Racquet Ball Courts. The venture went bankrupt leaving the two men and their investors hostile toward each other.

Presley’s personal Physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, (aka Dr. Nick), also borrowed money from Presley to build a gigantic office complex in Memphis. That venture also went bust leaving Dr. Nick unable to repay Presley which created friction.

David Stanley, one of Presley’s step brothers, was in the middle of a divorce and claimed that Elvis was the problem with their marriage. Shortly thereafter, three of Elvis’ body guards: Red West, Sonny West and Dave Hebler, had to be let go for financial reasons with little notice and they all swore revenge.

Presley’s girlfriend, Ginger Alden, was a young, headstrong snot that had to have everything her way and the couple seemed to battle endlessly. She had also developed a fondness for David Stanley who had an axe to grind with Elvis anyway due to his failing marriage. Suddenly everyone was driving Elvis to the brink of frustration and aggression with a ton of bad blood to go around.

In early April of 1977 Elvis was still battling with his manager and almost his entire inner circle of employees and friends. He was eventually hospitalized with exhaustion and a few shows had to be cancelled. Parker was furious. Elvis knew that everything depended on his indentured servitude as Parker's cash cow and figured out that Parker needed him far more than he needed Parker. Knowing this, Elvis set out to make sure that Colonel Parker wasn't making money either, and so the balancing act of power began with a tremendous game of push and shove.

Although Presley’s health problems were very real and shouldn't be understated, a portion of Elvis' drug dalliances and fooling around on stage were designed to gnaw at the old man’s stomach lining. Elvis had concocted the perfect plan: either Parker's payments on his gambling marker wouldn't be covered and the mob would kill him, or Parker would leave by his own free will.

One way or the other, Elvis would finally be free. Parker who was still stalling for time to repay his debts focused on the public announcement for the CBS-TV special entitled Elvis in Concert, performing his last concert on that leg of his tour on June 26, 1977 at Indianapolis' Market Square Arena.

The concert was a great performance for a man who was sick, medicated and near total exhaustion. Finally the checks were banked and everyone returned home for some needed rest and relaxation. No one had any idea that Elvis would never live long enough to see this concert televised. On his tour break from June 27 through August 15, Elvis stayed secluded at Graceland. Most people make the common mistake of thinking that Elvis lived in Graceland.

He did not. Graceland was his "house within a house" and Elvis' real domain was the upstairs. Much like Superman’s “Fortress of Solitude” Graceland’s upstairs was Presley’s ultimate sanctuary away from the world. There he could rest, watch TV, read or just simply enjoy the seclusion, and if he needed anything he could simply call downstairs where his maid or personal valet would readily attend to his every desire.

Another feature of Graceland’s upstairs that greatly appealed to Elvis was the blacked-out windows and special-tufted foam padding that was installed with the sole intention of soundproofing the whole bedroom, as well as the whole second floor.

This was necessary to support the lifestyle of a man who was one of the most notorious insomniacs ever documented. Left untreated, Presley wouldn’t sleep for days and when he did sleep, he lived a totally nocturnal existence. Elvis and everyone in his company went to bed as the sun rose and got up in the late afternoon.

Upstairs at Graceland was Elvis' silent, pampered refuge away from the turmoil of the entertainment world, but the outside world brewed trouble for Presley during this particular period of rest, trouble that no one saw coming. By mid-July it became obvious the three fired body guards had made good on their promise of revenge as portions of their ‘tell all’ book began to surface in some foreign countries. The resulting news conference that announced both the content and venomous motivation for the writing, accompanied by widespread media promotion, would make Colonel Parker's chances of selling Elvis Presley's contract impossible.

The book was published in America on August 4^th and was entitled “Elvis: What Happened?” In a sick twist of fate the publication arrived on book shelves just days before Presley’s death making wealthy men of the former body guards, the same body guards that Elvis had lavished with expensive gifts for decades. Tom Parker was ready to pull his hair out. Aside from the inability to sell Presley’s contract and settle his gambling debts, there was no way that he, the Memphis Mafia, or anyone else could protect Presley's long and polished public image.

Damage control at this point would have been impossible. The sensationalized if not totally fabricated tales within the childish publication had changed the way Presley’s adoring fans viewed him forever and Parker knew it was going to negatively affect his profits. Elvis read the book with tears pouring down his face.

He was battling middle age, numerous health problems and a growing prescription drug problem. He thought that his career was over, but he had no idea that what he was reading would be the single biggest catalyst in a plot to murder him. After all, if Presley could no longer put money in his employees’ pockets, he was of no use to anyone and could be easily discarded.

In August of 1977 there was enough bad blood between Elvis Presley, his manager, his employees, his girlfriend and his three former bodyguards to frost a dozen three layer cakes. All of them hated Elvis for one reason or another and wanted to kill him; and by mid-August they were successful. To unravel this mystery we need to answer a few very basic questions as we move forward. Who did the murdering, and how did they pull it off?