Old things new again

[Xman]

I am going to be going into some old things that we have recently relooked at. Its funny how time allows you to see things you missed the first time around. Also those of you who read this board should take note of something. We break at lot of the things you see written elsewhere. For instance quite awhile back I found the prospectus for the new Elvis company and its details . I read it over and found that EPE had been not exactly candid about the terms of the sale. I posted the info here, now another site has taken up the story. This is not the first time this has happened and this is exactly how the Elvis world works. Take info rework it and wala its yours.

[Xman]

Back in August 1977. Vernon Presley made arrangement to buy the Crypt space for Elvis burial. He had apparently planned to move Gladys in there too below Elvis however this was against the law. Why? don't ask me. So he went ahead with the purchase. He also according to the Forest Hills Funeral owner had intended that this would be a temporary grave. This was stated by the owner and also proven by a letter from Vernon. I never thought all that much about this until I came accross a story that Vernon had applied already to the committee of adjustments to locate the graves at Graceland, BUT was turned down! I never knew this back when we looked at this topic . This took place after the 16th of August but before the 29th of August. On August 29, four men not three. four, tried to break into the crypt to steal the body. Three were Identified the fourth however was not! August 31st Vernon applies for burial at Graceland agian only thing is we are lead to believe this is the first time he did so. This time it went to hearing and was granted Sept 28th 1977. When Vernon applied both times he cited security costs, fears of abduction and concerns to other families at cemetery as concerns and jusification for burial at Graceland.

Quote: Tyler "had been in cahoots with a crooked deputy sheriff, who swooped down and 'captured' the thieves," said Ivian C. Smith, former head of the FBI's Arkansas office.

"The scheme had been hatched after the Memphis board had refused the Presley family's request to bury Elvis at Graceland," he said.

Smith says Tyler told him years later that former Shelby County sheriff's deputy Billy Talley set up the hoax.

Tyler, in a bizarre twist to an already bizarre tale, helped put his old pal Talley away in 1997 for conspiring to kill FBI special agent Eddie Young, who had investigated Talley for drug-dealing. Smith had worked the case. END QUOTE

The charges against these men were dismissed. What is bothering me in all this is the players, the time frames and lastly that I may be fueling the fire of a death hoax. But hey fair is fair when things don't add up!

[Xman]

So it appears that Vernon and his associates made happen what would be needed to get the approval to move the bodies to Graceland. BUT in all this I ask why? And during this time of family crisis is this not alot on ones plate to deal with? I have experience in dealing with zoning laws and committees of adjustment and can tell you even at the best of times this process gets really frustrating over miniscule matters let alone starting your own personal graveyard. Also how does one get hooked up with Tally and the others? Well lets look at the fact of Elvis association with local police. Bill Morris sheriff and Mayor. But would he be associated with a crooked cop? I don't know. Who else could there be? Dick Grob, Thompson maybe O'Grady. Or how about Hmm Good OL Tommy Henley. He too was a ex deputy in the memphis police. Funny this guy should die a mysterious death years later. Funny that he and Letitia his wife are on that memorial plaque along with some others. Hell she was the drug dispenser and Tommy well he delivered that famous last packet didn't he. I often wonder if that plaque is not representitive of those that helped cover up the truth(whatever it may be).Also the order of the names makes little sense when you see it .eg; Why not list the Henleys one after the other or Dr. Nic and his son. Weird I Think! Where is Marty ,the Stanley boys, or Billy Smith or Thompson or the famous Elvis Cook? Something is very weird about this list. I also find it weird that the original group of MM is divided into two or more camps. Why?

[Xman]

TO ELVIS IN MEMORIUM

You gave yourself to each of us in
some manner. You were wrapped in
thoughtfulness and tied with love.
May this flame reflect our never
ending respect and love for you.
May it serve as a constant reminder
to each of us of your eternal presence.

Tommy Henley

Jerry Schilling

Letetia Henley

Dean Nichopoulos

Patsy Gambill

Dr. Geo. Nichopolous

Al Strada

Janelle McComb

Felton Jarvis

Joe Esposito

[Xman]

Graceland Site Sought For Graves Of Presleys
By From the Archives of The Commercial Appeal
September 1, 1977

An application to allow the bodies of Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys, to be moved to the Meditation Garden at Presley's Graceland Mansion was submitted yesterday to the Board of Adjustment.

A variation or exception to the residential zoning of the 13-acre estate at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard would be required before the bodies could be placed in graves there. The two are entombed at Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown, about three miles north of Graceland.

[Xman]

In a letter to the Board, D. Beecher Smith II, an attorney for the Presley family, said the board should grant a variance or exception because it is impossible to provide adequate security for the bodies of Presley and his mother at Forest Hill "without creating an otherwise needless expense to the estate." He said the cost to the family of providing security at the cemetery is about $200 a day.

The body of Presley, who died Aug. 16, was placed in the mausoleum at Forest Hill. Mrs. Presley's body was moved from a grave in the cemetery to the mausoleum after her son's body was placed there. She died on Aug. 14, 1958.

[xman]

Smith said the family's request for a zoning variance also was based on these "principal points:"

-- "There has already been one reported attempt to steal the body of Elvis Presley and hold it for ransom.

-- "The (Graceland) property contains an area in excess of 13 acres, is completely enclosed by high walls and fences and the owner already employs a regular staff of security guards 24 hours a day.

-- "The alleviation of the problem at Forest Hill Cemetery would not create an additional problem on the...property because the location chosen for the family burial site would behind two walls and totally unable to be seen by the public unless opened to the public. In addition to the problems of expense to the estate, many people have been prevented from visiting the grave sites of their loved ones because of the crowds at Forest Hill Cemetery, which is also a concern of the executor and trustee, Vernon Presley.

According to Richard Hackett, director of the Mayor's Action Center, the proposed site is in the Meditation Garden, an area enclosed in a crescent-shaped stone wall containing stained-glass windows. Around the wall are eight white columns serving as a backdrop for a fountain and statues.

The site is south of the mansion about 50 feet from the south property line and is set back 580 feet from the stone fence on Elvis Presley Boulevard.

The request will be heard at the board's next meeting Sept. 28.

[Xman]

3 Charged in Body-Stealing Plot
By William Steverson
From the Archives of The Commercial Appeal
August 30, 1977

Three Memphis men were charged yesterday afternoon with criminal trespassing in connection with what Police Director E. Winslow Chapman said was a plot to steal the entombed body of Elvis Presley.

The charges were made after police arrested the men who they said were fleeing from the mausoleum at Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown shortly after midnight.





Chapman claimed the three had conspired to break open the sealed crypt, take Presley's body from the casket and hold it for ransom.

Chapman said he did not know how much ransom the suspects planned to demand for the return of the body.

The men were identified was Raymond M. Green, 25, of 981 Elizabeth Lane, Bruce Eugene Nelson, 30, of 5098 Quinch and Ronnie Lee Adkins, 26, of 558 Storz. They were released on $50 bond each and face a preliminary hearing at 9 this morning in City Court Division 2.

A fourth suspect, arrested at Baptist Hospital shortly after the others were taken into custody near the cemetery, was released yesterday afternoon without being charged. Police did not give his name.

Chapman said the arrests came after police received a tip from a confidential source that there would be an attempt to steal the body of the entertainer who died Aug. 16.

Officers staked out the cemetery Friday and Saturday nights and again Sunday night.

Chapman said police spotted the suspects near the cemetery Saturday, but that he thinks they were only in the area to check it out and did not intend to attempt to take Presley's body at that time.

Chapman said officers were hidden only a few dozen yards from the mausoleum early Monday when the suspects began "rattling" the large iron gate blocking the rear entrance of the mausoleum.

According to Chapman, the men entered the area shortly after midnight by climbing over a fence at the rear of the cemetery.

He said that at about 12:30 a.m., lights of a car traveling on Hernando behind the cemetery shined at the suspects who were at the mausoleum gate, and they apparently became frightened and began running.

The suspects were not armed and had no explosives, Chapman said. He said a shotgun was found in the trunk of the car.

Chief Roy Taylor of Special Officers, Inc., a private security force which patrols the cemetery, said three of the four suspects spotted at the mausoleum gates got into a car and sped away north on Hernando, then east on Person toward Elvis Presley Boulevard. He said police stopped the car and made arrests on Person near the intersection with Elvis Presley.

The fourth suspect scaled the Interstate 240 fence and got away, Taylor said. Police said the man apparently injured a leg while fleeing, and was arrested when he went to Baptist Hospital for treatment. They gave no explanation why he was not charged.

Taylor said police took a number of weapons out of the car along with some type of explosive. However, Chapman said the shotgun in the trunk was the only weapon and there were no explosives.

Chapman said he did not know how the suspects planned to open the crypt, which is sealed with two large concrete slabs and covered by a solid sheet of marble. However, he said the source who tipped police about the plot said the plan called for taking the body from the casket. The steel-lined, copper-plated casket was estimated by funeral home officials to weigh about 900 pounds.

According to Chapman, the suspects were supposed to have burglary tools to enter the mausoleum gate. He said police, working under the assumption that the burglary tools were thrown away as the suspects ran, searched the area but found nothing. Police delayed placing charges against the three suspects to see if burglary tools would be located.

"Without burglary tools, it would be a very weak (burglary) case," Chapman said at a press conference yesterday. "All we could charge them with would be trespassing."

Chapman said he conferred with Vernon Presley, Elvis' father and executor of his estate, yesterday morning and the two "discussed ongoing permanent security measures which will be made by the Presley family." He would not say what those measures would be.

In the meantime, he said police would continue to patrol the area.

Records at the Shelby County Penal Farm showed that two of the three men arrested yesterday had prior run-ins with the law.

Green was released April 29 this year after serving slightly more than one year on convictions of involuntary manslaughter, attempt to commit a felony stemming from unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell and unlawful possession of marijuana, records showed.

The three convictions brought sentences totaling nearly five years but they were to be served concurrently, officials said. Green also had jail credit totaling "well over a month."

Green also served one year of a one-to-five-year sentence imposed in 1972 for selling marijuana, according to his record.

During his recent stay at the penal farm, Green worked in the kitchen and in the clothing room and also was shown to have been written-up on two occasions. He was put in isolation for 10 days for fighting with another inmate and was issued a warning on another occasion for refusing to follow an order.

Records also showed that Adkins served five months of a one-to-five-year sentence in 1974 for two counts of petty larceny. He was discharged Nov. 24 that year with a suspended sentence, officials said.

Nelson has not served time at the penal farm, records showed.

A treespassing charge can carry a maximum charge of 11 months and 29 days in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Meanwhile, Dr. George S. Lovejoy, director of the Health Department, said the move of the body of Mrs. Gladys Love Presley, mother of Elvis, from her grave to a crypt directly below Elvis' was illegal.

He said Tennessee law requires that permits be issued and signed by the Health Department before a body can be moved.

Mrs. Presley's body was moved Friday night; but Lovejoy said the proper permit was not filed with his office until yesterday morning.

Ralph Davis, supervisor of the cemetery, said Vernon Presley signed papers Thursday giving permission to have the body moved.

[Xman]

So Who was the fourth man? Ron Tyler! Deputy Tallys informant! Here they have him confused with Ronnie Lee Adkins who was arrested that night. Tyler was not. He was questioned at the hospital later but let go.

"Three men were arrested Aug. 29, 1977, near the Forest Hill Cemetery mausoleum where Elvis was entombed in a 900-pound copper coffin. One of them was Ronnie Tyler, who later became an FBI informant.

Tyler "had been in cahoots with a crooked deputy sheriff, who swooped down and 'captured' the thieves," said Ivian C. Smith, former head of the FBI's Arkansas office.

"The scheme had been hatched after the Memphis board had refused the Presley family's request to bury Elvis at Graceland," he said.

Smith says Tyler told him years later that former Shelby County sheriff's deputy Billy Talley set up the hoax.

Tyler, in a bizarre twist to an already bizarre tale, helped put his old pal Talley away in 1997 for conspiring to kill FBI special agent Eddie Young, who had investigated Talley for drug-dealing. Smith had worked the case.

[Xman]

laws.findlaw.com/6th/99a0367p.html
RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

ELECTRONIC CITATION: 1999 FED App. 0367P (6th Cir.)

File Name: 99a0367p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

_________________

United States of America,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Billy Talley,

Defendant-Appellant.



No. 97-6528




Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis.

No. 96-20030--Bernice B. Donald, District Judge.

Argued: March 11, 1999

Decided and Filed: October 18, 1999

Before: MERRITT, KENNEDY, and JONES, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Arthur E. Quinn, BOGATIN LAW FIRM, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Lawrence J. Laurenzi, OFFICE OF THE U.S. ATTORNEY, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Arthur E. Quinn, BOGATIN LAW FIRM, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Lawrence J. Laurenzi, OFFICE OF THE U.S. ATTORNEY, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee.

_________________

OPINION

_________________

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant, Billy Talley - a former lieutenant in the Shelby County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department - appeals following a jury trial finding him guilty of three of the four counts charged against him in a four-count indictment. Now serving a 42-month term for knowingly disposing of a firearm to a convicted felon, among other crimes, Talley challenges his conviction and sentence on eight separate grounds. The primary of those grounds is that the district court erred when it denied Talley's motion for a mistrial premised on the government's prosecutorial misconduct. Although we agree with Talley that the prosecutorial misconduct is this case is indeed troubling, we find a mistrial unwarranted. For the reasons that follow, we also find Talley's seven other suggested errors without merit, and therefore affirm his conviction and sentence.

I.

The underlying facts of this matter read like a film script. Talley was employed for eighteen years in the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. While there, he rose from deputy jailer to become a lieutenant in the detective division. As a detective, Talley used one Kelvin Marr as an informant in many of his cases. Marr, a career criminal and prior convicted felon, stole cars and other items, and dealt drugs. Periodically, Marr would be arrested and Talley, to keep Marr as an informant, would come to his aid by having Marr's bond lowered, or by attempting to intervene with prosecutors on Marr's behalf. (1)

At some unspecified time, Talley "crossed the line" between legal and illegal conduct, and became a participant in Marr's criminal activity. Thereafter, Marr continued to be periodically arrested, but Talley's criminal life went undetected.

Marr ultimately tired of the routine of being the only one prosecuted for the crimes he committed along with Talley. When arrested in Memphis in 1995, Marr therefore decided to "rat out" Talley to Memphis police officials, who promptly called in the FBI. Marr ultimately agreed to wear a wire against Talley, and to record their conversations on audiotape. Because Marr was less than precise in his recording technique, however, certain relevant conversations with Talley were not recorded; some audiotapes were lost; and others were recorded over ( i.e., erased and destroyed). One destroyed conversation at issue here allegedly involved Talley asking Marr if, in exchange for $3,000, he would be willing to kill the wife of an individual named Fred White. (Talley was never indicted for this crime.)

The conversations which were recorded, and which were played for the jury at Talley's criminal trial suggested, inter alia , that:

- Talley and Marr stole cars together, including a 1993 Saturn automobile;
- To conceal their car thefts, Talley and Marr replaced valid vehicle identification number ("VIN") tags with VIN tags they had previously stolen. Additionally, they stole a car dealer's license plate, which Talley installed on the Saturn (so as to disguise its stolen status);
- Talley provided Marr with a .25 caliber automatic pistol, which Talley had previously stolen from the Sheriff's Office; and
- Talley sold 75 placebo Dilaudid pills on behalf of Marr, then split the profits with Marr.
When Talley discovered that Marr had "worn a wire" against him, Talley sought to have both Marr and his FBI contact, Ed Young, killed. The assassination plot did not work out as Talley planned, however, because the contract killer that Talley dealt with, Ron Tyler, ;D elected - like Marr - to record his conversations with Talley, and to assist the authorities. As a result, Talley was convicted in the Western District of Tennessee on two counts of solicitation-of-murder in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1114 and 1512. His 170-month incarceration term was upheld by a different panel on appeal. See United States v. Talley, 164 F.3d 989 (6th Cir.), cert. denied , ___ U.S. ___, 119 S.Ct. 1793 (1999).

[Xman]

So was there a mysterious phone call to tip off the police about the body snatch? I doubt it. But if there was who made it? Obviously it would have been one of the conspirators in the game. Maybe they did need a legitamit tip off but we don't know who received it the Central Station or Talley. Or did Talley just say he recieved one?

[Elvis Cop]

I remember this story well, and your excerpt from the Commercial Appeal brought back a lot of memroies. Plain and simple, in my opinion, these guys were recruited to hoax a break in to motivate the city officials to allow Vernon's request to move the bodies to Graceland. I don't think there was any phone call to tip anyone off.

What would be the worst? Having the body stolen and held for ransom, or having the body stolen and discovering that the body was not Elvis or that the casket was empty?

Security is required for all kinds of reasons, including keeping secrets.

[Xman]

I agree. I am pretty much convinced this was all setup. However I don't necessarily lean toward the coffin being empty. Infact. I tend to think that its more along the lines that all the MM and Vernon and the Colonel were waiting for the day Elvis OD'd. They admitted that they expected it to happen one day. So it may make more sense that the Colonel and Vernon had already knocked heads on the future without Elvis. I have evidence, that unlike Priscillas' claims, shows that Vernon met Jack Soden in 1978. In Fact she introduced them. Colonel Parker brought in over 7 million in royalties to the ESTATE in 1978 and 1979. So the estate wasn't exactly near broke was it? All this tells me that certain people were at work behind the scenes to establish the Museum and future income off of Elvis long before we are told . I know this sounds pretty odd but don't forget there were business aspects to everything. I am also sure they wanted to make sure Graceland was able to be maintained for LMP.

[Xman]

Oh something I forgot to mention was that Tyler later on admitted he was part of the grave attempt and that it was a hoax to get the bodies moved to Graceland. Tally was contacted to make it happen.

[Xman]

Do you all know Madame Blavatsky is? Type her name in to google images. When you see her you'll see what caught Elvis eye in the self realization crap Larry the barber was selling him.