"Perhaps Tupelo Was Just Too Small A Town For Two Conspiracy-Minded, Snappy-Dressing, Nunchuck-Swinging Rock'n'Roll Men To Coexist In Harmony"

Of Elvis and assassinations I sing.

GQ has published the most complete account I've seen of the tale of Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator arrested earlier this year for trying to kill the president, and Everett Dutschke, the tae kwon do instructor now believed to have framed him. It is a strange story, but then, you already knew that. Read it here.

Comments

[Paul.]

The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, a Fridge Full of Severed Heads, and the Plot 2 Kill the President

Because you have to bring in the twitter generation?

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

lulz, J. Walk is totes kool.

[Pro Libertate]

I've shared this here before, but it's important that everyone understand--and this is 100% true--that Elvis was a huge fan of Monty Python.

[Paul.]

The local response is not stunned disbelief. "I think he's insane and out to harm people," Jason Shelton, an acquaintance of Curtis's who is now mayor of Tupelo, tells the press. Kevin's brother, Jack, releases a statement referencing "Kevin's lengthy history of mental illness" and pleading for the public's understanding. "He may be better off in the custody of the federal government," says Jim Waide, an attorney who once represented Kevin.

So, imagine you're arrested for something you didn't do, something that gets international news. While you're being questioned, the media is running around to everyone who knows you. Family, friends, acquaintances, people you might have had a beef with in the office because they keeps stealth-handoff-ing tickets to you without proper investigation... you know, that kind of thing.

You comfortable that everyone would just say lovely, positive things about you?

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

[Paul.]

A hulking officer with arms like bowling pins smirks at Kevin through dark glasses. "Your dog will be fine," he says.

Clearly, a man who enjoys his work.

[Paul.]

Late in the evening, the interrogation begins in earnest. Kevin is told, untruthfully, that a young girl is "clinging to life in the Tupelo hospital" because of what he's done. One of the agents summons tears over this fiction.

Holy jesus mother of god. *looks around* Or is it just me?

[Episiarch]

Have you ever watched the video series about why never to talk to the police? During the segment given by the former police officer, he brags about lying to people he was questioning, and being proud of deceiving them into incriminating themselves. He goes into total cop mode when he talks about it, and it's disgusting. This is par for the course with cops, Paul.

[Warty]

The pride in his eyes when he talks about how he lied people into confessing is revolting.

[Episiarch]

It's not just pride, it's glee and satisfaction as well. It's the "cop expression", and it is absolutely repellent. If you want to see it, just have a cop start talking about the job. They'll get there in no time.

[Paul.]

Have you ever watched the video series about why never to talk to the police?

Are you kidding me, that shit's on speed dial, and now that my daughter's moving towards her teenage years, we're going to have a home-schooling social studies class where that will be required viewing, like those VD films they used to show kids back in the 70s and 80s.

I understand that cops lie to perps. I also understand that it can be an important tool in interrogation-- especially when dealing with hardened criminals. But at some point, (and in this context) it seems icky.

I'm actually somewhat impressed that the cops realized they had the wrong man. All too often, they'd have pushed forward with this guy, and a zealous prosecutor just wouldn't want to admit they had the wrong guy, and would have stuck with it rather than admit they were on the wrong track.

I see it every day in my job, it's not hard to imagine that people in control of other people's fate and lives would do it too.

[Episiarch]

It's more than icky, Paul, it's disgusting. Because the cop has to know that they might be getting an innocent person to admit to something they didn't do by lying to them, and they don't care.

[Warty]

Even when he talks about how he got the rapist to confess by talking about how hot the raped chick was, I get revolted.

[mr simple]

It's not just getting them to admit anything, it's getting them to slip up in what they're saying. Mix up some details in your story and now you're a liar who lies to the police. Mention something about the victim or crime and the cops will say you told them the detail before they told you. Now they've got you and that's all they care about. It is disgusting.

[Seamus]

C'mon, Epi. Every cop worth his salt can get a guilty suspect to confess. It takes a really top-notch one to get innocent suspects to confess.

[Gray Ghost]

Related, from The Thin Blue Line:

Prosecutors in Dallas have said for years - any prosecutor can convict a guilty man. It takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent man.

[Rasilio]

Hell just watch Major Crimes. A TV show centered around a high profile crime unit that specializes in getting criminals to "confess", lying to the suspect is par for the course and no one seems to have any issues with it's morality

[Paul.]

North Mississippi Medical Center.

Wait, Dr. Hayne wasn't part of this whole affair was he?

[The Last American Hero]

Only if the perp bit a cop.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Everett Dutschke is going to get an unpleasant visit from a Red West impersonator.

[Restoras]

WTF? Moar shutdown stories, dammit!

[Spoonman.]

If you haven't read the linked story yet, DO IT. It is awesome.

[Paul.]

It is. A bit long and fluffed with details I didn't care about, but a very interesting article.

[Robert]

It made me care about every detail. But lost points for bizarre use of "asserted".

So how come no statement, not even "no comment", from the hospital?

[Warty]

In a valley hides a town called Tupelo

[Mad Scientist]

Ha, I had that running through my head the whole time I was reading the article.

[mr simple]

Rep. Steve Holland is on crazy fuck.

While the courts have not yet pronounced upon his guilt or innocence, most everyone agrees that if Dutschke does any time, they will not be easy years. "I believe he's gonna go in a tight end and come out a wide receiver," mused Rep. Steve Holland, Dutschke's former political rival. "But that's pure conjecture. I couldn't say for sure."

Just one of his many gems in that piece.

[Mad Scientist]

This is one of those stories that I would find pathetically unbelievable if it were fiction.

[SIV]

Mississippi may be my favorite state.

[John Thacker]

In the V.O. Key sense?

Mississippi adds another variant to the politics of the South. Northerners, provincial that they are, regard the South as one large Mississippi. Southerners, with their eye for distinction, place Mississippi in a class by itself. North Carolinians, with their faith that the future holds hope, consider Mississippi to be the last vestige of a dead and despairing civilization. Virginia, with its comparatively dignified politics, would, if it deigned to noticed, rank Mississippi as a backward culture, with a ruling class both unskilled and neglectful of its duties. And every other southern state finds some reason to fall back on the soul-satisfying exclamation, "Thank God for Mississippi!"

from his classic 1950 "Southern Politics in State and Nation."

[Warty]

This is the Dusty and the RoboDrum mentioned in the article. Holy shit, is it bad.

[LarryA]

It's stories like this that make it very difficult to write fiction.