Elvis Presley´s Funeral on August 18, 1977

The private funeral an Thursday was plain and simple. Pallbearers were longtime friends Lamar Fike, George Klein and Joe Esposito, guitarist Charlie Hodge, cousins Billy and Gene Smith, Beach Bays road manager Jerry Schilling, personal physician Dr. George Nichopoulos and record producer Felton Jarvis. About 200 persons crowded into and out of Elvis' music room at Graceland at two p.m. to hear remarks by Rex Humbard, the TV evangelist from Akron, Ohio; comedian Jack Kahane, who had opened shows for Elvis; and the Reverend C.W. Bradley, pastor of Memphis' Wooddale Church of Christ. Bradley gave the main eulogy.

Then the caravan, led by a silver Cadillac followed by the white Cadillac hearse with Elvis' body and seventeen white Cadillac limousines, toiled its way past bystanders the two and a half miles to Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown.

A short ceremony followed in the white marble mausoleum where Elvis was entombed at 4:24 p.m. in a sixcrypt family chamber. Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, sat outside an a police motorcycle far a while. Elvis' friends said the Colonel was not letting anyone know how he felt. (There was open speculation that Colonel Parker had earlier canceled his contract with Elvis. Road manager Joe Esposito said that was ridiculous: "I called the Colonel about that. He laughed and said, 'Where do these stories start?' The Colonel's plans are the same today as if Elvis were still here. They had a written contract.")

Vernon Presley stayed with his son after everyone else left the mausoleum and emerged visibly shaken.

Family and friends returned to Graceland for a Southern supper. Vernon Presley decided to give all the flowers to fans, and at 8:25 a.m. Friday the gates to Forest Hill were opened. By 11:30 the flowers were gone.

Elvis' first producer, Sam Phillips of Sun Records fame, said he thought it was possible that Elvis died of a broken heart, since he could never find any true friends. Elvis' last producer, Felton Jarvis, said that maybe Elvis had a death wish and that it wasn't the fans who billed hint, it was the people around him. A young woman named Vicki said, "Hey, all you have to do is stand on any corner here in Whitehaven and you'll find people who've been to parties at his house. High-school girls got new cars from him. He hired a guy just to play racquet ball with him--that was his only job. Elvis always had someone carry his black hag with his 'credentials': that was all his police badges."

After the funeral, after it was all over, the crowds continued to grow outside Graceland. One caravan of six cars arrived late Thursday. Wanda Magyor, thirty-three, of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, jiggled a baby on her hip as she told of her love for Elvis. "We'll stay out here all night just to get into the cemetery. We drove all night to get here. I will get a flower from the cemetery."

One of her companions, Myrtle Smith said, "Thirty of us decided to come down here because there'll never be another one like him. He was the king of everyone and especially of our people. He was the king of the gypsies. He was ours."

The Death Of Elvis Presley - Autopsy Report

Elvis Presley´s autopsy - Originally article appeared in the Salt Lake City Tribune on January 29th, 1978:



Toxicologists based at the University of Utah have completed laboratory studies of autopsy specimens from the body of Elvis Presley and have found that 11 drugs were present in the singer's system at the time of his death, The Tribune has learned.

All of those drugs were consistent with medical treatment, said the director of the Center for Human Toxicology, Dr. Bryan S. Finkle. He spoke to The Tribune in an exclusive interview. The Center had been called in to provide a third toxicological analysis of typical autopsy specimens from Presley's body.

He reported, "We have not detected any drug in Elvis that doesn't have a medical rationale to it - only agents prescribed for perfectly normal, rational medical reasons."

Dr. Finkle said the singer had not been drinking prior to his sudden death, which reportedly was blamed on an erratic heartbeat, last Aug. 16. Efforts by the Tribune to obtain a copy of the report by the Center for Human Toxicology have not been successful.

The Center received the first of the autopsy specimens on Oct. 4, and when The Tribune learned of this Dr. Finkle postponed requested interviews for professional reasons as he was acting in a consultant's role and in that, cannot talk in specifics.

He spoke, when interviewed, in general that, yes, he had been involved in the case and that he found 11 drugs, all consistent with medical treatment. Of course, that the entertainer did have prescription drugs in Elvis Presley´s system at the time of death has previously been reported. Most accounts mentioned from eight to 10 drugs.

The Center for Human Toxicology, which has an international reputation among toxicologists and forensic scientists, was the third organization called in in this phase of the Presley autopsy. The others were the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.,and Bio-Science Laboratories, Van Nuys, Calif. Bio-Science requested the Center of Human Toxicology conduct the third examination, said Dr. Finkle.

While certain agencies, including the center based at the University of Utah, and the Shelby County, Tennessee, Medical Examiner's Office, involved in this story receive public monies, it appears unlikely that there will be disclosure of specifics about the toxicological analysis. The autopsy performed was done at the request of the Presley family.

In a nutshell, rights of privacy prevail and the parties appear to have no legal duty and are not compelled to disclose certain documents, in particular the toxicological report of the Center for Human Toxicology.

Dr. Finkle, as a consultant in the Elvis Presley case, said he wrote a two-page report based on his findings at the request of Bio-Science. In it he lists the found drugs, their concentrations and he concludes with an opinion as to the potential or possible toxicological consequences of having this number of drugs in these concentrations in a body.

The laboratory results here apparently satisfied Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Jerry T. Francisco that Elvis Presley's death could not be attributed to drug overdose. However , it was learned that the death certificate was signed before the final Finkle report was mailed. Dr. Finkle's opinion was solicited earlier by a phone call, and Dr. Francisco later said publicly that the prescriptions drugs found in the singer's system were not a contributing factor.

The Associated Press, reporting on a press conference Dr. Francisco called last Oct. 21, quoted the medical examiner as saying that four drugs were found in significant quantities in the entertainer's bloodstream.

They are Ethinamate, Methaqualone, codeine and barbiturates. The first two are sedatives; codeine is a narcotic analgesic or milder, secondary pain killer, and barbiturates are "downers" or sedatives or depressants. Dr. Francisco was quoted as saying that four other drugs-the antihistamine chlorpheniramine, meperidine, morphine and Valium-were found in what were said to be insignificant amounts.

Meperidine and morphine are pain killers and Valium is a tranquilizer. Presley was not taking morphine ; the morphine was a byproduct of the codeine. The AP said Dr. Francisco said the amount of drugs found in Presley's body, collectively, would not have constituted a drug overdose. And he said it was unlikely that the drugs' chemical reactions within the body could have contributed to his death.

He said Elvis Presley died of a heart disease. "Had these drugs not been there, he still would have died." Dr. Francisco was quoted as saying that the press conference. But at this time the Finkle report was not in hand. It was not completed until December.

Nonetheless, the death certificate was signed at a point-just prior to the release of the Finkle report-where tests were sufficiently completed so that authorities could conclude that the drugs did not contribute to the death.

Officially, Dr. Francisco said in Memphis in October that Elvis Presley's death was caused by hypertensive heart disease with coronary artery disease as a contributing factor. The autopsy was conducted by Dr. Eric Muirhead, chief of pathology at Baptist Memorial Hospital. The autopsy was reportedly most thorough.

While Dr. Finkle would not be specific, he did give some solid information. He said that he found no Ritalin in the specimens. Ritalin is a stimulant and a trade name for preparations of methylphenidate. Dr. Finkle said he had been specifically asked to look for this drug among other agents.

As a toxicologist and not a medical doctor, Dr. Finkle will not even remotely discuss or determine cause of death. If he has an opinion he is keeping it to himself.

The 42-year-old- Elvis Presley was found face down on the floor of a bathroom at Graceland, his 18-room mansion, at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 16. He had been last seen alive that day about 6 a.m. after playing racquet ball with members of his entourage. He was a sick man. He had hypertension and a colon problem. Efforts to revive the singer were abandoned that day at 3:30 p.m. at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

The autopsy was reportedly very thorough and careful with several doctors participating. Dr. Finkle explained that it is routine in any medical-legal investigation for there to be three facets to a scene investigation of what were the circumstances surrounding the death; the medical-legal autopsy, and support investigation in clinical or toxicological laboratories.

And, the Elvis Presley case was reportedly conducted along routine lines. When taken to the hospital, there was reportedly suspicion that Presley died of what might loosely be called a heart attack; there were signs of cardiac arrest and cardiovascular blood flow problems. Autopsy specimens were routinely sent to the laboratory, and it was decided to have two toxicology labs do the work-the hospital's and Bio-Science. Dr. Finkle said, "as far as I know" there was no conflict between the two toxicologists, but there was some medical opinion differences as to what quantitative amounts of the drugs might mean relative to Elvis Presley's death.

The physician who conducted the autopsy, Dr. Muirhead, did not respond to a telephone call and letters from The Tribune. Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco responded that the autopsy was done at the family request and with family authorization by the pathology staff of Baptist Memorial Hospital. This separated him for authorized toxicology studied and he is unauthorized to release any reports, he said.

"What he have done," said Dr. Finkle, "is to conduct a routine, complete series of forensic toxicological analyses on specimens and determine quantitatively what drugs were present in the victim and in what breakdown and we were asked what this means: is it germane to Elvis death, did he die of drugs or didn't he?" said Dr. Finkle.

Elvis Presley's illnesses included hypertension, some cardiovascular compromise and a colon obstruction. He fought a losing battle with a weight problem for several years.

"As a toxicologist, if you ask me why he had the drugs (in Elvis system), the answer is that he needed them medically. All the drugs were in a range consistent with therapy and therapeutic requirements for known conditions of illnesses which he had," Dr. Finkle.



Elvis Presley´s Death - Autopsy Photo Page 1:



Elvis Presley´s Death - Autopsy Photo Page 2:

Death Elvis in coffin



Last photo of death Elvis in coffin - is it real?



Enquirer - Last picture of death Elvis in coffin - is it real?

Elvis Presley´s Last Hours - The Death - The Autopsy:

On Monday, August 15th, Elvis arose late, as was his custom. (The Memphis Commercial Appeal's editorial on his passing noted that "if he kept late hours, he also kept the peace."(After nightfall, he took one of his Stutz-Bearcats out for a drive through Memphis. After returning to Graceland he went to his racquet ball court and played until about six a.m. Tuesday, August 16th.

At 2:33 p.m. the call came to the Memphis Fire Department's Engine House No. 29 on 2147 Elvis Presley Boulevard. The call, from Elvis' road manager Joe Esposito, said that someone was having trouble breathing at Graceland. That is not an unusual complaint, since fans often faint outside the Presley mansion. Charlie Crosby and Ulysses S. Jones Jr. jumped into Unit No. 6, a "Modular Rev Ambulance" -- an orange and white boxlike structure affixed to a GMC chassis--turned on the siren and headed south. At 3746 Elvis Presley Boulevard (no one here calls it just Presley or just Elvis) the ambulance was led up the winding driveway of Graceland by a waiting car.

Crosby and Jones were brought upstairs, where Presley was lying on the floor of his bathroom. His personal doctor. George Nichopoulos was administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

They put Elvis, in his blue pajamas, into Unit No. 6 and sped north on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Crosby was driving and Jones was helping with revival attempts in the back. A number of Elvis' employees followed. They turned left on Union and raced to Baptist Memorial Hospital's emergency room entrance, just four-tenths of a mile east of the original Sun Records studio at 706 Union -- now a vacant and padlocked yellow, one-story building -- where Elvis first recorded. "Breathe, Presley, breathe!" the Commercial Appeal quoted his doctor as saying on the way to the hospital. It was more than too late. Presley's body was already blue.

Even so, at 2:56 p.m. he was rushed into the emergency room, which was then closed to all other cases. A "Harvey Team," which is trained in all means of reviving a dying person, worked on him without success. Dr. Nichopoulos finally pronounced Elvis Presley dead at 3:30 p.m.

His body, which was becoming bloated, was moved to the hospital morgue on the second floor. The morgue was sealed off by tight security and the preliminary autopsy began, with every important doctor in the hospital present. Also called in was Dr. Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County medical examiner. Their preliminary ruling was cardiac arrhythmia and hardening of the arteries.

"Elvis had the arteries of an eighty-year-old man," a Baptist Hospital employee said. "His body was just worn out. His arteries and veins were terribly corroded."

"He had been hospitalized here on five occasions," the employee said. "Usually, he would go home to Graceland first. But the last time, in April, they flew him directly here from Louisiana. Every time, the security got tighter. This time, when he was dead, it was tight.

"An autopsy usually takes twenty-four hours. Usually, any vital organs that are removed for study are returned and put into a bag and dropped into the coffin before burial. But not in Elvis' case. His brain, his heart, his liver, his kidneys and all the rest have been kept out for tests here." (Maurice Elliott, Baptist Hospital's vice-president, said, "All organs were removed, and that is not unusual." Elliott added that "we don't have a definite cause of death yet, and as the coroner, Dr. [Jerry] Francisco said, we may never know the exact cause of death. Since Dr. Francisco ruled death by natural causes, it then became a private case. So, all autopsy findings will be referred to the family and then any public announcement of the results will be up to the family.")

"He was hospitalized here from April 1st to 6th of this year, after cutting short a tour. And Elvis was here for two weeks in January and February of '75, for two weeks in August and September of '75, for two weeks in October of '73, the hospital employee said. "They were treating him for everything -- hypertension, enlarged colon, gastroenteritis stomach inflammation. He was getting cortisone treatments, and I heard that was for arthritis, but our doctor said Elvis might have had systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus is an extremely rare, chronic inflammation of the nervous systems kidneys and skin. It is treated with cortisone. He also had a severe liver condition. Cortisone might have explained his weight -- he was a big man; he was weighing at least 230 pounds."

Doctors at Baptist Memorial discounted the lupus theory and said final autopsy results may not be known for weeks.

Elvis' body was removed by hearse from Baptist Memorial at 8:10 p.m. and taken up Union to the Memphis Funeral Home for embalming. The nest morning he was taken to the foyer of Graceland to lie in state.

Almost immediately after his death was announced at four p.m. on Tuesday, mourners began gathering outside Graceland, a surprisingly modest, eighteen-room former church that Elvis bought for his mother in 1957.

To reach Graceland you head south on Elvis Presley Boulevard, that portion of Bellevue which was renamed after Memphis' favorite son in 1972, and pass through a steadily deteriorating neighborhood past Forest Hill Cemetery Midtown where his mother, Gladys Smith Presley, was buried in 1958, also at the age of forty-two, past Denny's Restaurant, past an open field of eleven acres that Elvis owns, and there, at 3746, is a low, rock fence with a jagged top, a white iron gate and a red brick gatehouse to guard Elvis' privacy.

Elvis' father, Vernon, had decided to let the mourners file past the open casket in Graceland from three to five p.m. on Wednesday, and the crush of humanity out on Elvis Presley Boulevard had become fearsome. Literally miles of mourners stretched in both directions, waiting for a last glimpse. Is was as comprehensive a cross section of America as one could ever wish to see: bikers, businessmen, children, Shriners in clown shirts and phalanxes of middle-aged women, many of them sobbing.

The grounds of Graceland Christian Church, which is Elvis' neighbor on the north (on the south is the podiatry clinic), were soon littered with soft-drink cans and film wrappers. The church's trees were snapping under the weight of people trying to see beyond the rock fence. And the shopping center across the street from Graceland quickly overflowed with cars and people and souvenir vendors. A woman leaned against she signpost for "Mr. Toy of America" and openly sobbed as she listened to "Love Me Tender" coming from a nearby car radio.

Inside the grounds, once you got past the press compound and the roped off medical area, the pastoral quiet was stunning. At the top of the circular sloping driveway there were more flowers than one could count: dozens of floral guitars and hound dogs and hearts. Eventually, a hundred vans decreed 3166 floral arrangements sent by everyone from the Soviet Union to Elton John to the Memphis Police Department.

Graceland is an understated, two-story white brick colonial building. Two massive, white stone lions flank the doorway. Behind them Air National Guardsmen stood at stiff attention. Just inside the foyer, Elvis was laid out in a 900-pound copper-lined coffin underneath a crystal chandelier. White linen was spread on the floor and grim, silent bodyguards were fanned out around the room. Elvis was dressed is a pure white suit, light blue shirt and white tie. The face was riveting: terribly pale and puffy but still handsome. The woman just in front of me in line, when she saw that face, sagged visibly as though she has just taken a bullet. Her sobs were the only sounds in the room.

In the midst of the plainness and glory of death, kids were skateboarding right beside a crying girl who was clutching at least twenty-five copies of the Press-Scimitar with its headline: A LONELY LIFE ENDS ON ELVIS PE5LEY BOULEVARD. Other kids were scouting she parking lot with shopping bags, looking for returnable soft-drink bottles.

At fine p.m. a gentle rain began but no one was about to leave. The gates were to close then, but the police had to deal with about 10,000 people. Finally the order can't from "the family": she gates would be shut at 6:30. They were. In seemed touch-and-go for a while--an awesome crowd surged at the gates amid boos and tears and sobs. Eventually, the crowd gave up. The rock wall facing on Elvis Presley Boulevard is low enough to jump over but no one tried.

The last people in line were Mike and Cheryl Smelser, of Memphis. How did it feel to be last in line? "Right now it does not feel all that good," said Mike.

The crowds outside Graceland did not let up. In the early morning hours of Thursday, August 18th, the first two Elvis Presley-related fatalities occurred. At four a.m., Alice Hovatar and Juanita Johnson, both from Monroe, Louisiana, and Tammy Baiter of St. Clair, Missouri, went out to the median strip of Elvis Presley Boulevard to talk to Officer W. C. Greenwood. Alice said to him, "I can't believe he's dead." Then, according so witnesses a 1963 white Ford driven by a man identified as Treatise Wheeler, eighteen, headed south slowly and did a sudden U-turn in the shopping center parking lot in front of the Hickory Log. Tires smoking, the Ford headed north straight far the median strip, at 50 mph. Officer Greenwood threw his flashlight at the windshield bar is was too late.

The car hit the three girls and tossed them like matchsticks. Johnson and Hovatar, their bodies mangled beyond recognition, died instantly. Baiter remains in critical condition. Officers immediately arrested Wheeler.

Wheeler appeared in court on Friday and, after his mother said that he had mental problems, was held without bail.

About the same time, 1700 copies of the Commercial-Appeal were stolen and were being hawked at prices ranging up to five dollars.

Last Photo Before Elvis Presley´s Death

Elvis Presley´s last known photo before death.

August 16, 1977 - 12.28 a. m.

August 16, 1977 - Last hours before Elvis Presley´s death



12:00 midnight: Elvis and his girlfriend Ginger Alden return to Graceland after a 10:30 pm dentist's appointment with Dr. Hofman.

2:30 am: Elvis calls his doctor to ask for painkillers, supposedly for the tooth pain he was enduring due to his earlier trip to the dentist. Ricky Stanley, Elvis' stepbrother, picks up six Dilaudid pills for Elvis from the all-night pharmacy at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

4:00 am: Elvis gets his first cousin Billy Smith and wife, Jo, up from bed so that they can play a game of racquetball with him. Presley, as anticipated, plays the game while barely moving.

4:30 am: Elvis sits at his piano and performs two unidentified gospel numbers and the song "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."

5:00 am: Elvis and Ginger go up to Elvis' bedroom. He takes a package of pills put together by his doctor for twice-daily use.

7:00 am: Elvis takes a second package of pills.

8:00 am: Unable to sleep, Elvis has his Aunt Delta Mae Biggs bring him a third package of pills.

9:30 am: Elvis heads for the bathroom carrying the book, Frank Adams' The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. While on his way, Ginger calls out "Don't fall asleep in there." "Okay, I won't," are Elvis' last words.

1:30 pm: Ginger gets no reply when she knocks on the bathroom door. She then enters and finds Elvis' motionless body on the floor in front of the toilet. She frantically calls out for Elvis' associates Al Strada and Joe Esposito, who quickly arrive and call an ambulance.

2:56 pm: Elvis Presley arrives via ambulance to the Baptist Medical Center in Memphis.

3:30 pm: Elvis pronounced dead. - Elvis Presley Death

4:00 pm: On the steps of Graceland, Elvis' father Vernon Presley tells the gathered reporters: "My son is dead."