Did Elvis Presley's family stage a plot to snatch the King's body after he died in 1977? An FBI informant says yes, and was also allegedly involved in the scheme.
The goal was to persuade Memphis officials to move Elvis from the public cemetery to Graceland, which is now a $15 million-a-year tourist attraction.
The late Vernon Presley, Elvis' father and executor of his estate at the time, wanted his son buried on the mansion grounds, but it was in an area not zoned for burials. Three weeks after Elvis died of a heart attack, Vernon had lawyers for the Presley estate petition the Memphis and Shelby County Board of Adjustment for a zoning variance. They cited what they called an attempted theft of Presley's body several days earlier and the expense of round-the-clock security.
Obviously, the grave robbery was a hoax, but nonetheless, three men were arrested on August 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.
On September 28, 1977, the board OK'd Presley's request to move his son's body to Graceland. The singer was reburied there on October 2.
More than 600,000 people, at about $77 a head, visit Graceland and Elvis' gravesite each year.
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