No Need for Suspicious Minds, but Presley’s Liver Was Here

SANTA ANA —  Elvis’ liver has left the building, but, 20 years later, they’re still talking about it at the Orange County sheriff’s crime lab.

The anniversary this week of Elvis Presley’s death brings back some quirky memories for the longtime staffers at the sheriff’s forensic sciences unit, who can say they once had a, uh, piece of rock ‘n’ roll history.

To be more exact, they had slices of The King’s liver and kidney, along with a blood sample.

“People say Elvis is not gone,” mused Dwight Reed, one of the toxicologists who tested the tissues in the weeks following Presley’s August 1977 death. “All I know is the person I worked on is gone.”

The plastic vials were brought to the crime lab under a cloak of secrecy that summer by a Van Nuys toxicologist who had been contracted by Presley’s family to investigate the icon’s mysterious death.

The Van Nuys researcher said he needed the help of the Orange County lab because testing equipment in his private lab was broken.

“But I think he just wanted us to back him up on any findings,” Reed said. “It was a big case.”

Big enough that the anxious visitor clutching the samples was reluctant to tell the toxicologists whose tissues they were scanning.

“You could tell he really wanted to tell us,” said Reed, who now works for the San Diego County medical examiner’s office. “By the end of the day, he was hinting so broadly, we had a good idea.”

What kind of hint? “Well, he smiled and said, ‘I can’t tell you who it is, but it’s from Memphis.’ ”

Later, Reed said he had his suspicions confirmed. The King had been there.

Presley is the most famous person to pass through the county laboratory, which does testing in local crime and drug cases and is recognized nationally as a premier facility.

“We had some big names, but The King is right at the top,” said Frank Fitzpatrick, director of forensic science services.

The 42-year-old Presley was found sprawled on a bathroom floor of his Memphis mansion after a steady slide into prescription-drug addiction left him bloated and weak.

The exact cause of his death has been a matter of contention, but most medical experts point to a heart attack, accidental overdose or perhaps a profound allergic reaction to the drugs he was ingesting.

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The Shelby County, Tenn., medical examiner who pronounced the singer dead said the officials cause of death was “heart arrhythmia.” Representatives of Presley’s estate cite heart failure as the general cause. By some accounts, there were as many as 14 different uppers, downers, tranquilizers and narcotics coursing through the singer’s body when he collapsed.

Reed, who also performed drug tests during the investigation of comedian John Belushi’s death, is reluctant to get too specific about his findings in the Presley case. He says, though, that none of the drug traces he detected seemed to be at overdose levels.

Reed himself has overdosed a bit on the hoopla surrounding his modest contribution to the Presley’s mythic life and death story. He has told the story countless times and smiled when his friends jokingly dubbed him “toxicologist to the stars.”

When he speaks to groups, he concludes by showing them a slide of Elvis (his photo, not his liver) and tells them that as he put the tissues away for the last time 20 years ago, he thought he could hear The King’s distinctive, breathy voice.

This week, Reed, in his best imitation, passed on that message from beyond: “Thankya very mutch.”