The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime (2024) s01e01 Episode Script
Episode 1
1
[subdued instrumental music playing]
[man] William Faulkner,
maybe one of our greatest, said,
"To understand the world,
you have got to understand
a place like Mississippi."
And he was so right.
[music continues]
The South does not have
the most spectacular history.
The Civil War
created multiple scars all over us.
And I think the South,
in its struggle to rise above the past,
learned to tell stories,
learned to share tragedy,
and then sometimes learned
to make up stuff.
[music intensifies]
So Southerners were the best storytellers
of any area in the world.
[typewriter pings]
Believe it or not, we actually like drama.
And in this story right here,
we're proud to show you
every characteristic
of being a crazy Southerner.
- [music halts]
- [camera whirs]
[steady breathing]
[male voice] Hello there.
I hope everybody out there
is, uh, having a good day.
I can't really introduce myself
and, uh, tell you who I am.
Had a few run-ins with the law
in the last couple of years, and,
well [chuckles]
let's just say
that the law enforcement and myself
don't quite see eye to eye
with things that are acceptable
in society.
- [tense music playing]
- [faint crowd cheering]
Personally, I don't see anything wrong
with having a few drinks
and driving around with no clothes on.
Mmm. That's good.
[siren wailing]
[man 1] Around 9:30, we received a call
that there was a letter
that was mailed
to one of our Justice Court judges.
Inside this letter
was a suspicious content.
[male voice] I've been under attack
and harassed for quite some time now, and
it's affected me in various ways.
[angrily] Your time is limited.
Do not harass me anymore.
[reporter] More breaking news.
We're just learning that a letter
apparently laced with the poison ricin
was sent to a United States senator
of Mississippi.
[siren wailing]
[officer] Capitol Police is responding
to a suspicious envelope.
We're currently
conducting an investigation.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
[male voice] I never anticipated
going to jail,
losing my home, my business, my land,
my friends, my family.
[shouting] Now I'm upset,
and I'm done with it!
Ricin has been found
on letters mailed to the president.
[reporter 1] outside of the White House
has been closed off.
[reporter 2] The FBI and Secret Service
investigating several suspicious letters.
[man 2] The president has, of course,
been briefed on these letters.
He was briefed last night
and this morning.
And as the president said,
we will find out who did this,
we will find out why,
and we will bring those responsible
to justice.
- [helicopter whirring]
- [sirens wailing]
[reporter 3]
After an exhaustive investigation,
authorities traced those letters
to Paul Kevin Curtis
of Tupelo, Mississippi.
He'll be charged with an attempt to kill
the president of the United States.
[reporter 4] Strange new details emerging.
He is said to be an Elvis impersonator
obsessed with conspiracies.
[as Elvis] Well, thank you very much.
[reporter 5] The FBI has been
following this man for years.
[echoing] Did you miss me? ♪
[reporter 6] Paul Kevin Curtis
is no stranger to the FBI.
He seems to believe
that there is a conspiracy
putting him on the front lines
of a secret war.
[music fades]
Aruba, Jamaica
Come on, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪
Down at Kokomo
We'll get there faster ♪
And we'll take it slow ♪
[Kevin] This is my Shangri-La.
It's It's a paradise.
[singing continues]
I'm getting away from people
taking photos of me.
Whispering, pointing,
their faces turning red.
Sometimes they come up to me,
"Are you an Elvis impersonator?"
"Did you get into some trouble
a few years ago? Are you that guy?"
People would say,
"You lived through that?"
"How does it feel
being the toughest guy around?"
And I mean, literally, my daughter said,
"There's no one that can touch you."
Like, "Dad, you were the king of Tupelo."
[lounge music playing]
[dog yipping]
[music fades]
[Kevin] Ten years ago,
I finished an entire screenplay.
Secret Service stole it from me.
[exhales]
I actually checked out a book
from the library,
How to Write a Screenplay,
and no one supported me.
But who's laughing now?
This is Netflix, you bitch.
[Netflix ident playing]
Missing Pieces is the name of my movie.
And I just believed in it,
like Sylvester Stallone believed in Rocky.
So, in the next few months,
I'm going to complete my screenplay
once and for all.
"Act one, scene one."
"The camera zooms in on a run-down shack
on the east side of Tupelo, Mississippi."
"The story of the 2013
presidential assassination attack
begins right here,
at the birthplace of the King."
[steady, pulsing music playing]
[man 1] Out of
poor old Tupelo, Mississippi,
arose this young man
by the name of Elvis Presley.
And he changed things.
[faint cheering and whistling]
We say we're the most famous
hardware store in the world
because Elvis bought his first guitar
right where you guys are standing.
[man 2] Now, the story goes,
Elvis came in here on his 11th birthday
and bought a guitar.
And he did learn about four chords.
He learned to shake his hips and go,
"Hubba, hubba, hubba,"
and the girls went, "Aah,"
and it all took off.
[woman] Elvis came here
when he was a little boy
to go to the movies.
Rumor has it
he got his first kiss up there.
I don't know who it was with.
I never got the lady's name.
This is the original five founding members
of the fan club,
the Elvis Presley Sweethearts.
I always thought,
if I could just have one night with him
Got a picture hanging
outside my office here.
It's the original picture of Elvis
coming down to the sheriff's department,
being sworn in, in 1971.
So he was a deputy.
And the sheriff that I replaced
was Elvis' third cousin.
[man 3] A lot of people don't know,
but Elvis took martial arts in Tupelo.
And just like Elvis,
self-defense, hand-to-hand,
that's my forte.
You know, if it's life or death,
you gotta be brutal.
Throat.
All right? Eyes.
Grab 'em, pull 'em to you,
and bite a chunk out of their neck.
All right? That's brutal.
[man 4] Sovereign grand architect
of the universe,
we thank you for the life
of Elvis Aaron Presley.
The light of a faithful life
never dims nor dies.
Shine on, Elvis. Shine on.
In the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[man 5] Here in Tupelo,
we have many type of Elvi,
which is what I call plural Elvises.
[chuckles] There's four-foot-tall Elvises,
seven-foot-tall Elvises.
There's fat Elvises,
skinny Elvises, paraplegic Elvises.
We even have an insurance Elvis.
I look forward to helping you understand
Medicare and answering your questions.
Call me today.
[man 6] Elvis was like a god.
And this presidential assassination story
is the biggest, most talked-about thing
since Elvis Presley. [chuckles]
[man 1] And so,
welcome to Tupelo, Mississippi,
where things are are different.
[parrot squawks]
[woman] Let me tell you something.
One day,
my husband was singing with Elvis.
And backstage, Elvis asked him,
"Is that your wife with you?"
And when he found out
that I was a Mississippi girl,
he said, "What's your phone number?"
[parrot] Really?
Yeah.
All of a sudden,
he just gave me a hug and a kiss.
That's it. [chuckles]
[Kevin] Listen, man,
my mama raised me on Jesus, Elvis,
and cornbread, and, yes, in that order.
[mellow music playing]
Growing up,
I was the shy, geeky kid with the glasses,
and I got picked on.
Like, I got I got bullied.
[Elois] Poor Kevin.
Kids picked on him, made fun of him.
But he was my sweetie.
He's kind of a mama's boy, like Elvis.
Where is my little Elvis?
Hi, Mama.
[Kevin] So I spent my whole childhood
locked in a room practicing
[as Elvis]the quiver of the King.
You know what I'm saying?
[singing on video]
[own voice] And I remember neighbors
would gather round and listen.
"Wow, it's Elvis."
Then, when I was 14,
my mom got the jumpsuit
by the same people that made Elvis'.
Once you pull that zipper up,
it's like Clark Kent becoming Superman.
[applause on video]
And by high school, I was on fire.
"Kevin Curtis, winner,
first place in 15 talent shows."
[man] Ladies and gentlemen,
the winner of our contest, Kevin Curtis.
[Kevin] In my twenties,
I was a seven-time world finalist
at the International Images of the King.
Then, all of a sudden,
my older brother Jack
just decides to become
an Elvis tribute artist overnight.
[cheery music playing]
[Jack] I really didn't
ever think or intend
to become an Elvis tribute artist.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jack Curtis.
[applause on video]
[Jack] But then I realized,
as an insurance agent,
this could be special
in the form of business.
I'll help you save those premium dollars.
However you know me, call me today.
Jack, um, you know,
we're extremely different.
He's logical, successful,
very wealthy, popular.
He's always been a winner.
The thing that's most important in life
is what I call achievement drive.
And that's what you need
in order to be the Michael Jordan,
to be the Tiger Woods in our business.
A burning desire to be successful.
Whoo! Let's go.
Now, with Kevin,
I knew he likes to have fun.
No cares, no worries.
But what I didn't know about
was his work ethic.
I mean, he kept getting fired
from a restaurant that he worked at.
[indistinct chatter on video]
[Jack] He really needed
some inspiration and motivation,
so I got him
the Tony Robbins cassette program,
and it was all about personal empowerment.
[atmospheric music playing]
[man] Ask yourself a question.
Why is it that so many people
are frustrated? They feel overwhelmed.
They feel they're not living
what's most important to them.
One idea is all it takes
to change your whole life.
[Kevin] I would listen to Tony Robbins
seven days a week,
just pump positive information
and affirmations right into my brain.
My gosh, he would take those books
and audiotapes and memorize 'em.
"You wanna change your life?
Your past doesn't equal your future."
The past does not equal the future.
"Just make one subtle change,
and all your dreams can come true."
[Tony] One idea is all it takes
to change your whole life.
And I'm asking myself, what can I do
that no one had ever done before?
[Tony] One idea
[Kevin] And one day,
one little idea popped into my head.
[music intensifies]
- [Tony] One idea
- [Kevin] Boom.
I had a vision.
[Kevin, in deep voice]
"Ladies and gentlemen, in 1935,
two babies were born
in Tupelo, Mississippi."
"One of those babies were stillborn."
"But the other went on to become
the king of rock and roll."
"What if
there were two?"
[own voice] And the band kicks off.
[steady drumbeat]
Two brothers standing there
with spotlights.
[deep voice] "Introducing the first
brother Elvis Presley tribute act
in the world, Double Trouble."
[imitates crowd cheering]
When I pitched it to my brother,
Jack's like, "Well, I'll be damned.
Two Elvises?"
I'm like, "Yes, man!"
Double Trouble.
That's a million-dollar idea.
Jack told me.
[lounge music playing]
You know, I told Kevin,
if we're going to do this,
I want to be the best.
- Jack and Kevin in Double Trouble.
- [applause]
Double Trouble changed the game.
The triple costume change
is something no one had ever done
in the international competition history.
We're the only ones
incorporating full-blown martial arts.
And it wasn't long
before Double Trouble just took off.
[lounge music continues]
Double Trouble was buzzing, man.
We were written up in magazines in Japan.
Kevin and I
made the Guinness Book of World Records
as the only brother Elvis act
in the world.
All right,
we are so glad to have Double Trouble.
- And you've got Double Trouble twins.
- [Kevin] We sure do.
[reporter] Ladies, you're all pumped up
for the big Double Trouble concert.
Absolutely.
[Jack] And the ladies, they're enthralled.
They love it.
[crowd cheering and whistling]
They throw things up on the stage,
you can imagine.
They write me. They send me gifts, money,
some letters, and panties, and negligee.
[Kevin] A 95-year-old woman
was trying to molest me.
Wow. This is a part of the gig.
I don't know what extra appeal
a brother show has.
Let me say this, crazy things happen.
[crowd cheering]
[music fades]
[Kevin] "Act one, scene five."
"Double Trouble auditions
a new backup singer."
"Enter Laura."
"Little did I know she'd soon move
to center stage."
[news reporter] Curtis' wife, Laura,
has some crucial information for the FBI
in their investigation.
[videotape whirring]
[tense music building]
And now here is a song that the birthplace
of the great Elvis Presley made famous,
"Love Me Tender." Welcome, Laura Curtis.
Love me tender ♪
Love me long ♪
[Laura] I grew up in Tupelo.
And every girl wants to sleep with
an Elvis impersonator once in their life.
It's just It's the bucket list.
[smooth music playing]
Lucky me.
I was in a band with two of them.
Jack's the rich brother and very handsome.
But Kevin,
I thought he was very sexy
'cause I have a thing
for pencil-thin mustaches.
[Kevin] I was on my first date with Laura.
She took the jacket off.
I'm like, "My goodness."
Uh, she was well-endowed,
is what I'm saying. I mean, she, "Bam!"
He's like, "The boobs! The boobs!"
[laughs] He said.
[smooth music continues]
[Kevin] But most importantly,
she had the most beautiful,
tiny,
petite feet.
I'm a sole man.
I'm the foot king.
- What're you doing?
- [Kevin] Videotaping you.
I mean, the fact that it's hidden.
That the socks are covered, and the shoes,
like, this is a mystery.
When my mom hands me a Christmas present,
I wanna unwrap that thing
like I'm pulling a nice sock
off them toes.
[Laura] Look, I do not judge.
Everybody has a thing.
[music warps then halts]
[baby crying]
I think he's tired.
[music resumes then fades]
- [water burbling]
- [baby crying faintly]
[Kevin] "Act two, scene one."
"Kevin Curtis is a new dad
with a new baby."
[keyboard clacking]
"Just learning how to change diapers."
"And Laura says to me,
'Elvis ain't paying the bills.'"
"Guess it's time for a real job."
So Elvis did get a job.
I am a janitor. Um
A janitor imitating Elvis.
That's crazy.
- [Jimmy] You do Elvis impersonations?
- [Kevin] I do.
And Elvis cleans carpets.
He cleans carpets. He strips floors.
He buffs. You name it, Elvis will do it.
[as Elvis] You call the cleaning man.
[laughing]
[Jack] The singing janitor.
And I'll tell you,
he worked hard at that cleaning business.
[Laura] Kevin's a terrific cleaner.
[Kevin on video] We're gonna have to do
some more detailing. Going over it twice.
[Laura] He cleaned
seven businesses a night.
Thousands of toilets.
And he loved his work.
[Kevin] I don't know, man.
Cleaning fucking sucked.
[toilet flushing]
[Laura] I was so happy.
He was making money.
We bought our little house.
Toys for the children.
It was the American dream.
[camera clicks]
[Kevin] I just sucked it up.
Went to the same jobs every day.
Buffed the same floors,
cleaned the same buildings.
But that all changed when I booked
the biggest contract we ever had
at the North Mississippi Medical Center.
[Jack] Wow.
It's the largest rural hospital
in America.
And very important as the top employer
in the state of Mississippi.
[woman] Here at
the North Mississippi Medical Center,
we're proud being Mississippi's
most trusted health provider.
[jaunty music playing]
Apply today and join our family.
[music ends]
[Jack] So I remember thinking,
"Okay, this is really good."
[Kevin] My brother would tell me,
"I am so proud of you, Kevin."
"You got a great job
and a beautiful family."
"You've come so far. Look at you now."
Then I found a severed head.
The whole fucking world hated me.
- [thunder rumbling]
- [laid-back holiday music playing]
[vocalizing]
[music continues]
[keyboard clacking]
Hawaiian Santa is a sight to see ♪
[Kevin] "December 17th, 1999."
"Started off a joyous day."
- "Christmas spirit is in the air."
- [cat meows]
"KC is headed off
to the hospital's big holiday bash,
ready to enjoy a mug of fresh eggnog
and some well-deserved treats."
[music continues]
I walk into the hospital,
and Cheryl said,
"We've had a backed-up drainage system
under the autopsy table."
"Nobody will go in there."
"So can you go into the morgue
and do a cleanup job?"
And I was just like, "Uh, I guess."
I mean, I hate to say no.
- [music quietens]
- [tense tone playing]
So I walked in for the first time
with a hazmat suit on,
and there was a lot of blood
coming up out of the drainage system.
- [music resumes]
- [exhales sharply] Fuck.
Mele Kalikimaka and Happy New Year ♪
So I start stripping side to side,
back and forth, 30, 40 minutes,
breaking a sweat. I'm just draining.
There was no ventilation,
and I was thirsty.
I said to myself, "Man,
a Dr. Pepper would be so good right now."
So I just casually open the refrigerator
looking for a Dr. Pepper
[ominous music playing]
and there were several shelves
of body parts.
- [dramatic, pounding beats]
- [faint screaming]
Then I open the freezer,
and there is a severed head of this man
that I saw in the emergency room
the night before.
Now I'm holding his severed head
in my hand.
Oh my God. What have I stumbled upon?
[echoing, whooshing]
[Laura] When Kevin came home that night,
he was hyperexcited.
He said, "You've got to hear this."
"I was cleaning in the morgue."
"Guess what I found?"
I'm like, "I don't know."
"A head." "A head?"
"Yes, and it was of a patient
that was there two days ago."
I said, "Damn it, Kevin. We need this job,
so just shut up
and don't tell anybody about it."
[Kevin] I told every person
on shift that morning,
"I just found a shitload of body parts
and a severed head in the freezer."
"You wanna see it?"
There's Cameron and Antoine
coming down my nice clean floors.
I came out at lunch
and everyone gathered around,
and they're like, "Hey, Elvis.
Yeah, we heard you found body parts."
"Yep, I sure did.
A severed head, arms, legs, feet."
[echoing] "Just perfectly severed.
Then I opened the freezer."
"Skin, eyeballs. Wrapped in plastic."
"Two feet, one was from a child."
"Got thirsty and I wanted a Dr. Pepper"
[speech fades]
And the next thing you know,
I was called over the intercom.
"Paul Curtis, please come
to the director's office immediately."
Walked in, and one man says,
"Please read this statement."
"Paul Kevin Curtis
accessed an area of the hospital
he did not have authorization for."
I said,
"I'm not signing that. That's a lie."
Within 30 seconds,
six armed security guards are grabbing me,
pushed me up against the wall,
handcuffed me.
"You are hereby banned for life."
[tense music playing]
[Jack] When Kevin came to my house,
he was just so emotionally distraught.
And he was talking so fast
that he had seen body parts.
And that the hospital
wanted him to sign a statement
that he never saw that.
That's what had me curious.
Why not just say, "Yeah, Kevin,
we have body parts, and here's why"?
So I was intrigued with why.
Why? Why did this happen?
[director] What were your thoughts
when Kevin got fired?
Oh!
In how many ways shall I say I was upset?
Let's see.
[music fades]
[Kevin] Tony Robbins has always said,
"If you don't understand something,
Kevin, you ask a question. You ask."
I was like,
"What have I discovered? What did I see?"
So that night,
I made a decision
to spend the rest of my life
trying to uncover the truth.
First order of business,
went down to Walmart
and purchased my Gateway 2000.
[woman] Welcome to
the information superhighway.
[Kevin on video] Gateway 2000 computer,
color printer, joystick,
$3,500
[Kevin] And I typed in,
"Is there a market for body parts?"
Question mark, enter.
[computer trilling]
I found message boards
and all these people.
I posted, "How much is a dead body worth?"
Question mark, enter.
[trilling, bleeping]
I found secret websites on the dark web.
It was my introduction
to the world of conspiracy.
[distorted voice] Many won't believe it.
Many don't want to believe it.
But there is a billion-dollar
body parts industry today.
It was like a mental drug.
Like you're under hypnosis.
[trilling intensifies]
[horn blaring]
[gentle guitar playing]
[rooster crowing]
It was rumored that Kevin
had stumbled up on a part of the hospital
that was harvesting body parts.
[laughs]
And And for what purpose, I don't know.
Maybe if you get your arm cut off,
they'll say, "We'll get you another one
and fix you," I don't know.
He actually found, like, intestine parts
and baby parts from babies and
I think he even mentioned a severed head.
And it was just odd. It was too strange.
- [man] Kevin went to the mall.
- [clippers buzzing]
"You won't believe what I seen."
"I seen some body parts.
You wanna go and see 'em?"
It kinda spooked me.
Who wanna walk up on a person's
head and arms and legs
dismembered from the body?
No, sir. Not me.
I don't know. I don't think it's true.
[hesitates]
But I-I also don't check the donor box
on my license for that reason,
know what I'm saying?
[Jimmy] Kevin would come by the store
talking about selling body parts,
the black market, and a severed head.
Wild stuff he was talking about.
If he found them dead body parts,
Kevin gonna get to the bottom of it.
You know?
He wants the truth.
He gonna get the truth.
[music continues]
[music fades]
[quirky music playing]
[man] In my entire law enforcement career
of about 40 years,
we never dealt with anything like this.
It was something out of a movie.
Just the bizarre craziness of it.
All over Tupelo,
the community was talking and all,
and Kevin's name would come up a lot.
He would get on this rant
about this conspiracy at the hospital
where there were body parts.
Um
So the hospital contacted me.
We met with security there.
And they were fearful of this guy,
that he could retaliate at the hospital.
So, yes, he did get on the radar.
If you think about it
as running an airline
and people get on the no-fly list,
he got on the list
over this bizarre behavior.
You don't know
what his next move's gonna be.
And so I told my office,
we need to keep our eye on him.
[Kevin] Every day,
I would log on to my computer,
go on the dark web,
and I would research body part harvesting.
- [keyboard clacking]
- [dramatic music playing]
And I learned that funeral homes,
morgues, doctors,
politicians, they were all involved.
In the dead of the night,
funeral directors open up legs,
back, arms, and they pull out femur bones,
skin tissue, and sell it to hospitals
on the black market.
And not just in Mississippi.
We're talking about China,
Russia, all over the country.
So I told Jack and Laura,
"Oh my God, I'm on to something."
[Laura] Kevin would
keep me up all night long
talking about this conspiracy.
His brain would make weird connections.
And because there was no job to go to,
he stayed in the house on his computer
the whole day.
[Kevin on video] body snatchers
And 'course then the rest of my life,
I've heard about the body parts.
[Kevin] I was on a one-man crusade
to spread the word
about this billion-dollar
hidden black market industry
that nobody in the world knows exists.
So I set up 40 websites and blogs
with my research
under different aliases.
Body Parts Info at MySpace.com,
Body Parts For Profit at MySpace.com,
Billy Bobby Body Parts at MySpace.com.
And the entire page
with blood dripping from the top.
[intense music playing]
And I got so good at the graphics.
I-I didn't go to school for this.
Wow, all these people started following me
and actually cared about
what I had to say.
[on video] Well,
when I saw the head and the arms
and the brains and the barcodes,
I turned white as a ghost.
Then a lady named Karen Del Re Thornton
contacted me.
- [mouse clicks]
- [computer beeps]
My name is Karen Del Re,
and I live in Hazlet, New Jersey.
My dad's name was James Thornton Sr.
[Kevin] And she said,
"I think my dad was harvested by this man,
Michael Mastromarino."
[computer beeps]
And that was my first case ever.
I could see this conspiracy
was taking him spiraling downward.
So I was very concerned
about his health, physically, mentally,
socially, psychologically.
Jack, he was very, um,
sympathetic at first.
But after a while, after two, three years,
you're losing your mind.
[Jack] I probably got 20, 30 emails a day
from him.
Every waking moment
was putting something on MySpace
or on Facebook.
It made me wonder, how did
how did we get to this point?
[Kevin] I never stopped. I was relentless.
While everyone else is going to Cancun,
Kevin Curtis is on the computer.
[through computer] Michael Mastromarino
harvested body parts
Okay, Mastromarino is linked to this guy
who's handling bodies,
is connected to the funeral home,
who's connected to the body [fades]
[Jack] Friends and family
would call me and say,
"Kevin is online posting all this stuff,
and can you do something about that?"
Not one person in my family
and not one friend
wanted to hear my research.
They didn't wanna know the truth.
Nobody gave a fuck.
[on video] No one wants to hear politics
or criminal injustice.
And they're trying to shut me down
and shut me up.
[Kevin] So I gathered up
all of my research.
I printed out hundreds of documents.
I called up Fox News, NBC, CNN,
and I sent my paper trail
for the world to see.
Tupelo's Elvis Presley Festival
gets underway
a little more than a week from now.
More than 30,000 people
are expected to attend
this year's festival.
You know, Elvis is our biggest treasure
here in Tupelo.
So all of us are excited
about this Double Trouble concert.
If you love Elvis
and want an hour and 45 minutes of it,
you need to be at Milam School
Saturday at two o'clock.
My name is David Daniels.
I'm an assistant district attorney
here in North Mississippi.
But I made a living as a musician
for 20-something years.
For the 2003 Elvis Festival,
my band and myself were approached
by the Tupelo Tourism Bureau
to back up two brothers
who were Elvis impersonators
who called themselves Double Trouble.
Double Trouble
with the Double Trouble Band.
They had the outfits,
and they had the moves.
[crowd cheering and whistling]
And they were pretty good.
This Double Trouble show was a huge deal.
We were the debut act for the first annual
Elvis Presley Festival at Milam School,
the school Elvis went to.
I mean, hundreds and thousands of dollars
went into this. We made CDs.
We had promo pictures.
We had 1,500 T-shirts.
We had TV promoting the show.
[man] Don't miss the performance
of Double Trouble,
an Elvis tribute
sure to get you all shook up.
[Kevin] I mean,
people were coming from all over.
"Five days before the biggest concert
in Double Trouble history,
KC meets his new guitar player
and all shit hits the fan."
[Jack] A week before the show,
we were having
our Double Trouble practice,
and there was an altercation that happened
between Kevin and David Daniels.
[Kevin] David was cocky.
He was late for every practice session
and was very unprofessional.
Kevin's perception
was that, uh, the band member
may have been flirting with Laura,
his wife.
[David] After band practice,
everybody's leaving,
and Laura asked me, uh,
if I'd like to have a drink sometime.
And I was about to leave,
and "bang" on my window
was a handprint.
[Kevin] And I called him out on it.
"Did you just give my wife
your phone number?"
[tense music playing]
[Laura] All of a sudden,
Kevin starts screaming at him.
"How dare you? Flirting with my wife."
So I just put my truck in reverse, and I
- [metal crunches]
- back into Laura's car behind me.
Now, I've got the building in front of me
and her car behind me.
I can't go anywhere.
[Kevin] Next thing you know,
we got into this heated debate
about corruption in Mississippi,
and I'm like, "You wanna talk about it?
I'll talk about it."
"Have you seen my website,
'Looking for Justice
in Mississippi, ' David?"
[David] He's standing there screaming and
talking about he found a head
with a barcode on it.
And, uh, that's when I really got scared.
I said, "This guy's having
a mental breakdown right here."
[Kevin] David gets out of his truck
and says,
"Fuck your website.
I know all about your crazy corruption,
body parts scandal. It's all bullshit."
"You're a liar. You're delusional.
You're a fucking nut job, dude."
"Everyone knows that. Everyone."
And I said, "You're fired."
"And by the way, you suck at guitar."
So it wasn't good.
He He hit me full force.
I went back two feet,
and that's when I did the smile,
the little death stare smile.
Okay, let's go behind this building.
I'm gonna teach you
what your daddy didn't.
It's after that, that he came at me
with the beer bottle, and he says,
"I'm gonna eff you up."
And so I just reached and got my pistol,
and I brought it back up and I told him,
"No, sir, you will not."
David pulled a gun on him.
Cocked it, hair trigger,
nine-millimeter Beretta
in front of my wife and children.
And my kids are right behind him.
And David said, "I'm gonna kill him."
I literally began to shake uncontrollably.
My hands went up.
"Shit, I'm about to die
because of what I know."
I looked down.
I said, "Please don't kill me, David."
[music crescendos then fades]
[no sound on video]
[Jack] Before the show, I heard him say,
"I've been treated wrongly,
and this is my chance
to let everybody know
what kind of corruption is going on."
And I told him, in no uncertain terms,
you better not do that.
[Laura] Jack paid, like, $10,000
for this to be filmed.
So he told Kevin, "You better behave."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kevin] I told Jack,
"Don't worry about it."
"I'm gonna go out there
and give the performance of my lifetime."
And that's what I did.
[Laura] We were watching Kevin
the whole time.
[Kevin] Jack was
standing behind the curtain
having a heart attack, basically.
When he started his show,
I was like [exhales sharply]
I was relieved.
It's a sellout. 1,500 people.
The whole Milam auditorium is packed.
[dramatic string music playing]
We had these giant, beautiful
Hollywood cameras, backup singers,
light production.
And I killed it. Standing ovation.
The crowd goes crazy.
[Laura] Everybody's clapping. It's great.
Everything's done.
And we're like, "Thank God."
And then, right at the end
"Ladies and gentlemen,
I have something to say."
"Oh God. What is he gonna say?"
Tupelo, Mississippi,
is the most corrupt place in the world.
I think I know why Elvis left
and never came back.
"Who does he think he is?
'Elvis left and never came back.'"
I found a severed head
in a morgue refrigerator,
and the hospital fired me.
Then, last week,
the assistant DA almost murdered me.
[crowd gasps]
So thank you all for coming,
but I will never perform
for anything in Tupelo
Mississippi associated
with North Mississippi Medical Center
as long as I live.
[computer bleeping]
And then
That's the devil right there, man.
That's the spirit of Daniels right there.
[quiet, tense music playing]
[Laura] I told Jack when I left,
"I am embarrassed to be seen
with this man,
and he's the father of my children."
And I said,
"I don't even wanna be associated
with this man."
There's very few things in my life
that anybody's ever done
that just really gets me angry.
The show,
it's one of those times that I was angry.
[inhales deeply]
I said, "I'm sorry.
I had to tell the truth, Jack."
I just told him. I said,
"We will not be doing this show again."
[Kevin] That definitely separated us
as brothers and entertainers.
I don't think we talked for, like, a year.
[sniffles]
[sniffles]
[emotional music playing]
[sniffles quietly]
[music fades]
[Kevin] Nut job,
mental case,
idiot, loser,
retarded, and a dumbass.
To not be believed
is the most lonely place.
I felt defeated.
Time for Kevin Curtis to move on.
[on video] I mean,
I may have to shut down, um
I'm not sure.
Thank you for your support.
- [keyboard clacking]
- [dial-up internet trilling]
And then one day, I turn on the TV set.
All of a sudden, I hear,
"We interrupt this program to bring you
something that's out of a horror story."
It's like something
out of a cheap horror movie.
The bust of a body parts ring.
They say four men harvested bones
and tendons and heart valves
from more than 1,000 bodies.
[intense, ominous music playing]
[Kevin] Holy shit. It's a miracle.
[breathes deeply]
"Oh my God. Thank you, God."
I remember saying, "Thank you, God."
Those three words,
"Thank you, God. Thank you."
A bizarre scam where the defendants
stole body parts from dead bodies
and then sold them.
The funeral home
had a secret room to harvest organs.
And behind it all,
Michael Mastromarino,
the mastermind behind this horror.
[reporter 1] The accused ringleader is
Michael Mastromarino.
[reporter 2] Michael Mastromarino.
Charged with selling the loot
for millions of dollars.
[Kevin] Yee-haw!
I told you so.
I told you all so.
New cases spread like wildfire.
Texas, Florida, Colorado.
Tonight, a funeral home owner
now under investigation by the FBI.
They in the back room of a funeral home
sawing up bodies with a power saw.
[intense music continues]
[Kevin] I am a warrior ninja
with a sword of justice.
[whooshing]
- Wanna explain why you chopped up bodies?
- Get off the property.
- Wanna explain what you did, sir?
- Get off the property.
You sold bodies to body brokers.
I am the biggest whistleblower
on organ harvesting
in the United States of America,
possibly the world.
So don't fuck with me.
[music fades]
Here in the South, we still believe
that people have some sense of destiny.
We just know, somewhere deep in our soul,
this is the road,
this is the path I'm supposed to be on.
- [thunder rumbles]
- [poignant music playing]
Joseph Campbell says we all have a path.
He called it the hero's journey.
And I think for Kevin,
this body parts thing
just might have been his destiny.
So the South can live
without almost anything,
but we cannot live
without a sense of meaning.
[music fades]
[Kevin] "Act three, scene one."
"The curse of common sense
is it gets tiring
always proving people wrong."
"Well, there's no cure for ol' KC."
"With the wind at his back,
KC embarks on an epic quest
against some very powerful forces."
"He sharpens his mighty pencil
and drafts
his own groundbreaking legislation."
"House Bill 6631."
After I was proven right,
I created this extremely significant
House Bill Resolution
to stop the illegal sale
of human body parts in Mississippi,
which had never been done
in the history of the world.
[Jack] I was frustrated
with Kevin's House Bill.
And I told him,
you might have proved
that somebody is harvesting body parts
illegally in another state,
but that does not mean
that it was being done in Tupelo.
[Kevin] Jack was scared
and he was nervous.
But this is happening to human bodies,
and something needs to be done about it,
and I guess God chose me.
[dramatic music playing]
So I sent my legislation
to State Representative Steve Holland,
the only man in Mississippi
with the power to pass it into law.
[Jack] Look, I tried to tell him,
you are
gonna make the wrong people mad at you.
Especially somebody
that's in a position of authority.
They're, a lot of times,
gonna use that position of authority
any way they can.
[man] In politics, I was so powerful.
[suspenseful music playing]
If I'd have been born in 1776,
I would have been the leader
of the fucking revolution.
[tense pipe organ music playing]
[reporter] A debate in the state capitol
got out of hand.
One lawmaker had to be escorted
out the building.
I'm not gonna talk about that .
Why do you That's old news, man.
I would just castrate the opposition.
This is a ridiculous piece of legislation,
and as far as I'm concerned,
the chairman ought to be ashamed
for bringing it out here.
Somebody's gotta be the king.
It's windy at the top.
So I was the benevolent dictator.
[laughing on video]
And everybody loved Steve Holland.
[dramatic music playing]
Truth be told,
I could fuck a bull moose
on the south steps
of the Lee County Courthouse
and gain 10% of the vote.
[music crescendos, then ends]
Hello and welcome
to Holland Funeral Directors.
- [thunderclap]
- [sinister pipe organ music playing]
Can you imagine
the "What?!" moment that I had
when I discovered
our Mississippi state representative,
Steve Holland,
owned three of the largest funeral homes
in the state of Mississippi?
[uneasy music playing]
[Steve] Yes, sir.
I'm the Mississippi undertaker.
I'm the taxidermist of humankind.
I see everybody in this county.
One way or the other.
One night,
I got a letter from Paul Kevin Curtis
asking me to pass a bill
"to stop illegal harvesting
and sale of human bone, tissue,
organs, and body parts in this state."
Oh wow.
Pretty interesting.
[music crescendos, then ends]
That's what I did to it.
And I put it right in my garbage can.
And, boom, that was the end of it.
[laughs]
[quiet, tense music playing]
[man sighs]
[Steve] Now, as this whole episode
with Kevin Curtis unfolded,
I could not dream of how it turned into
such a royal scandal.
Well, I mean it went to the White House.
Went to the top.
Went to the top.
[hushed] Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Let the bodies hit the ♪
[labored breathing through mask]
[loudly] ♪floor! ♪
[heavy rock music playing]
One, something's got to give ♪
Two, something's got to give ♪
Three, something's got to give now ♪
Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Hey! Come! ♪
[music ends]
[sparse instrumental music playing]
[subdued instrumental music playing]
[man] William Faulkner,
maybe one of our greatest, said,
"To understand the world,
you have got to understand
a place like Mississippi."
And he was so right.
[music continues]
The South does not have
the most spectacular history.
The Civil War
created multiple scars all over us.
And I think the South,
in its struggle to rise above the past,
learned to tell stories,
learned to share tragedy,
and then sometimes learned
to make up stuff.
[music intensifies]
So Southerners were the best storytellers
of any area in the world.
[typewriter pings]
Believe it or not, we actually like drama.
And in this story right here,
we're proud to show you
every characteristic
of being a crazy Southerner.
- [music halts]
- [camera whirs]
[steady breathing]
[male voice] Hello there.
I hope everybody out there
is, uh, having a good day.
I can't really introduce myself
and, uh, tell you who I am.
Had a few run-ins with the law
in the last couple of years, and,
well [chuckles]
let's just say
that the law enforcement and myself
don't quite see eye to eye
with things that are acceptable
in society.
- [tense music playing]
- [faint crowd cheering]
Personally, I don't see anything wrong
with having a few drinks
and driving around with no clothes on.
Mmm. That's good.
[siren wailing]
[man 1] Around 9:30, we received a call
that there was a letter
that was mailed
to one of our Justice Court judges.
Inside this letter
was a suspicious content.
[male voice] I've been under attack
and harassed for quite some time now, and
it's affected me in various ways.
[angrily] Your time is limited.
Do not harass me anymore.
[reporter] More breaking news.
We're just learning that a letter
apparently laced with the poison ricin
was sent to a United States senator
of Mississippi.
[siren wailing]
[officer] Capitol Police is responding
to a suspicious envelope.
We're currently
conducting an investigation.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
[male voice] I never anticipated
going to jail,
losing my home, my business, my land,
my friends, my family.
[shouting] Now I'm upset,
and I'm done with it!
Ricin has been found
on letters mailed to the president.
[reporter 1] outside of the White House
has been closed off.
[reporter 2] The FBI and Secret Service
investigating several suspicious letters.
[man 2] The president has, of course,
been briefed on these letters.
He was briefed last night
and this morning.
And as the president said,
we will find out who did this,
we will find out why,
and we will bring those responsible
to justice.
- [helicopter whirring]
- [sirens wailing]
[reporter 3]
After an exhaustive investigation,
authorities traced those letters
to Paul Kevin Curtis
of Tupelo, Mississippi.
He'll be charged with an attempt to kill
the president of the United States.
[reporter 4] Strange new details emerging.
He is said to be an Elvis impersonator
obsessed with conspiracies.
[as Elvis] Well, thank you very much.
[reporter 5] The FBI has been
following this man for years.
[echoing] Did you miss me? ♪
[reporter 6] Paul Kevin Curtis
is no stranger to the FBI.
He seems to believe
that there is a conspiracy
putting him on the front lines
of a secret war.
[music fades]
Aruba, Jamaica
Come on, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪
Down at Kokomo
We'll get there faster ♪
And we'll take it slow ♪
[Kevin] This is my Shangri-La.
It's It's a paradise.
[singing continues]
I'm getting away from people
taking photos of me.
Whispering, pointing,
their faces turning red.
Sometimes they come up to me,
"Are you an Elvis impersonator?"
"Did you get into some trouble
a few years ago? Are you that guy?"
People would say,
"You lived through that?"
"How does it feel
being the toughest guy around?"
And I mean, literally, my daughter said,
"There's no one that can touch you."
Like, "Dad, you were the king of Tupelo."
[lounge music playing]
[dog yipping]
[music fades]
[Kevin] Ten years ago,
I finished an entire screenplay.
Secret Service stole it from me.
[exhales]
I actually checked out a book
from the library,
How to Write a Screenplay,
and no one supported me.
But who's laughing now?
This is Netflix, you bitch.
[Netflix ident playing]
Missing Pieces is the name of my movie.
And I just believed in it,
like Sylvester Stallone believed in Rocky.
So, in the next few months,
I'm going to complete my screenplay
once and for all.
"Act one, scene one."
"The camera zooms in on a run-down shack
on the east side of Tupelo, Mississippi."
"The story of the 2013
presidential assassination attack
begins right here,
at the birthplace of the King."
[steady, pulsing music playing]
[man 1] Out of
poor old Tupelo, Mississippi,
arose this young man
by the name of Elvis Presley.
And he changed things.
[faint cheering and whistling]
We say we're the most famous
hardware store in the world
because Elvis bought his first guitar
right where you guys are standing.
[man 2] Now, the story goes,
Elvis came in here on his 11th birthday
and bought a guitar.
And he did learn about four chords.
He learned to shake his hips and go,
"Hubba, hubba, hubba,"
and the girls went, "Aah,"
and it all took off.
[woman] Elvis came here
when he was a little boy
to go to the movies.
Rumor has it
he got his first kiss up there.
I don't know who it was with.
I never got the lady's name.
This is the original five founding members
of the fan club,
the Elvis Presley Sweethearts.
I always thought,
if I could just have one night with him
Got a picture hanging
outside my office here.
It's the original picture of Elvis
coming down to the sheriff's department,
being sworn in, in 1971.
So he was a deputy.
And the sheriff that I replaced
was Elvis' third cousin.
[man 3] A lot of people don't know,
but Elvis took martial arts in Tupelo.
And just like Elvis,
self-defense, hand-to-hand,
that's my forte.
You know, if it's life or death,
you gotta be brutal.
Throat.
All right? Eyes.
Grab 'em, pull 'em to you,
and bite a chunk out of their neck.
All right? That's brutal.
[man 4] Sovereign grand architect
of the universe,
we thank you for the life
of Elvis Aaron Presley.
The light of a faithful life
never dims nor dies.
Shine on, Elvis. Shine on.
In the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[man 5] Here in Tupelo,
we have many type of Elvi,
which is what I call plural Elvises.
[chuckles] There's four-foot-tall Elvises,
seven-foot-tall Elvises.
There's fat Elvises,
skinny Elvises, paraplegic Elvises.
We even have an insurance Elvis.
I look forward to helping you understand
Medicare and answering your questions.
Call me today.
[man 6] Elvis was like a god.
And this presidential assassination story
is the biggest, most talked-about thing
since Elvis Presley. [chuckles]
[man 1] And so,
welcome to Tupelo, Mississippi,
where things are are different.
[parrot squawks]
[woman] Let me tell you something.
One day,
my husband was singing with Elvis.
And backstage, Elvis asked him,
"Is that your wife with you?"
And when he found out
that I was a Mississippi girl,
he said, "What's your phone number?"
[parrot] Really?
Yeah.
All of a sudden,
he just gave me a hug and a kiss.
That's it. [chuckles]
[Kevin] Listen, man,
my mama raised me on Jesus, Elvis,
and cornbread, and, yes, in that order.
[mellow music playing]
Growing up,
I was the shy, geeky kid with the glasses,
and I got picked on.
Like, I got I got bullied.
[Elois] Poor Kevin.
Kids picked on him, made fun of him.
But he was my sweetie.
He's kind of a mama's boy, like Elvis.
Where is my little Elvis?
Hi, Mama.
[Kevin] So I spent my whole childhood
locked in a room practicing
[as Elvis]the quiver of the King.
You know what I'm saying?
[singing on video]
[own voice] And I remember neighbors
would gather round and listen.
"Wow, it's Elvis."
Then, when I was 14,
my mom got the jumpsuit
by the same people that made Elvis'.
Once you pull that zipper up,
it's like Clark Kent becoming Superman.
[applause on video]
And by high school, I was on fire.
"Kevin Curtis, winner,
first place in 15 talent shows."
[man] Ladies and gentlemen,
the winner of our contest, Kevin Curtis.
[Kevin] In my twenties,
I was a seven-time world finalist
at the International Images of the King.
Then, all of a sudden,
my older brother Jack
just decides to become
an Elvis tribute artist overnight.
[cheery music playing]
[Jack] I really didn't
ever think or intend
to become an Elvis tribute artist.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jack Curtis.
[applause on video]
[Jack] But then I realized,
as an insurance agent,
this could be special
in the form of business.
I'll help you save those premium dollars.
However you know me, call me today.
Jack, um, you know,
we're extremely different.
He's logical, successful,
very wealthy, popular.
He's always been a winner.
The thing that's most important in life
is what I call achievement drive.
And that's what you need
in order to be the Michael Jordan,
to be the Tiger Woods in our business.
A burning desire to be successful.
Whoo! Let's go.
Now, with Kevin,
I knew he likes to have fun.
No cares, no worries.
But what I didn't know about
was his work ethic.
I mean, he kept getting fired
from a restaurant that he worked at.
[indistinct chatter on video]
[Jack] He really needed
some inspiration and motivation,
so I got him
the Tony Robbins cassette program,
and it was all about personal empowerment.
[atmospheric music playing]
[man] Ask yourself a question.
Why is it that so many people
are frustrated? They feel overwhelmed.
They feel they're not living
what's most important to them.
One idea is all it takes
to change your whole life.
[Kevin] I would listen to Tony Robbins
seven days a week,
just pump positive information
and affirmations right into my brain.
My gosh, he would take those books
and audiotapes and memorize 'em.
"You wanna change your life?
Your past doesn't equal your future."
The past does not equal the future.
"Just make one subtle change,
and all your dreams can come true."
[Tony] One idea is all it takes
to change your whole life.
And I'm asking myself, what can I do
that no one had ever done before?
[Tony] One idea
[Kevin] And one day,
one little idea popped into my head.
[music intensifies]
- [Tony] One idea
- [Kevin] Boom.
I had a vision.
[Kevin, in deep voice]
"Ladies and gentlemen, in 1935,
two babies were born
in Tupelo, Mississippi."
"One of those babies were stillborn."
"But the other went on to become
the king of rock and roll."
"What if
there were two?"
[own voice] And the band kicks off.
[steady drumbeat]
Two brothers standing there
with spotlights.
[deep voice] "Introducing the first
brother Elvis Presley tribute act
in the world, Double Trouble."
[imitates crowd cheering]
When I pitched it to my brother,
Jack's like, "Well, I'll be damned.
Two Elvises?"
I'm like, "Yes, man!"
Double Trouble.
That's a million-dollar idea.
Jack told me.
[lounge music playing]
You know, I told Kevin,
if we're going to do this,
I want to be the best.
- Jack and Kevin in Double Trouble.
- [applause]
Double Trouble changed the game.
The triple costume change
is something no one had ever done
in the international competition history.
We're the only ones
incorporating full-blown martial arts.
And it wasn't long
before Double Trouble just took off.
[lounge music continues]
Double Trouble was buzzing, man.
We were written up in magazines in Japan.
Kevin and I
made the Guinness Book of World Records
as the only brother Elvis act
in the world.
All right,
we are so glad to have Double Trouble.
- And you've got Double Trouble twins.
- [Kevin] We sure do.
[reporter] Ladies, you're all pumped up
for the big Double Trouble concert.
Absolutely.
[Jack] And the ladies, they're enthralled.
They love it.
[crowd cheering and whistling]
They throw things up on the stage,
you can imagine.
They write me. They send me gifts, money,
some letters, and panties, and negligee.
[Kevin] A 95-year-old woman
was trying to molest me.
Wow. This is a part of the gig.
I don't know what extra appeal
a brother show has.
Let me say this, crazy things happen.
[crowd cheering]
[music fades]
[Kevin] "Act one, scene five."
"Double Trouble auditions
a new backup singer."
"Enter Laura."
"Little did I know she'd soon move
to center stage."
[news reporter] Curtis' wife, Laura,
has some crucial information for the FBI
in their investigation.
[videotape whirring]
[tense music building]
And now here is a song that the birthplace
of the great Elvis Presley made famous,
"Love Me Tender." Welcome, Laura Curtis.
Love me tender ♪
Love me long ♪
[Laura] I grew up in Tupelo.
And every girl wants to sleep with
an Elvis impersonator once in their life.
It's just It's the bucket list.
[smooth music playing]
Lucky me.
I was in a band with two of them.
Jack's the rich brother and very handsome.
But Kevin,
I thought he was very sexy
'cause I have a thing
for pencil-thin mustaches.
[Kevin] I was on my first date with Laura.
She took the jacket off.
I'm like, "My goodness."
Uh, she was well-endowed,
is what I'm saying. I mean, she, "Bam!"
He's like, "The boobs! The boobs!"
[laughs] He said.
[smooth music continues]
[Kevin] But most importantly,
she had the most beautiful,
tiny,
petite feet.
I'm a sole man.
I'm the foot king.
- What're you doing?
- [Kevin] Videotaping you.
I mean, the fact that it's hidden.
That the socks are covered, and the shoes,
like, this is a mystery.
When my mom hands me a Christmas present,
I wanna unwrap that thing
like I'm pulling a nice sock
off them toes.
[Laura] Look, I do not judge.
Everybody has a thing.
[music warps then halts]
[baby crying]
I think he's tired.
[music resumes then fades]
- [water burbling]
- [baby crying faintly]
[Kevin] "Act two, scene one."
"Kevin Curtis is a new dad
with a new baby."
[keyboard clacking]
"Just learning how to change diapers."
"And Laura says to me,
'Elvis ain't paying the bills.'"
"Guess it's time for a real job."
So Elvis did get a job.
I am a janitor. Um
A janitor imitating Elvis.
That's crazy.
- [Jimmy] You do Elvis impersonations?
- [Kevin] I do.
And Elvis cleans carpets.
He cleans carpets. He strips floors.
He buffs. You name it, Elvis will do it.
[as Elvis] You call the cleaning man.
[laughing]
[Jack] The singing janitor.
And I'll tell you,
he worked hard at that cleaning business.
[Laura] Kevin's a terrific cleaner.
[Kevin on video] We're gonna have to do
some more detailing. Going over it twice.
[Laura] He cleaned
seven businesses a night.
Thousands of toilets.
And he loved his work.
[Kevin] I don't know, man.
Cleaning fucking sucked.
[toilet flushing]
[Laura] I was so happy.
He was making money.
We bought our little house.
Toys for the children.
It was the American dream.
[camera clicks]
[Kevin] I just sucked it up.
Went to the same jobs every day.
Buffed the same floors,
cleaned the same buildings.
But that all changed when I booked
the biggest contract we ever had
at the North Mississippi Medical Center.
[Jack] Wow.
It's the largest rural hospital
in America.
And very important as the top employer
in the state of Mississippi.
[woman] Here at
the North Mississippi Medical Center,
we're proud being Mississippi's
most trusted health provider.
[jaunty music playing]
Apply today and join our family.
[music ends]
[Jack] So I remember thinking,
"Okay, this is really good."
[Kevin] My brother would tell me,
"I am so proud of you, Kevin."
"You got a great job
and a beautiful family."
"You've come so far. Look at you now."
Then I found a severed head.
The whole fucking world hated me.
- [thunder rumbling]
- [laid-back holiday music playing]
[vocalizing]
[music continues]
[keyboard clacking]
Hawaiian Santa is a sight to see ♪
[Kevin] "December 17th, 1999."
"Started off a joyous day."
- "Christmas spirit is in the air."
- [cat meows]
"KC is headed off
to the hospital's big holiday bash,
ready to enjoy a mug of fresh eggnog
and some well-deserved treats."
[music continues]
I walk into the hospital,
and Cheryl said,
"We've had a backed-up drainage system
under the autopsy table."
"Nobody will go in there."
"So can you go into the morgue
and do a cleanup job?"
And I was just like, "Uh, I guess."
I mean, I hate to say no.
- [music quietens]
- [tense tone playing]
So I walked in for the first time
with a hazmat suit on,
and there was a lot of blood
coming up out of the drainage system.
- [music resumes]
- [exhales sharply] Fuck.
Mele Kalikimaka and Happy New Year ♪
So I start stripping side to side,
back and forth, 30, 40 minutes,
breaking a sweat. I'm just draining.
There was no ventilation,
and I was thirsty.
I said to myself, "Man,
a Dr. Pepper would be so good right now."
So I just casually open the refrigerator
looking for a Dr. Pepper
[ominous music playing]
and there were several shelves
of body parts.
- [dramatic, pounding beats]
- [faint screaming]
Then I open the freezer,
and there is a severed head of this man
that I saw in the emergency room
the night before.
Now I'm holding his severed head
in my hand.
Oh my God. What have I stumbled upon?
[echoing, whooshing]
[Laura] When Kevin came home that night,
he was hyperexcited.
He said, "You've got to hear this."
"I was cleaning in the morgue."
"Guess what I found?"
I'm like, "I don't know."
"A head." "A head?"
"Yes, and it was of a patient
that was there two days ago."
I said, "Damn it, Kevin. We need this job,
so just shut up
and don't tell anybody about it."
[Kevin] I told every person
on shift that morning,
"I just found a shitload of body parts
and a severed head in the freezer."
"You wanna see it?"
There's Cameron and Antoine
coming down my nice clean floors.
I came out at lunch
and everyone gathered around,
and they're like, "Hey, Elvis.
Yeah, we heard you found body parts."
"Yep, I sure did.
A severed head, arms, legs, feet."
[echoing] "Just perfectly severed.
Then I opened the freezer."
"Skin, eyeballs. Wrapped in plastic."
"Two feet, one was from a child."
"Got thirsty and I wanted a Dr. Pepper"
[speech fades]
And the next thing you know,
I was called over the intercom.
"Paul Curtis, please come
to the director's office immediately."
Walked in, and one man says,
"Please read this statement."
"Paul Kevin Curtis
accessed an area of the hospital
he did not have authorization for."
I said,
"I'm not signing that. That's a lie."
Within 30 seconds,
six armed security guards are grabbing me,
pushed me up against the wall,
handcuffed me.
"You are hereby banned for life."
[tense music playing]
[Jack] When Kevin came to my house,
he was just so emotionally distraught.
And he was talking so fast
that he had seen body parts.
And that the hospital
wanted him to sign a statement
that he never saw that.
That's what had me curious.
Why not just say, "Yeah, Kevin,
we have body parts, and here's why"?
So I was intrigued with why.
Why? Why did this happen?
[director] What were your thoughts
when Kevin got fired?
Oh!
In how many ways shall I say I was upset?
Let's see.
[music fades]
[Kevin] Tony Robbins has always said,
"If you don't understand something,
Kevin, you ask a question. You ask."
I was like,
"What have I discovered? What did I see?"
So that night,
I made a decision
to spend the rest of my life
trying to uncover the truth.
First order of business,
went down to Walmart
and purchased my Gateway 2000.
[woman] Welcome to
the information superhighway.
[Kevin on video] Gateway 2000 computer,
color printer, joystick,
$3,500
[Kevin] And I typed in,
"Is there a market for body parts?"
Question mark, enter.
[computer trilling]
I found message boards
and all these people.
I posted, "How much is a dead body worth?"
Question mark, enter.
[trilling, bleeping]
I found secret websites on the dark web.
It was my introduction
to the world of conspiracy.
[distorted voice] Many won't believe it.
Many don't want to believe it.
But there is a billion-dollar
body parts industry today.
It was like a mental drug.
Like you're under hypnosis.
[trilling intensifies]
[horn blaring]
[gentle guitar playing]
[rooster crowing]
It was rumored that Kevin
had stumbled up on a part of the hospital
that was harvesting body parts.
[laughs]
And And for what purpose, I don't know.
Maybe if you get your arm cut off,
they'll say, "We'll get you another one
and fix you," I don't know.
He actually found, like, intestine parts
and baby parts from babies and
I think he even mentioned a severed head.
And it was just odd. It was too strange.
- [man] Kevin went to the mall.
- [clippers buzzing]
"You won't believe what I seen."
"I seen some body parts.
You wanna go and see 'em?"
It kinda spooked me.
Who wanna walk up on a person's
head and arms and legs
dismembered from the body?
No, sir. Not me.
I don't know. I don't think it's true.
[hesitates]
But I-I also don't check the donor box
on my license for that reason,
know what I'm saying?
[Jimmy] Kevin would come by the store
talking about selling body parts,
the black market, and a severed head.
Wild stuff he was talking about.
If he found them dead body parts,
Kevin gonna get to the bottom of it.
You know?
He wants the truth.
He gonna get the truth.
[music continues]
[music fades]
[quirky music playing]
[man] In my entire law enforcement career
of about 40 years,
we never dealt with anything like this.
It was something out of a movie.
Just the bizarre craziness of it.
All over Tupelo,
the community was talking and all,
and Kevin's name would come up a lot.
He would get on this rant
about this conspiracy at the hospital
where there were body parts.
Um
So the hospital contacted me.
We met with security there.
And they were fearful of this guy,
that he could retaliate at the hospital.
So, yes, he did get on the radar.
If you think about it
as running an airline
and people get on the no-fly list,
he got on the list
over this bizarre behavior.
You don't know
what his next move's gonna be.
And so I told my office,
we need to keep our eye on him.
[Kevin] Every day,
I would log on to my computer,
go on the dark web,
and I would research body part harvesting.
- [keyboard clacking]
- [dramatic music playing]
And I learned that funeral homes,
morgues, doctors,
politicians, they were all involved.
In the dead of the night,
funeral directors open up legs,
back, arms, and they pull out femur bones,
skin tissue, and sell it to hospitals
on the black market.
And not just in Mississippi.
We're talking about China,
Russia, all over the country.
So I told Jack and Laura,
"Oh my God, I'm on to something."
[Laura] Kevin would
keep me up all night long
talking about this conspiracy.
His brain would make weird connections.
And because there was no job to go to,
he stayed in the house on his computer
the whole day.
[Kevin on video] body snatchers
And 'course then the rest of my life,
I've heard about the body parts.
[Kevin] I was on a one-man crusade
to spread the word
about this billion-dollar
hidden black market industry
that nobody in the world knows exists.
So I set up 40 websites and blogs
with my research
under different aliases.
Body Parts Info at MySpace.com,
Body Parts For Profit at MySpace.com,
Billy Bobby Body Parts at MySpace.com.
And the entire page
with blood dripping from the top.
[intense music playing]
And I got so good at the graphics.
I-I didn't go to school for this.
Wow, all these people started following me
and actually cared about
what I had to say.
[on video] Well,
when I saw the head and the arms
and the brains and the barcodes,
I turned white as a ghost.
Then a lady named Karen Del Re Thornton
contacted me.
- [mouse clicks]
- [computer beeps]
My name is Karen Del Re,
and I live in Hazlet, New Jersey.
My dad's name was James Thornton Sr.
[Kevin] And she said,
"I think my dad was harvested by this man,
Michael Mastromarino."
[computer beeps]
And that was my first case ever.
I could see this conspiracy
was taking him spiraling downward.
So I was very concerned
about his health, physically, mentally,
socially, psychologically.
Jack, he was very, um,
sympathetic at first.
But after a while, after two, three years,
you're losing your mind.
[Jack] I probably got 20, 30 emails a day
from him.
Every waking moment
was putting something on MySpace
or on Facebook.
It made me wonder, how did
how did we get to this point?
[Kevin] I never stopped. I was relentless.
While everyone else is going to Cancun,
Kevin Curtis is on the computer.
[through computer] Michael Mastromarino
harvested body parts
Okay, Mastromarino is linked to this guy
who's handling bodies,
is connected to the funeral home,
who's connected to the body [fades]
[Jack] Friends and family
would call me and say,
"Kevin is online posting all this stuff,
and can you do something about that?"
Not one person in my family
and not one friend
wanted to hear my research.
They didn't wanna know the truth.
Nobody gave a fuck.
[on video] No one wants to hear politics
or criminal injustice.
And they're trying to shut me down
and shut me up.
[Kevin] So I gathered up
all of my research.
I printed out hundreds of documents.
I called up Fox News, NBC, CNN,
and I sent my paper trail
for the world to see.
Tupelo's Elvis Presley Festival
gets underway
a little more than a week from now.
More than 30,000 people
are expected to attend
this year's festival.
You know, Elvis is our biggest treasure
here in Tupelo.
So all of us are excited
about this Double Trouble concert.
If you love Elvis
and want an hour and 45 minutes of it,
you need to be at Milam School
Saturday at two o'clock.
My name is David Daniels.
I'm an assistant district attorney
here in North Mississippi.
But I made a living as a musician
for 20-something years.
For the 2003 Elvis Festival,
my band and myself were approached
by the Tupelo Tourism Bureau
to back up two brothers
who were Elvis impersonators
who called themselves Double Trouble.
Double Trouble
with the Double Trouble Band.
They had the outfits,
and they had the moves.
[crowd cheering and whistling]
And they were pretty good.
This Double Trouble show was a huge deal.
We were the debut act for the first annual
Elvis Presley Festival at Milam School,
the school Elvis went to.
I mean, hundreds and thousands of dollars
went into this. We made CDs.
We had promo pictures.
We had 1,500 T-shirts.
We had TV promoting the show.
[man] Don't miss the performance
of Double Trouble,
an Elvis tribute
sure to get you all shook up.
[Kevin] I mean,
people were coming from all over.
"Five days before the biggest concert
in Double Trouble history,
KC meets his new guitar player
and all shit hits the fan."
[Jack] A week before the show,
we were having
our Double Trouble practice,
and there was an altercation that happened
between Kevin and David Daniels.
[Kevin] David was cocky.
He was late for every practice session
and was very unprofessional.
Kevin's perception
was that, uh, the band member
may have been flirting with Laura,
his wife.
[David] After band practice,
everybody's leaving,
and Laura asked me, uh,
if I'd like to have a drink sometime.
And I was about to leave,
and "bang" on my window
was a handprint.
[Kevin] And I called him out on it.
"Did you just give my wife
your phone number?"
[tense music playing]
[Laura] All of a sudden,
Kevin starts screaming at him.
"How dare you? Flirting with my wife."
So I just put my truck in reverse, and I
- [metal crunches]
- back into Laura's car behind me.
Now, I've got the building in front of me
and her car behind me.
I can't go anywhere.
[Kevin] Next thing you know,
we got into this heated debate
about corruption in Mississippi,
and I'm like, "You wanna talk about it?
I'll talk about it."
"Have you seen my website,
'Looking for Justice
in Mississippi, ' David?"
[David] He's standing there screaming and
talking about he found a head
with a barcode on it.
And, uh, that's when I really got scared.
I said, "This guy's having
a mental breakdown right here."
[Kevin] David gets out of his truck
and says,
"Fuck your website.
I know all about your crazy corruption,
body parts scandal. It's all bullshit."
"You're a liar. You're delusional.
You're a fucking nut job, dude."
"Everyone knows that. Everyone."
And I said, "You're fired."
"And by the way, you suck at guitar."
So it wasn't good.
He He hit me full force.
I went back two feet,
and that's when I did the smile,
the little death stare smile.
Okay, let's go behind this building.
I'm gonna teach you
what your daddy didn't.
It's after that, that he came at me
with the beer bottle, and he says,
"I'm gonna eff you up."
And so I just reached and got my pistol,
and I brought it back up and I told him,
"No, sir, you will not."
David pulled a gun on him.
Cocked it, hair trigger,
nine-millimeter Beretta
in front of my wife and children.
And my kids are right behind him.
And David said, "I'm gonna kill him."
I literally began to shake uncontrollably.
My hands went up.
"Shit, I'm about to die
because of what I know."
I looked down.
I said, "Please don't kill me, David."
[music crescendos then fades]
[no sound on video]
[Jack] Before the show, I heard him say,
"I've been treated wrongly,
and this is my chance
to let everybody know
what kind of corruption is going on."
And I told him, in no uncertain terms,
you better not do that.
[Laura] Jack paid, like, $10,000
for this to be filmed.
So he told Kevin, "You better behave."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kevin] I told Jack,
"Don't worry about it."
"I'm gonna go out there
and give the performance of my lifetime."
And that's what I did.
[Laura] We were watching Kevin
the whole time.
[Kevin] Jack was
standing behind the curtain
having a heart attack, basically.
When he started his show,
I was like [exhales sharply]
I was relieved.
It's a sellout. 1,500 people.
The whole Milam auditorium is packed.
[dramatic string music playing]
We had these giant, beautiful
Hollywood cameras, backup singers,
light production.
And I killed it. Standing ovation.
The crowd goes crazy.
[Laura] Everybody's clapping. It's great.
Everything's done.
And we're like, "Thank God."
And then, right at the end
"Ladies and gentlemen,
I have something to say."
"Oh God. What is he gonna say?"
Tupelo, Mississippi,
is the most corrupt place in the world.
I think I know why Elvis left
and never came back.
"Who does he think he is?
'Elvis left and never came back.'"
I found a severed head
in a morgue refrigerator,
and the hospital fired me.
Then, last week,
the assistant DA almost murdered me.
[crowd gasps]
So thank you all for coming,
but I will never perform
for anything in Tupelo
Mississippi associated
with North Mississippi Medical Center
as long as I live.
[computer bleeping]
And then
That's the devil right there, man.
That's the spirit of Daniels right there.
[quiet, tense music playing]
[Laura] I told Jack when I left,
"I am embarrassed to be seen
with this man,
and he's the father of my children."
And I said,
"I don't even wanna be associated
with this man."
There's very few things in my life
that anybody's ever done
that just really gets me angry.
The show,
it's one of those times that I was angry.
[inhales deeply]
I said, "I'm sorry.
I had to tell the truth, Jack."
I just told him. I said,
"We will not be doing this show again."
[Kevin] That definitely separated us
as brothers and entertainers.
I don't think we talked for, like, a year.
[sniffles]
[sniffles]
[emotional music playing]
[sniffles quietly]
[music fades]
[Kevin] Nut job,
mental case,
idiot, loser,
retarded, and a dumbass.
To not be believed
is the most lonely place.
I felt defeated.
Time for Kevin Curtis to move on.
[on video] I mean,
I may have to shut down, um
I'm not sure.
Thank you for your support.
- [keyboard clacking]
- [dial-up internet trilling]
And then one day, I turn on the TV set.
All of a sudden, I hear,
"We interrupt this program to bring you
something that's out of a horror story."
It's like something
out of a cheap horror movie.
The bust of a body parts ring.
They say four men harvested bones
and tendons and heart valves
from more than 1,000 bodies.
[intense, ominous music playing]
[Kevin] Holy shit. It's a miracle.
[breathes deeply]
"Oh my God. Thank you, God."
I remember saying, "Thank you, God."
Those three words,
"Thank you, God. Thank you."
A bizarre scam where the defendants
stole body parts from dead bodies
and then sold them.
The funeral home
had a secret room to harvest organs.
And behind it all,
Michael Mastromarino,
the mastermind behind this horror.
[reporter 1] The accused ringleader is
Michael Mastromarino.
[reporter 2] Michael Mastromarino.
Charged with selling the loot
for millions of dollars.
[Kevin] Yee-haw!
I told you so.
I told you all so.
New cases spread like wildfire.
Texas, Florida, Colorado.
Tonight, a funeral home owner
now under investigation by the FBI.
They in the back room of a funeral home
sawing up bodies with a power saw.
[intense music continues]
[Kevin] I am a warrior ninja
with a sword of justice.
[whooshing]
- Wanna explain why you chopped up bodies?
- Get off the property.
- Wanna explain what you did, sir?
- Get off the property.
You sold bodies to body brokers.
I am the biggest whistleblower
on organ harvesting
in the United States of America,
possibly the world.
So don't fuck with me.
[music fades]
Here in the South, we still believe
that people have some sense of destiny.
We just know, somewhere deep in our soul,
this is the road,
this is the path I'm supposed to be on.
- [thunder rumbles]
- [poignant music playing]
Joseph Campbell says we all have a path.
He called it the hero's journey.
And I think for Kevin,
this body parts thing
just might have been his destiny.
So the South can live
without almost anything,
but we cannot live
without a sense of meaning.
[music fades]
[Kevin] "Act three, scene one."
"The curse of common sense
is it gets tiring
always proving people wrong."
"Well, there's no cure for ol' KC."
"With the wind at his back,
KC embarks on an epic quest
against some very powerful forces."
"He sharpens his mighty pencil
and drafts
his own groundbreaking legislation."
"House Bill 6631."
After I was proven right,
I created this extremely significant
House Bill Resolution
to stop the illegal sale
of human body parts in Mississippi,
which had never been done
in the history of the world.
[Jack] I was frustrated
with Kevin's House Bill.
And I told him,
you might have proved
that somebody is harvesting body parts
illegally in another state,
but that does not mean
that it was being done in Tupelo.
[Kevin] Jack was scared
and he was nervous.
But this is happening to human bodies,
and something needs to be done about it,
and I guess God chose me.
[dramatic music playing]
So I sent my legislation
to State Representative Steve Holland,
the only man in Mississippi
with the power to pass it into law.
[Jack] Look, I tried to tell him,
you are
gonna make the wrong people mad at you.
Especially somebody
that's in a position of authority.
They're, a lot of times,
gonna use that position of authority
any way they can.
[man] In politics, I was so powerful.
[suspenseful music playing]
If I'd have been born in 1776,
I would have been the leader
of the fucking revolution.
[tense pipe organ music playing]
[reporter] A debate in the state capitol
got out of hand.
One lawmaker had to be escorted
out the building.
I'm not gonna talk about that .
Why do you That's old news, man.
I would just castrate the opposition.
This is a ridiculous piece of legislation,
and as far as I'm concerned,
the chairman ought to be ashamed
for bringing it out here.
Somebody's gotta be the king.
It's windy at the top.
So I was the benevolent dictator.
[laughing on video]
And everybody loved Steve Holland.
[dramatic music playing]
Truth be told,
I could fuck a bull moose
on the south steps
of the Lee County Courthouse
and gain 10% of the vote.
[music crescendos, then ends]
Hello and welcome
to Holland Funeral Directors.
- [thunderclap]
- [sinister pipe organ music playing]
Can you imagine
the "What?!" moment that I had
when I discovered
our Mississippi state representative,
Steve Holland,
owned three of the largest funeral homes
in the state of Mississippi?
[uneasy music playing]
[Steve] Yes, sir.
I'm the Mississippi undertaker.
I'm the taxidermist of humankind.
I see everybody in this county.
One way or the other.
One night,
I got a letter from Paul Kevin Curtis
asking me to pass a bill
"to stop illegal harvesting
and sale of human bone, tissue,
organs, and body parts in this state."
Oh wow.
Pretty interesting.
[music crescendos, then ends]
That's what I did to it.
And I put it right in my garbage can.
And, boom, that was the end of it.
[laughs]
[quiet, tense music playing]
[man sighs]
[Steve] Now, as this whole episode
with Kevin Curtis unfolded,
I could not dream of how it turned into
such a royal scandal.
Well, I mean it went to the White House.
Went to the top.
Went to the top.
[hushed] Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Let the bodies hit the ♪
[labored breathing through mask]
[loudly] ♪floor! ♪
[heavy rock music playing]
One, something's got to give ♪
Two, something's got to give ♪
Three, something's got to give now ♪
Let the bodies hit the floor ♪
Hey! Come! ♪
[music ends]
[sparse instrumental music playing]