special
The James Brown Mystery
A strange phone call reveals a question from the grave – was The Godfather of Soul murdered? Almost 40 years ago, a songwriter found herself in musician James Brown’s inner circle. The relationship would nearly destroy her career. Decades later, she’s trying to solve the mystery of James Brown's death…and her own life. When she makes a call to CNN reporter Thomas Lake, the two stumble into a world of secrets, intimidation, and suspected foul play.
Tonight I Saw a Falling Star
The James Brown Mystery
Dec 9, 2022
A prosecutor tells Jacque Hollander that powerful people don’t want James Brown’s death to be investigated. Jacque hears back from the CIA as to whether or not the agency has a file on her, and Thomas Lake examines Brown’s possible affiliation to the CIA. Ghost calls again, demanding Lake stop his reporting. The duffel bag Jacque turned over to the prosecutor disappears, while Jacque continues her search for the truth about the deaths of James Brown and his third wife, Adrienne.
Episode Transcript
Thomas Lake
00:00:03
Previously on The James Brown Mystery: Jacque Hollander takes the duffel bag from Candice Hearst's storage unit to a prosecutor in Georgia who agrees to look into the circumstances of the Godfather of Soul's death.
DA Paul Howard
00:00:15
If it was not a natural death, do you know what caused the death?
Jacque Hollander
00:00:20
I believe I do, sir.
Thomas Lake
00:00:21
We learn that right before he died, James Brown wanted to move to New York City. But it seems at least one member of his inner circle didn't want him to leave.
Frank Capsida
00:00:31
He said, "I don't care what Mr. Brown wants to do. He's staying here."
Thomas Lake
00:00:35
And we fly to California to talk with a woman who may know more about Brown's last moments alive.
Shana Quinones
00:00:41
He wasn't feeling good. His chest started feeling like he was burning. And then he said, "Mr. Bobbit, Mr. Bobbit. I can't breathe. It's burning, Mr. Bobbit. I'm gone. They got me.
Thomas Lake
00:00:55
As I try to solve the mystery of James Brown's death, I keep running into walls, and I can't help thinking there are other people who might be able to get around those walls. Police detectives or prosecutors, for instance. They can do things I can't. They can put witnesses under oath, get search warrants for Brown's medical records and other evidence, demand to know where the body is, even have it exhumed for an autopsy. In 2020, it looks as if prosecutors in Atlanta are moving in that direction. The D.A. agrees to check out Jacque Hollander's claim that James Brown was murdered. And on a hot afternoon in July, Jacque calls me. She's just heard from assistant D.A. Mike Sprinkel.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:01:41
Hey Jacque.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:01:41
I'm try to remain calm, okay? Mr. Sprinkel, he was on the phone almost four hours with me, and he gave me his cell phone number and he said, You can call me any time. I want you to start giving me every shred of evidence you can give me."
Thomas Lake
00:01:57
Sprinkel is the one who took the potential evidence Jacque retrieved from Candice Hearst's storage unit, the green plastic bin that included the James Brown duffel bag with Candice's lingerie and her black stiletto shoe. When I talked to her, Candace denied all wrongdoing and said she had nothing to do with James Brown's death. She and her daughter said she was nowhere near Atlanta that night. Anyway, I have a video of Sprinkel the prosecutor going through the bin and placing the items into clear plastic evidence bags.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:02:26
And he goes, "there is no doubt that something happened to James Brown." He goes, "I've been waiting to have a grand jury hearing, but I can start serving search warrants." He said that there's no doubt that something happened in that room, that many people lied and covered it up.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:02:45
Does he now believe that James Brown...what?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:02:48
Was murdered. Yes.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:02:50
He believes Brown was murdered?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:02:52
Yes.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:02:54
This is the biggest news I've heard in..Three and a half years, right?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:03:00
I know, Thomas. I've been crying and I cried on the phone with him and he goes, "None of us think you're crazy, Jacque. You've been through hell." They're going down, Thomas.
Thomas Lake
00:03:14
Did a prosecutor really tell Jacque he thought James Brown was murdered? Here's what I've been able to confirm. Internal records from the DA's office show that Sprinkel did talk on the phone with Jacque that day. She says he got her permission to record the call. But when I requested the tape, the DA's office said they had no such recording. I asked for an interview with Sprinkel, but I got no response. And when I asked if Sprinkel really said he thought Brown was murdered, no one from the DA's office would answer that question. It's July 7th, 2020 when Jacque calls me to say the prosecutor told her he thinks Brown was murdered. As I take this all in, Jacque pauses to place her order. She's calling me from the McDonald's drive thru line and getting her usual.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:04:01
Yes, sweet tea with three lemons and extra ice.
Thomas Lake
00:04:05
Then Jacque tells me something else. She says. The prosecutor told her he's convinced there are powerful people who do not want James Brown's death to be investigated and they're going to do what they can to stand in his way. Even so, Jacque says this prosecutor is determined to find out who killed James Brown.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:04:26
He said, "I'm not dropping it unless they clean me out of the office."
Thomas Lake
00:04:32
From CNN, this is The James Brown Mystery. I'm your host, Thomas Lake. This is Episode Eight: Tonight, I Saw a Falling Star.
Thomas Lake
00:04:44
Years ago, I had this routine. I'd spend a few weeks on a project letting my notebooks and outlines and other documents spread out over my desk. And then I'd finished the story and clean up, throw away some stuff, put other stuff in filing cabinets or on shelves, wipe down my desk with a wet paper towel and start over fresh. It felt good, healthy, normal. I haven't done that in a very long time since I met the circus singer five years ago. I've been wrestling with the same unfinished project. My office is a disaster. Dusty books everywhere. Jagged piles of paperwork. There are still so many questions, and all of them feel related. Questions about James Brown's death, about Adrienne Brown's death, about how their lives were intertwined with Jacque Hollander's life, and about the role of the CIA.
Jacque Hollander
00:05:40
Do you think the CIA was involved in this?
Thomas Lake
00:05:44
Well, sign that form and let's find out.
Thomas Lake
00:05:45
A few months after meeting Jacque, I tried to persuade her to sign a permission form that would let me send a request to the CIA for any documents it might have on her. But Jacque is afraid to sign it.
Jacque Hollander
00:05:57
Why do I feel like I'm going to get killed doing this?
Thomas Lake
00:05:59
Because you've felt like you were going to get killed...
Jacque Hollander
00:06:02
But I think...
Thomas Lake
00:06:04
...continuously for the last 30 years. That's why.
Jacque Hollander
00:06:07
But I think this will get me killed.
Thomas Lake
00:06:09
Finally, Jacque works up the nerve to file the request herself. She asks the CIA to send her copies of any documents it might have that relate to her. Every few weeks, she calls the CIA's Freedom of Information hotline to check on her request. She calls me to say, one man just told her, "We're processing your file." And one woman seems determined to help Jacque get what she wants.
Jacque Hollander
00:06:35
She told me that they had my files and that she hoped I would get them. And everyone I talked to would say to me, "I hope you get your files." And I said, "it's very important to me to see these documents." And she said, "And we think you deserve to see them.".
Thomas Lake
00:06:53
For months, Jacque is on pins and needles, wondering when she'll hear back from the CIA. One day she calls me to say a man on the phone, a hotline, just told her, "Our officers are in meetings over this," meaning her files. And he added, "Some of it can be cleared and some of it can't." Several months after sending in the request, Jacque gets a letter from the CIA.
Jacque Hollander
00:07:16
Okay, this is a long letter. "After conducting a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents, we did not locate any responsive records that would reveal"--Now, this is interesting--"a public, publicity, acknowledged affiliation with the CIA. To the extent your request also seeks records that would reveal a classified association between the CIA and yourself. We can neither confirm nor deny having such records."
Thomas Lake
00:08:01
It's a huge disappointment. The CIA is telling Jacque something. She already knew that it has no publicly acknowledged affiliation with her. But as for the bigger question whether there are any documents at all, the mystery remains. The letter says that if the CIA does have records on Jacque, those records would be classified. Basically kept secret for reasons of national security. For Jacque and for me, this is infuriating. The answers are out there. We've gone through the proper channels to get them. And now the authorities are saying we don't have to give you those answers. And it turns out they don't. This is not just defeat. It feels genuinely unfair.
Jacque Hollander
00:08:43
They're not saying they don't have anything. They said we can't confirm it or deny it. Your affiliation. Well, thank you.
Thomas Lake
00:08:51
Meanwhile, I'm filing my own FOIA requests with the CIA trying to get some clarity on what the CIA did or didn't do in James Brown's life. Brown thought the CIA started surveilling him in 1968 after he prevented the riot in Boston. From declassified document, I've read about Brown's extensive travels in Africa. We know the State Department was monitoring Brown in the seventies. Jacque came into Brown's life in the eighties when Brown frequently talked about CIA surveillance. She claims Brown could get top government officials on the phone, including then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, who'd previously directed the CIA. I've read copies from presidential archives of several friendly letters Brown and Bush sent back and forth, so they definitely knew each other. Jacque says Brown also told her he knew Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator who was later revealed to be a CIA asset. In the mid-nineties, when Jacque was accusing James Brown of rape and Adrienne Brown was accusing him of domestic violence, Mystery Steve showed up. Jacque says Steve told her he worked for the CIA and she believed he had something to do with Adrienne's death. An informant claimed Adrienne was murdered by a medical doctor. Adrienne's death solved a big problem for James Brown because the domestic violence charges against him were dropped after that. And if Adrienne knew too much about secret government activities, her death ensured she wouldn't tell what she knew. Could all of this really be true? I called up Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former deputy director of Central Intelligence, and asked him what he made of this strange sequence of events involving the Godfather of Soul.
Bobby Ray Inman
00:10:41
If it is Brown who is interacting in foreign countries, traveling, has been briefed, is willing to be cooperative, reporting what is seen or heard, then there could be an interest in trying to suppress anything that was going to discredit him.
Thomas Lake
00:11:00
I'm just thinking, goodness, could this could this be true that that intelligence officials in the U.S. were trying to sort of run interference, in a sense, for for a private citizen or help him clean up a mess?
Bobby Ray Inman
00:11:14
That could only occur if it was somebody who was working for them.
Thomas Lake
00:11:20
I know there are still a lot of "ifs" here. When you're trying to report on covert intelligence operations, it's very hard to get straight answers. If James Brown was working with the CIA in other countries, would the CIA help him out at home? In March 2021, CNN filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding the release of all its documents on the Godfather of Soul. I filed hundreds of records requests in my career and dozens with the CIA, but this is the first time I've ever been involved in a lawsuit like this. As the lawsuit moves forward, I'm still trying to put the puzzle together. What role, if any, did the CIA play in Jacque's life? What about James Brown's life? What about Adrienne Brown's death? What about James Brown's death? As I try to make sense of what happened to Brown at the hospital, I keep calling the district attorney's office in Atlanta, asking for updates on the case, but I can't get the spokesman to return my calls. It's been more than a year since Jacque called me to say a prosecutor told her he believed James Brown was murdered. One Saturday afternoon, I'm at home with my family in Georgia when my phone buzzes. Cautiously, I answer and I hear a familiar voice. It's Ghost. I let him rail at me for a few minutes and then I hang up. But he calls back. And after several of these calls in recent years, I'm getting fed up with this guy.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:12:53
I'm recording this call now, so if you don't want to be recorded, you should hang up. I'm recording this call.
Ghost, on the phone
00:12:59
You have to ask my permission.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:13:00
I already hung up on you once, sir. And you called again.
Ghost, on the phone
00:13:05
No. You, Thomas Lake, are a crook, a fraud, a liar, a deceiver, a harasser.
Thomas Lake
00:13:10
You may remember Ghost from previous episodes. He claims to be a cousin of James Brown and a friend of Brown's longtime attorney, Buddy Dallas. Buddy says he knows them, but says they've never met face to face. Not long after I met Jacque, I learned that Ghost had communicated with her for years as she tried to find the truth about James Brown's death. Although Jacque never laid eyes on the guy either. Ghost called me to say Jacque was a liar. He texted Jacque in 2016 about James Brown's death and asked her about the "lace poisoning." In another text message I've seen, he wrote, "I'm going to the police, FBI, CIA, etc. on you and they will take care of you." Jacque says he later told her on the phone that the CIA would have her killed. Now, as I dig for more on the connection between James Brown and the CIA, Ghost is making it clear that I need to stop. As I've said, I've had it up to here with these phone calls.
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:09
Everyone wants you to leave them alone. At this point...
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:14:14
What is your real name, sir? What is your real name or date of birth? Is it Christian Saint John this time or somebody else? Or is it Van Saint John?
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:25
Don't try to play...
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:14:25
Or is it Ghost this time? Or is it Bob Thomas this time? Who is it?
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:32
Don't try to play that game with me.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:14:34
It's not a game, sir. It's what I do. It's trying to get accurate information.
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:39
You are very manipulative.
Thomas Lake
00:14:41
Ghost won't say who told him to call or what exactly I did that has him so upset.
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:46
I received a phone call today: "Call this man and tell him we want him to leave us alone.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:14:53
Who called you? Who called you and asked you to call me?
Ghost, on the phone
00:14:57
It's none of your business. Leave everyone alone. Leave everyone alone.
Thomas Lake
00:15:04
Around this time, Jacque says she's also heard from Ghost for the first time in years. She says he told her the D.A. in Atlanta is not investigating James Brown's death because the D.A. knows Jacque is a liar. By this point in our story, there's a new D.A. in Atlanta. Mike Sprinkel, the prosecutor Jacque was talking to, texted her to say the changing of the guard at the DA's office would not affect the James Brown case. I got a copy of this message through a records request Sprinkel wrote to Jacque, "I would absolutely tell you if we ended the investigation." But when I checked with Jacque a few months later, I learned she hasn't gotten any updates on the investigation from the new D.A..
Jacque Hollander
00:15:46
I wish so bad I could speak to Sprinkel. He should know that I have been threatened, and I'm just up here by myself.
Thomas Lake
00:15:55
Jacque says Ghost told her that she and Thomas Lake are going to pay and that we're going to burn in hell and that the DA's office will come after us for our lies. Jacque reports these threats to her local police department. And I wonder what to make of these phone calls. It seems clear that something has Ghost worked up and that when it comes to James Brown's death, someone does not want the truth to come out. When I sat down with James Brown's friend Andre White in 2017, he sounded determined to learn all he could about how and why Brown died.
Andre White
00:16:39
I'm going to fight till I die trying to find out what happened and who did it. It's just that simple.
Thomas Lake
00:16:48
My interview with White was one of the reasons I decided to look into the strange circumstances of James Brown's death. And White's story was even more compelling given that he told it to me in the same room with Marvin Crawford, the doctor who signed James Brown's death certificate, and Dr. Crawford had his own questions about what killed the Godfather of Soul.
Marvin Crawfod
00:17:10
What went wrong? What happened? Why'd he change? He was a patient I would never have predicted would have coded. But he died that night. And I did raise that question. What went wrong in that room?
Thomas Lake
00:17:23
What went wrong in that room? A lot of people wanted to know. Dr. Crawford, Andre White, James Brown's son, Daryl. Brown's manager, Frank Copsida. The Reverend Al Sharpton knew Brown for more than 30 years and saw him as a father figure. Even Sharpton wanted to know what happened to James Brown.
Al Sharpton
00:17:42
I would not oppose a further investigation at all. That's on the record. I've always had and still have a lot of questions.
Thomas Lake
00:17:49
As I said at the beginning of this episode, Jacque heard from Assistant District Attorney Mike Sprinkel in July 2020. She said Sprinkel told her he did believe there had been a cover up related to James Brown's death. People had lied. Perhaps James Brown had been murdered. He was continuing to look into it. But on August 24th, 2020, Sprinkel texted Jacque to say he was dealing with a recent influx of homicides in Atlanta. Later, I obtained a copy of this message from the DA's office. Sprinkel wrote to Jacque, "special investigations such as this will be addressed on the resumption of normal operations." And then, without explanation, Sprinkel stopped returning Jacque's calls. Jacque was crushed. After all my years in the world of James Brown, I've gotten used to people changing suddenly. One day someone seems keenly interested in telling me all they know about Brown. And then they go silent or claim to have forgotten things or even deny saying what they've said. It happened with Dr. Crawford after my story came out on CNN.com in 2019. He wouldn't answer the phone, and then he told me to text him. And then he said I had distorted his words, which I knew I hadn't because I had it all on tape. When I finally got him on the phone a few months later, he said he'd spoken to a relative of James Brown, and this relative wasn't happy with my story. And also Dr. Crawford didn't think Andre White actually had a vial of James Brown's blood. I was stunned. It sounded as if I were talking to a different person than the one who met me at the church. Dr. Marvin Crawford told me, "I received good, wise counsel: Leave it alone, Marvin." He added, "I think that the living can die trying to take care of the problem of the dead." Andre White also stopped returning my calls after the story was published. When I knocked on his door, he told me to go away. Jacque had told the district attorney she thought Andre White was afraid for his life. And James Brown's son, Daryl, told me he thought so, too.
Daryl Brown
00:20:01
But see, the problem with Andre White, he's scared because he's saying, "If I say anything, I'm going to be killed"
Thomas Lake
00:20:08
I missed a call from Andre White in March 2020, shortly after the D.A. opened the inquiry into Brown's death. When I called back, he said he'd dialed me accidentally. He sounded ill. Turns out he was in the hospital, then sick with the coronavirus. When I found out he died, I remembered something else he told me.
Andre White
00:20:28
It's just certain things that I have to take to my grave.
Thomas Lake
00:20:32
It's just certain things I have to take to my grave. I don't know what secrets Andre White took to his grave, and I don't know what happened to the vial of James Brown's blood. There's no indication that anyone from the DA's office ever interviewed Andre White or asked him for permission to test the blood. I obtained internal emails from the DA's office, including some between Sprinkel and his colleagues several months after Andre White died. Sprinkel wrote, "Perhaps someone can knock on the door of the guy that is believed to have the vial of blood and ask him if he still has it." What was going on at the DA's office? Later in 2021, I called Paul Howard, the former D.A., who initially opened the inquiry into James Brown's death. And Howard said something very strange. He said, "I have to say, James Brown is not within the scope of my memory or consciousness." After the new D.A. took over in 2021, I had a short phone call with their spokesman. He said he would check on the James Brown matter, but he never got back to me. In the next few months. I tried to reach him dozens of times by phone and email, but I got no reply. Jacque got nowhere either. Finally, when it was clear the inquiry was over and that nothing would be done, Jacque got so frustrated that she asked the DA's office to send her stuff back. The items in the green plastic bin she'd gotten from the storage unit in 2016, including the so-called James Brown duffle bag, the black stiletto shoe that might have drug residue on the sole since the other shoe from the pair had shown traces of cocaine in a test commissioned by CNN. This was all the stuff the prosecutor had laid out on the table and placed into clear plastic evidence bags. In March 2022, Jacque called me. She'd just gotten a package from the DA's office.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:22:30
Okay. They did not send back the evidence.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:22:32
Let's, let's go through it. Did you get back the green plastic bin?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:22:35
No.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:22:36
Okay. Did you get back the black nylon bag?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:22:39
Just the bag with nothing in it.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:22:41
The bag was empty?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:22:43
Totally empty black bag.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:22:45
But okay to be hundred percent clear, Candice's other black stiletto shoe, the one that wasn't tested?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:22:50
It's not here. Nothing from that bag is here. The only thing that came was the black bag itself.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:22:59
What about Candice's, um, the undergarments that were in Ziploc bags? Is that stuff in there?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:23:05
No. Or the combs and curlers that are listed in there. The shoes, nothing.
Thomas Lake, on the phone
00:23:11
Candice's note to self of, "How did Mr. Brown know I was going to be with him when he died?" That's gone?
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:23:17
Totally empty bag. Nothing in it. It's all empty.
Thomas Lake
00:23:25
By now, I knew the Fulton DA's office had closed its inquiry without taking any action. The prosecutor wrote in an email to colleagues that he didn't have reasonable suspicion that a crime had occurred. Officials said they were sending all of Jacque's stuff back. We have shipped the items requested, the assistant chief of evidence told Jacque, but they did not send all her stuff back. Not even close. So much of Jacque's evidence had vanished.
Jacque Hollander, on the phone
00:23:53
They sent me back. Nothing of any value. They kept everything. They have buried the truth.
Thomas Lake
00:24:08
I've been examining James Brown's life and death for five years. I've interviewed more than 200 people. I've reviewed tens of thousands of documents. And I still have questions. Why did a man about to go home from the hospital suddenly die instead? Did Brown willingly take drugs, or was he given something without his consent? If Brown did take drugs, were they laced with poison, as Ghost indicated in his text to Jacque? Did Brown's death have anything to do with his estate, which was worth almost $100 million? Did Brown's plan to escape to New York have anything to do with his death? Was the CIA involved in any of this? Was James Brown murdered? And if so, who did it? These questions deserve answers. The DA's office had an inquiry open for a year and eight months, and they closed it without publicly answering any of them. In the documents I obtained under the Georgia Open Records Act, there's no indication that anyone from the DA's office or elsewhere tried to get Brown's medical records, or that any potential evidence like the stiletto shoe with drug residue was tested. The D.A. said that if nothing developed, they'd send Jacque's stuff back. But that didn't happen. The items from Candice Hearst's storage unit seem to have vanished with no meaningful explanation from the D.A.. I've called and emailed the spokesman for D.A. Fani Willis dozens of times. I've sent detailed lists of questions and I've gotten no reply. Jacque thinks there's more to this than meets the eye, and she still wants to know what happened to the evidence she turned over to the D.A..
Jacque Hollander
00:25:54
It's been a cover up from the day I got to his office. And now hers. I think that the U.S. Justice Department needs to be looking down hard on the City of Atlanta District Attorney's Office.
Thomas Lake
00:26:10
I want to stop for a moment and acknowledge just how unusual this is. In two decades of reporting on the criminal justice system, this is the only time I've ever heard of evidence disappearing from a prosecutor's office. When I filed the request for all documents on the chain of custody for Jacque's items, the DA's legal counsel said no such documents existed other than Jacque's original property receipt. I wrote back, "Isn't there a system for keeping evidence secure?" He replied, "One would expect, however, there are no other documents concerning the property." Still looking for answers. I go see Jacque one last time. She's not traveling with the circus anymore. Now she lives in a modest apartment in a small town in Illinois, and she cares for a feral cat. It's a simple life, lonely, sometimes with occasional beats of excitement that come up in her ongoing quest to solve the mystery of James Brown's death. It's an early evening in June, still hot outside. We're standing on the asphalt outside Jacque's storage unit. I pull out my laptop and open a video I obtained from the DA's office, the one that shows Sprinkel going through Jacque's stuff and placing it into evidence bags.
Thomas Lake
00:27:27
This may look familiar to you, alright?
Jacque Hollander
00:27:30
Oh, my God. It does look familiar.
Thomas Lake
00:27:33
There's the video.
Jacque Hollander
00:27:34
That is the actual video of us. I didn't know it was being filmed.
Thomas Lake
00:27:39
Sprinkel, I think, was recording. There's the green plastic bin. This is all the stuff laid out on the table in the grand jury room.
Jacque Hollander
00:27:45
Yes. All the paperwork, everything.
Mike Sprinkel
00:27:49
So far what we have is...
Thomas Lake
00:27:50
That's Sprikel.
Mike Sprinkel
00:27:51
This right here is the shoe. This is the untested shoe that was believed to be worn...
Jacque Hollander
00:27:58
You know what? Seeing this just really pisses me off. There's no way all that stuff walked out of the district attorney's office.
Thomas Lake
00:28:04
I remember you saying a few times, "That stuff is going to disappear." And I was like, "Oh, come on, Jacque. No, no, it's not." What do you? It was one of, I don't know, about, 934 times I've been wrong in the last five years about...
Jacque Hollander
00:28:22
And I've been right. It's hard for you to say that, right? Come on, say it.
Thomas Lake
00:28:27
I did. You were right. I was wrong.
Jacque Hollander
00:28:29
There you go. Another one for me!
Thomas Lake
00:28:31
Even now, I keep thinking maybe there's some other document she hasn't shown me. Something she'll remember that she hasn't told me. Maybe there's still time to solve the puzzle. Here at the storage unit, we go digging again for missing pieces.
Thomas Lake
00:28:46
I think I'm stepping on the edge of the piano that Gregg Allman once played.
Jacque Hollander
00:28:50
You are. I don't think you're going to hurt it. Alright, see if there's paperwork in these boxes, these right here. I think there's glass in some of 'em. That's face paint.
Thomas Lake
00:29:02
We're back where we started five years ago. This is the same storage unit where Jacque dug out the old VHS tape of herself passing the polygraph test administered by the former FBI agent. She said she could find that tape, and she did. Now, there's one more box she's looking for. And it might have this one document and it might answer this one question that's been nagging at me. I wade back into this jumble of stuff, the uncataloged museum of a life both of us are still trying to understand. Our producer, Rachel, is here too.
Rachel Cohn
00:29:36
Some real Tetris. There is like..
Thomas Lake
00:29:38
Yes.
Rachel Cohn
00:29:40
Oh.
Thomas Lake
00:29:41
Oh, Lord. Have mercy.
Jacque Hollander
00:29:43
Oh, God. What'd he break? The lamp? He broke the lamp, didn't he?
Thomas Lake
00:29:50
Oh you warned me to be careful and I was not careful enough.
Jacque Hollander
00:29:53
Broke my mother's antique lamp, right? Okay. I'm not going to think about it right now. It's just another piece of broken glass in my life.
Thomas Lake
00:30:04
I wish I could tell you I found what I was looking for, but this time I didn't. I went prospecting in Jacque's storage unit one last time, and the only thing I accomplished was breaking a lamp.
Jacque Hollander
00:30:17
Don't even think about it, Thomas. Just let's keep moving. It's. Hey, look, I've lost everything. What does it matter?
Thomas Lake
00:30:27
What does it matter? Well, I've thought about this question for a long time, and I've come up with an answer. It's about Jacque's friend, Adrienne Brown, and it's about the power of keeping your promises. A long time ago, Jacque and Adrienne were like sisters. They trusted each other. They kept each other's secrets. And before Adrienne died, she put some things in a box for Jacque and hid this box in the attic at Jacque's mother's house. Jacque eventually found the box full of Adrienne's things, and she kept them. Tonight at the storage unit, she digs out one of these old artifacts. It's a picture of Adrienne.
Jacque Hollander
00:31:07
You've never seen this. This was in the box that was up at my mother's house.
Thomas Lake
00:31:12
Oh, my goodness.
Jacque Hollander
00:31:13
So I put it in this tube. There was a note attached that said, "When I die, this is how I want you to release this to the world for me to be remembered."
Thomas Lake
00:31:25
This is from Adrienne?
Jacque Hollander
00:31:27
This is from Adrienne Brown. And this was in the box with all of the tapes and everything else. And it's gotten very old and kind of tattered, so. Tell you what, why don't you hold these edges, yeah.
Thomas Lake
00:31:42
So we're unrolling this kind of like scroll here.
Jacque Hollander
00:31:43
Yeah. But this is how she wanted to be remembered to the world.
Thomas Lake
00:31:51
There she is. Adrienne. The picture is very old, wrinkled and torn. But in this picture, Adrienne looks young with bright eyes and long, dark hair and a beautiful smile.
Jacque Hollander
00:32:06
Long before her teeth were knocked out, long before she became the world's most battered woman. And she was my best friend.
Thomas Lake
00:32:16
So that's one way Jacque honored Adrienne Brown. Remembering her how she wanted to be remembered. But there was also a promise she kept a promise they made to each other long, long ago. They were both afraid of the James Brown machine. They thought they might be killed at any time. And so here's what Adrienne told Jacque.
Jacque Hollander
00:32:36
If something happened to me, she would continue fighting to the bitter end. And that if something happened to her, I would continue fighting till I had exhausted every avenue there was for her. And I've kept that promise.
Thomas Lake
00:32:53
The promise was to fight for justice, fight to bring out the truth. And so after Adrienne died, Jacque called the Beverly Hills police to say Adrienne had been murdered. She kept calling the detective for years, kept sending him documents, kept hoping for a break in the case. Looking back on it now, it's incredible that she kept fighting for so long through so much failure and frustration. It was 21 years after Adrienne died when Jacque first called me. She told me about the detective in California who had looked into Adrienne's case. She said I should contact him. And when I did, that's when Detective Miller took a box from his closet and pulled out the informant's notebook and finally read the whole thing. The notebook that said a doctor confessed to murdering Adrienne. Jacque never gave up. She kept her promise to Adrienne. And that unfathomable persistence brought new evidence to light, evidence that even now could be used to reopen the investigation into Adrienne Brown's death. There is no statute of limitations on murder. Jacque's going to keep fighting for Adrienne and for James to the bitter end.
Jacque Hollander
00:34:10
Splinters never lie deep forever. They always work their way up to the surface. And I think that clearly is the same about the truth. Something always comes to the surface.
Thomas Lake
00:34:30
Will Jacque leave the DA's office alone? No. She's hired a new lawyer, a former federal prosecutor who's demanding to know what happened to Jacque's stuff, which used to be Candice's stuff. It's hard to imagine what this lawyer will accomplish even if he filed a lawsuit, because no one can force the DA's office to investigate Brown's death. But Jacque is still trying everything she can.
Thomas Lake
00:34:55
What if this is as far as we get? What if we don't learn anything else?
Jacque Hollander
00:35:00
This could be as far as you get, but it will never be as far as I get.
Thomas Lake
00:35:06
If you and I never talked again...
Jacque Hollander
00:35:10
Right.
Thomas Lake
00:35:10
You're saying, though, you would keep pressing forward. You would keep looking for answers on your own?
Jacque Hollander
00:35:15
Yes.
Thomas Lake
00:35:16
Why?
Jacque Hollander
00:35:18
It's just the girl I am.
Thomas Lake
00:35:19
But why does it matter so much to you?
Jacque Hollander
00:35:21
Because it was my life.
Thomas Lake
00:35:25
For five years, I've been pressing Jacque to tell me everything. Show me everything. Remember everything. I just kept thinking it was one interview or one document away from solving the whole mystery of James Brown's life and death. But right here, right now, after five years driven forward by irrational optimism and desperate curiosity, I've reached a new phase: acceptance. I may never know the whole truth.
Thomas Lake
00:35:53
I was thinking about this, Jacque. I don't know how everything is going to turn out with your lawyer, the DA's office, the lawsuit against the CIA, the death of James Brown, the death of Adrienne Brown, all that stuff. It's all important. I don't know where any of it is going to go. How any of it is going to end. But here's what I do know about it. I'm really glad you called me five years ago.
Jacque Hollander
00:36:29
You're going to make me start crying.
Thomas Lake
00:36:33
I keep thinking about this one song Jacque wrote, "Malibu." It's about fond memories of her father and finding peace on the shoreline. The song has never been released, but Jacque played me the demo.
Buddy Causey, singing
00:36:47
Tonight I saw a falling star and it reminded me of you. Instead of being where I am, I wish I was in Malibu...
Thomas Lake
00:36:58
Jacque wrote that song almost 40 years ago. She was a young songwriter then, a rising star, until suddenly she wasn't. That's the line from Malibu that gets me every time: "Tonight I saw a falling star. It reminded me of you." And when I think of falling stars, I think of Jacque. She has fallen a long way since 1988. She was still falling in 2016, around Christmastime. And so was I. I've called 2016 my worst Christmas ever. I'd spent that year on the campaign trail, writing a book about a relentlessly negative presidential race. My soul was depleted. Christmas Eve 2016 was exactly ten years after the night James Brown died. By then, Jacque was convinced Brown had been murdered. But not many people knew the story she'd uncovered. She went into this church for a Christmas Eve service, and she says she heard this voice telling her, "Now is the time to stand and be heard." Not long after that, I was at my desk when a call from a stranger came in.
Jacque Hollander
00:38:09
I said, "Look, I know you're probably going to think I'm crazy, but I'm going to ask that you not hang up on me." And I said, "I'm with the circus."
Thomas Lake
00:38:33
The James Brown Mystery is hosted and reported by me. Thomas Link. Our executive producer is Abbie Fentress Swanson. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin and our producers are Rachel Cohn, Anne Lagamayo, Lori Galarreta and Jennifer Lai. Our associate producers are Emmanuel Johnson, Nathan Miller and Sonia Htoon, and our production assistant is Eden Getachew. Our story editor is David Weinberg and our production manager is Tameeka Ballance-Kolasny. Liz Roberts and Kyra Posey lead audience strategy for our show, and Jamus Andrus and Nichole Pesaru designed our artwork. Erica Huang is our mix engineer and sound designer. Celena Urabe is our assistant sound engineer and Dan Dzula is CNN Audio's Senior Manager of production operations. Theme and original music composed by David Steinberg and Nathan Miller. Special thanks to Mia Taylor, Courtney Coupe, Katie Hinman, Lindsay Abrams, Robert Mathers, Delila Paul, Andrea White, Anissa Gray. Johnita Due, Ram Ramgopal, Lisa Namerow and Jon Dianora.
