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.
The Circus Singer
The James Brown Mystery
Oct 28, 2022
In 2017, CNN reporter Thomas Lake receives a phone call from a circus singer who tells a wild, hard-to-believe story: James Brown didn’t die of natural causes in 2006; instead the Godfather of Soul was murdered. After months of calls from the circus singer, Lake decides to fly to Chicago to meet Jacque Hollander in person. There Jacque proves her connection to James Brown and shows Lake a videotape of a polygraph test she took in 1995 that was administered by a former FBI agent.
Episode Transcript
Frank Copsidas
00:00:01
This morning at 1:45 a.m., Mr. James Brown passed away. He was 73 years young.
Charles Bobbit
00:00:11
He sat down on the bed and he laid back on the foot of the bed and he sighed very, very quietly and very gently, three times. Then he closed his eyes and he was dead.
Thomas Lake
00:00:29
At a press conference in a drab hotel ballroom with a lonely Christmas tree in the corner, James Brown's managers broke the news of his death. Brown, known worldwide as the Godfather of Soul, died on Christmas morning, 2006 at a hospital in Atlanta. His death certificate blamed a heart attack and fluid in the lungs. There was no autopsy, no investigation, no obvious reason to question the official narrative, which said Brown was old and sick and he died of natural causes. By 2017, at the beginning of the story I'm about to tell you, Brown had been dead for a decade. I was a reporter sitting in my cubicle at CNN Center in Atlanta, and one day a call came in through the main switchboard. On the phone was a woman talking about James Brown's death. What she said was so astonishing that I eventually got on a plane and went to see her at her workplace, which was, in fact, a traveling circus. That was five years ago, five of the strangest years of my life as I investigated the circus singer's explosive allegations, something dawned on me. In spite of all the books and movies and TV shows about one of the most famous humans of the 20th century, not many people knew the real story of James Brown.
Clip from I Got You (I Feel Good)
00:02:01
who-ahh, I feel good.
Thomas Lake
00:02:04
I'm sure most of us know that song, "I Got You (I Feel Good)." Or maybe this one "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag."
Clip From Papa's Got A Brand New Bag
00:02:12
Papa's got a brand new bag.
Thomas Lake
00:02:18
Even if you don't recognize those songs, there's a good chance you've come across some version of Brown's work. So many musicians put clips of Brown's music in their own songs that he's considered the most sampled artist of all time. His unique sound laid the foundation for new music genres like funk and hip hop, and he inspired some of the biggest pop stars to pursue musical careers, including Usher, Bruno Mars and Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson
00:02:52
Ever since I was a small child, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was to watch the television, to see the master at work. I've never seen a performer perform like James Brown, and right then and there I knew that that was exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Thomas Lake
00:03:12
Brown wasn't just a groundbreaking entertainer whose musical influence endures today. He was also a streetwise former boxer who knew how to handle a gun. He was tough, and he had this unshakable confidence that came through loud and clear when he performed on stage. But here's something about Brown you may not have heard, something I didn't know until I was pulled into his world: James Brown lived in fear.
Shana Quinones
00:03:42
Mr. Brown. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever was alone because he always felt that somebody was out to get him.
Thomas Lake
00:03:54
Brown had several reasons to be afraid. In 1955, when Brown was 22, he was the leader of a band called the Famous Flames. They were playing nightclubs around Macon, Georgia, but they couldn't quite break through. Then one day, Brown told them he was going to sell his soul to the devil, he was gone for a day or two. When he came back, he was confident that he and the famous flames were about to take off. A few months later, Brown released the first of more than 100 radio hits.
Clip from Please, Please, Please
00:04:28
Please, please, please, please.
Thomas Lake
00:04:37
That song, "Please Please Please," started Brown's career., One of the most remarkable in the history of show business. But as his music took off, he found new reasons to be afraid. In 1968, Brown was headlining a concert in Boston and the crowd got out of control.
James Brown
00:04:56
Now asked the police to step back because I think I could get some respect from my own people...that makes sense. Now are we together, or we ain't?
Thomas Lake
00:05:05
It was the day after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated and tensions were running high. Brown was trying to keep the peace and prevent a riot in Boston while other cities burned. This concert would become a turning point in Brown's life. He would later say this is when he fell under surveillance by the United States government, especially the FBI and the CIA, because he was getting too powerful. For the rest of his life, the Godfather of Soul was afraid of government agents hiding in the shadows.
Roosevelt Johnson
00:05:42
He would always use the word "they". They are watching. They this, they that. That's just the way he felt up until the day he died.
Thomas Lake
00:05:56
In 2017, a few months after the circus singer called me, I got on a plane and went to see her. And this is what she told me about James Brown's death.
Jacque Hollander
00:06:07
I've just kept it quiet. If someone didn't ask me, I didn't tell. James Brown was murdered.
Thomas Lake
00:06:19
This podcast is the story of how a phone call from a circus singer five years ago led me on a quest to solve the mystery of James Brown's death and eventually the mysterious death of another person, James Brown's third wife, Adrienne. It's also about how the circus singer was drawn into Brown's strange and perilous world. I got lost in this world, too. I learned that James Brown was obsessed with the U.S. government, especially the CIA, so I looked high and low for the CIA's fingerprints. And I thought a lot about why James Brown was so afraid. Toward the end of his life, there was a man in his inner circle who drained millions of dollars from Brown's accounts and used Brown's fear of the government against him. He bragged about his government connections. Sometime in 2006, Brown decided he'd had enough. He was done with the coercion, the exploitation, the threats. Three people close to Brown told me he made a plan to leave the South and get far away from the man who had been threatening him. But James Brown died before he could make his escape.
Thomas Lake
00:07:32
From CNN, this is The James Brown Mystery. I'm your host, Thomas Lake. This is Episode One, The Circus Singer.
Thomas Lake
00:07:42
Here's why the circus singer called me out of all the reporters in the world. I'd written a story about James Brown several years earlier. Actually, it was a story about Brown's son-in-law, Darren "Chip" Lumar. He had said the same thing the circus singer told me on the phone, James Brown's death should be investigated.
Darren Lumar
00:08:12
There's not a bone in my body believed that my father in law died from congestive heart failure.
Thomas Lake
00:08:17
That's Lumar. In 2007, shortly after Brown died, he gave an interview to Tony McNary on the local CBS station. Lumar called for an investigation into his father-in-law's death. He also texted someone close to him to say he knew James Brown had been murdered. The following year, Lumar himself was mysteriously shot to death.
Officer Eric Schwartz, Atlanta Police Department
00:08:44
When he drove up to- to park his car in the garage he was confronted. An altercation of some sort took place, and that's when the victim was shot, and it appeared to be multiple times.
Thomas Lake
00:08:55
The sequence was startling. Chip Lumar alleged foul play in James Brown's death, and then he was gunned down, apparently in a contract killing. Was Chip Lumar murdered for suggesting that his father-in-law was murdered? I had my doubts. As I discovered, there were other plausible explanations for Lumar's death. Lumar was a con man. He cheated so many people that the police had an unusual problem in the investigation of his murder, there were too many possible suspects. But then the circus singer called me and told me I was wrong. Wrong about James Brown and wrong about Chip Lumar. She said Lumar was killed because he told the truth about James Brown being murdered. I was still skeptical, but the circus singer kept calling, kept texting, kept inviting me to come see what she claimed was a treasure trove of evidence. Finally, my editor told me to go check it out. So I did.
Jacque Hollander
00:09:59
Trust me, I could make all this up. If I sat around bored eating bonbons all day, I could not write this. I mean, even if I was the most crazy, insane woman in the world, I couldn't write this story and be able to tell it to you with such clarity.
Thomas Lake
00:10:20
That's Jacque Hollander on the day we first meet in 2017 when she's 61 years old. She has platinum blond hair, heavy eyeliner and hot pink nails. I pick her up in my rental car from her motor home, which is parked outside Chicago at the Carson and Barns Circus. As we drive to get lunch at Panera, it soon becomes clear that Jackie has a lot to say and never enough time to say it. Before she gets into how she knows so much about James Brown's death or how she knows anything about James Brown, she's already talking about another mystery.
Jacque Hollander
00:10:57
I'm sure you know that Adrienne Brown was my good friend. That's a very long story and when I tell you about it, there's no doubt she was murdered.
Thomas Lake
00:11:08
Yeah, I know this is a lot. According to Jacque, it's not just James Brown and his son in law who were murdered. She says Brown's third wife, Adrienne, who died in 1996, was murdered, too. And there are other deaths in the Brown's world she finds suspicious. She rambles on about them through lunch. It seems like each new question sends her on another epic story with the cast of characters getting larger and larger. As I try to make sense of all this, our conversation is interrupted.
Clip from Viva Las Vegas by Elvis
00:11:44
Viva Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas.
Bruce Merrin
00:11:45
You certainly know what that theme song means by now. That's right. It's another phenomenal episode of Bruce Merrin's of Vegas USA.
Thomas Lake
00:11:55
Jacque gets on the phone to be a guest on a live show for KCKQ Radio.
Bruce Merrin
00:12:00
Let's bring her on board right now. Jacque, are you in Chicago?
Jacque Hollander
00:12:03
Yes, actually, we are. We're in Toyota Park. We're getting ready for a four day stand here.
Thomas Lake
00:12:09
It turns out Jacque does more than put on a long red coat and sing a Broadway style tune at the end of every Carson and Barnes Circus performance. She's also a record producer and songwriter. That's how she met James Brown. Back in the eighties he sang lead on a song she wrote for the Atlanta Falcons pro football team. It was called "Atlanta Will Be Rockin."
Clip from Atlanta Will Be Rockin
00:12:35
We've always had a great city.
Thomas Lake
00:12:39
This song with James Brown is a big part of the reason the Vegas USA hosts invited Jacque on today.
Bruce Merrin
00:12:45
Since you worked with James Brown, what was James Brown really like?
Jacque Hollander
00:12:51
He was very centric. He was very egotistical. He was very, very difficult to work with. He was a perfectionist. And if you were not perfect, you suffer.
Bruce Merrin
00:13:08
Wow.
Thomas Lake
00:13:11
Jacque says working with James Brown on the Falcons song and other projects would eventually destroy her career and nearly ruined her life. But before it did, James Brown confided in her as a close friend might do. Back in my car after the interview, she tells me about one of these moments.
Jacque Hollander
00:13:33
James Brown used to say to me. Jacque D, I am the most powerful Black man in the world.
Thomas Lake
00:13:46
Some of what Brown told her sounds pretty hard to believe.
Jacque Hollander
00:13:50
And he said to me, the government is involved in my life. For the rest of your life, you will know things that the United States government has a need for because of my worldwide power. He said, of course, if I can calm a riot, I can start one. When he told me that years ago I thought he was crazy. I can sit here 30 years later and tell you he told the truth. Federal government, CIA have all been involved in this. I know it sounds crazy.
Thomas Lake
00:14:38
If I'm going to walk away and move on to the next story, this would be the moment to do just that. But for some reason, I keep listening to the circus singer. Maybe it's the feeling that comes through as if these stories have really cost her something. And at times, Jacque's memory seems so precise. Also, whether she knows it or not, she's telling my favorite kind of story: the kind where someone small and weak takes on someone big and powerful and just keeps fighting no matter what. So am I disoriented? Yes. Mesmerized? Also yes. Do I sometimes feel so incredulous that she can see it on my face?
Jacque Hollander
00:15:32
I know. I knew this was going to become hard for you to handle.
Thomas Lake
00:15:38
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Jacque Hollander
00:15:38
I know. I know. So please, please. I've got to get all this stuff out because you're going to go insane
Thomas Lake
00:15:45
That sounds like a good idea to me. Less telling, more showing. It's a blinding hot day in early June as we get out of the car and go into Jackie's motor home, this cozy old hideaway she calls The Blue Goose. I should apologize for the sound quality here. At this point, I'm not a podcaster, just an old fashioned newsman with a pen, a notebook and a pocket sized recorder I use to double check my quotes.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:16:16
I have a storage vault with 17 crates of evidence.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:16:21
What's in the 17 crates?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:16:23
All the stuff on James Brown. My life. The thing I've been through. When you're up against the most powerful person in the world you have to document and you have to investigate yourself, and you better prove everything you're saying. Because nobody's going to believe you unless you can prove it. And that's why everything I'm saying to you, I can prove.
Thomas Lake
00:16:44
Jacque's story is all over the place, slipping into the wind like the smoke from her cigarettes. I need to contain it somehow. Find one thing small and tangible enough to understand, something related to the death of James Brown, the main reason she called. I need her to start proving the story she told me on the phone. I need cold, hard evidence. Jacque tells me there's something she's not supposed to have, a box of evidence she's been carrying in her motorhome. A box that could solve the mystery, she says, or maybe get her killed.
Thomas Lake
00:17:34
So I've just met Jacque, the circus singer, and now we're standing outside her motor home. She wants to show me that box of evidence which could rewrite the story of how James Brown died. The box is heavy.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:17:50
How strong are you?
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:17:52
Strong enough.
Thomas Lake
00:17:52
She opens a storage compartment on the motorhome's undercarriage, revealing a green plastic storage bin.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:18:01
So we've got a green plastic tub that says James Brown.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:18:08
Hey, you want to take it in my house? You want to do it right here?
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:18:13
You tell me if that maybe, maybe that's a little more safe.
Thomas Lake
00:18:18
So I lugged this heavy box inside the motor home where I meet Jacque's cats, Ralph and Maverick, along with Pickles, the Chihuahua. There's a little fountain inside with a sculpture of a seahorse that reminds Jacque of her favorite place, the beach. That's what you hear in the background as we make a plan for how to go through this box.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:18:39
You want me to just, like, rummage through this stuff?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:18:42
I want you to open the bag and rummage through it. Is it normal?
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:18:45
Why don't you put on the gloves and you rummage through it? And I'll watch you and take notes on it.
Thomas Lake
00:18:52
Eventually, after a little more negotiation, Jacque puts on the gloves and starts going through the bin. There's a black nylon bag in there and inside the bag is an odd collection of objects, many of them articles of clothing, and a pair of black stiletto shoes. But these items aren't Jacque's. It turns out they belonged to another woman, one who spent time with James Brown in the last days of his life.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:19:20
She kept telling me this medical bag will prove her innocence of the death of James Brown. But when I got the bag, it does nothing to prove she's guilty. She was crazy and she was crying and she said, Jacque D, I think I killed him.
Thomas Lake
00:19:39
I try to take this in. Did the woman who owned this bag kill James Brown? In a later episode, I'll talk to this woman and she'll vehemently deny killing Brown or harming him in any way. Authorities have never named her as a suspect in Brown's death. But Jacque, she sees it differently. Jacque is trying very hard to tell me about the woman who owned the stilettos, about how Jacque got this box and the bag inside the box and the shoes inside the bag. She says there could be lethal drug residue on the shoes. And if an autopsy were done on James Brown more than ten years after his death, those same drugs could be detected in Brown's body and Jacque's theory would be proven right. In short, Jacque thinks James Brown was poisoned to death, and she's convinced that even today, if an autopsy were done on his body, drugs would be found, drugs that caused the Godfather of Soul to die of unnatural causes on Christmas 2006.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:20:47
Yes, you can find it, the drugs, 10 years later.
Thomas Lake
00:20:55
But even if it's like a skeleton in a box?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:20:59
If- if this drug is in his system, it is still, it is still. Andre White left with a bottle of blood from his body in the hospital.
Thomas Lake
00:21:15
Andre White. Now we've got yet another new character in this drama I'm struggling to comprehend. Looking back on this now, I'm amazed and embarrassed that I don't stop here and ask for further explanation. Jacque's just told me that a man named Andre White took a vial of blood from James Brown's body at the hospital a few minutes after he died. Can that possibly be true? I should have said, tell me everything you know about that. But by this point, I've been listening to her for hours. I'm dazed and numb. Later, I'll track down Andre White, and he'll tell me exactly what Jacque claimed he would. He did, in fact, take a vial of James Brown's blood, and he still has it. But for now, I just let Jacque keep going, and she just keeps dropping these bombs.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:22:05
And the doctor told me on the phone, I got James Brown cleaned up. I checked him at 10:00 that night. He was going to be released the next morning.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:22:17
Which doctor told you that?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:22:21
Dr. Crawford.
Thomas Lake
00:22:21
What on earth? Now, Jackie's claiming that Dr. Marvin Crawford, who treated Brown in his last hospital stay and signed his death certificate, talked with her on the phone about Brown's case.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:22:33
He was on the phone with me for almost 2 hours. And he said, I saw James Brown and he was fine. And I wasn't in my car an hour, and I got a call to go back to the hospital. When I got in there, I worked on him and he was gone.
Thomas Lake
00:22:47
Once again, Jacque is telling me something astonishing. The doctor who signed James Brown's death certificate suspected that Brown did not die of natural causes. Later, I'll find this doctor, and much to my surprise, he'll tell me the same disturbing story that Jacque says he told her. But right now, I just let her keep talking. We get back in my rental car and go out for dinner.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:23:17
See those little signs? I'm gonna teach you a little lesson. See those litttle arrows?
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:23:19
I do.
Thomas Lake
00:23:22
On the drive to the restaurant. Jackie points to a small white sign taped to a utility pole on the side of the road. On this sign are tiny black arrows.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:23:35
They're circus routes. And you'd never notice if I had not told you. We don't travel with directions, those are our directions. All across the United States continuously, you'll see these arrows. Only circus people know how to follow them.
Thomas Lake
00:23:53
Later, I look up the circus arrows online. Turns out these little signs are everywhere. They're attached to telephone poles by advance circus scouts all over the roads of America, hiding in plain sight.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:24:08
Going down the freeway you'll see them. Most people don't know. Every circus has their own color. This means- three means to turn, you're here. Two and one means you're coming down passed two streets, take the last one.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:24:29
You're right, it's a secret language. I never caught that.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:24:30
It is. The circus has a secret language.
Thomas Lake
00:24:34
Jacque's letting me into a secret world. And if her stories are true, they might be even bigger than James Brown. They could be an entire secret history.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:24:47
Welcome to the circus.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:24:51
Wow, it's already 9:30.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:24:54
Your mind's pretty fried by now, isn't it?
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:24:58
I'm not going to say that I'm not spinning a little bit.
Thomas Lake
00:25:03
So I say good night to the circus singer and I fly home to Atlanta. What she's told me is intriguing and confusing and genuinely scary. Here's the clearest theme that emerges in Jacque's stories: someone is killing people to keep the truth concealed. And now she wants me to step in to try to bring out the truth that got other people killed?
Thomas Lake
00:25:38
A few nights later, I pick up my two year old and go for a walk in the moonlight, one of my favorite traditions. Cool and quiet, nothing to fear.
Kid, recording
00:25:52
Moon playing hide and seek, daddy.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:25:54
The moon's playing hide and seek?
Kid, recording
00:25:56
Yeah.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:25:58
Yeah, the moon is playing hide and seek.
Thomas Lake
00:26:02
Three little kids. A fourth on the way. My wife staying home. My paycheck paying the mortgage. A circus singer is asking me to help her solve the mystery of James Brown's death. What am I doing? Am I going crazy? What am I willing to risk for this story? I talk it over with my editor and decide to book another flight to Chicago, hoping to see what the circus singer claims is in her storage vault. Jacque says she'll show me 17 new crates of evidence that will back up her theories about James Brown. Then I get a phone call. It's Jacque. She says three rough looking men wearing sunglasses came to the circus the other night. They sat in the front row and took in the show. But they didn't seem to enjoy it. No smiles, no applause. And they left their shades on the whole time. To Jacque it's a sign someone wants her to know she's being watched. Hours before my flight takes off, I wake up terrified. It's still not too late to back out of this story. As I think of canceling my trip, I close my eyes and pray in my mind, a word appears as bright as a neon sign. A small word with major consequences. Go.
Circus Ringmaster
00:27:35
Singer-songwriter and writer-producer Jacque D Hollander!
Thomas Lake
00:27:56
That's Jacque Hollander, the grand dame of the Carson and Barns Circus, singing under the Big Top.
Jacque Hollander
00:28:08
(Singing) And put some magic in your shoes
Thomas Lake
00:28:08
Jacque wrote this song and now she's singing it, swaggering around the ring, waving to children, shaking their hands. She's in her element now, reveling in this moment, sparkling under the lights in her long red coat, this woman whose life contains so many mysteries, so many audacious claims that require proof. It's hard to make sense of what she showed me on my first trip to Illinois. The items in the green plastic bin, a note from James Brown bills and receipts going back decades. They seem to prove something, but I haven't quite figured out what. As we drive to our storage unit one morning, Jacque says she's got something more straightforward. There's a videotape she wants me to see of a polygraph test she took 22 years ago administered by a former FBI agent. According to Jacque, this tape doesn't just relate to one of her claims about James Brown it confirms this claim. And the whole thing, her statement, the questioning, the results, all of it is on VHS. But first she has to find this tape.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:29:22
I'm like a little squirrel. I put stuff in one place and put it in another place so that if somebody goes after one thing, they're only going to get one. You know what I'm saying? They're not going to get it all. You following me?
Jacque Hollander
00:29:40
When we get to the storage unit, Jacque rolls up the gray, blue sliding door, sets her hot pink, cigarette lighter on the hood of my car, and digs through a lot of old stuff looking for the VHS tape that shows her taking the polygraph test. It's a jumbled mess in there. Countless boxes mixed in with old furniture, even an upright piano, once played by the rock star Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. She pulls out a tall standing mirror. A gust of wind blows it over her face, first on the blacktop. Somehow it doesn't break, but still no tape.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:30:15
If I told you that I have a tape. Okay. You could put it in the bank. But I'm not lying to you.
Jacque Hollander
00:30:22
I want to believe she's not lying to me. But I'll need to see the proof. So Jackie keeps looking for the tape. First, she comes across a torn sheet of paper.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:30:34
That's what I want on my gravestone.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:30:36
That entire quote from Sir Arthur Conon Doyle?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:30:38
Yes.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:30:39
"You have eliminated the impossible. Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:30:47
It's in my will.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:30:49
It's in your will that this quote on your gravestone?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:30:52
Yes.
Thomas Lake
00:30:54
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." That's a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author who dreamed up Sherlock Holmes. She wants these words on her gravestone. Jacque says she's written this into her will. For so many years, she's had a story to tell, and the story has gotten bigger and bigger that whole time. And she's tried so hard to get someone to believe her. What am I missing here? If no one else believed her, why should I?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:31:31
Really, I had it all. I had the whole truth. They just never gave me a chance.
Thomas Lake
00:31:38
Well, here I am, a reporter from one of the largest news organizations in the world. Here's her chance to finally get that story out. But I still need to see that videotape.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:31:51
I believe it's in that box.
Thomas Lake
00:31:53
Jacque pulls out a brown cardboard box of videotapes. Some have labels and some don't. Only one way to find out what's on them. We go back to her motor home and start popping them into the VCR.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:32:11
Am I doing this right?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:32:13
Yeah, I just- it, it's old. Everything's old, I got. It's finicky. It'll eventually go in and sit. There it goes see?. You may have to push play. It's old like me.
Thomas Lake
00:32:30
This tape shows a much younger Jacque and there, on her right, the Godfather of Soul.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:32:38
You know something, James? I- I don't think I'm alone when I say that the world loves you because you are a legend and a superstar.
Thomas Lake
00:32:47
This is not what I was looking for, but it could be an important part of my story. It's video proof that Jacque was indeed connected to James Brown. In the video, a promotion for a charity event in 1988, Jacque and James are sitting outdoors together. He's in a white tracksuit and she's wearing khakis and has long, wavy hair. As the camera rolls, James gives Jacque who was Jacque Daughtry then, a ringing endorsement.
James Brown, Recording
00:33:18
Saying, "I feel good" is not enough. I'm real when it come to things like this. Not part of my time zone, but part of my, in my gut feeling. I'm real because people like the lovely Miss Jaque Daughtry who is a star in her own right. Because you got a great voice. And hopefully I want to see you a lot on television.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:33:37
Thank you, James Brown and I love you.
James Brown, Recording
00:33:39
God bless you. Thank you so very much.
Thomas Lake
00:33:42
To me, this is a big deal. They didn't just meet each other once. James Brown, one of the biggest stars in the music world, just called Jacque a star. This was 29 years ago, before she ran off with the circus and put most of her earthly possessions into a jumbled storage unit.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:34:07
Did we go through all those?
Thomas Lake
00:34:10
I believe we did
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:34:15
Hang on, we're gonna get to the bottom of this. There's more tapes than this. Trust me.
Thomas Lake
00:34:24
We've watched tape after tape after tape, footage Jacque recorded many years ago of strange vehicles outside her house, a TV news package about an event called Wrestle-Rock. Lots of static snow on the screen, ancient soap operas, we're lost in a VHS wilderness.
Unidentified Man
00:34:46
(Unintelligibly speaking).
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:34:49
What the flip?
Thomas Lake
00:34:53
Go back a little. It's the Young and the Restless.
Ad on VHS Tape
00:34:59
What is Vibrance? Vibrance is your hair full of life.
Thomas Lake
00:35:03
But we can't find the tape with the polygraph test. It's not that I don't believe Jacque at this point, but if she can't produce the evidence, I don't have a story.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:35:18
That tape, it's got to be in another bag at the warehouse.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:35:21
You think?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:35:22
Oh, I don't think I haven't lost it.
Thomas Lake
00:35:24
The stakes feel pretty high as we return to the storage unit the next morning. I've been patient, but I'm running out of time. My editor will want answers soon. Can Jacque find the tape? Has she hidden it from herself? Is it even real? She keeps rifling through her belongings.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:35:44
What you got there?
Thomas Lake
00:35:47
She hands me a black VHS tape with an official looking label.
Thomas Lake, Recording
00:35:52
Jacque Daughtry, Forensic Polygraph. March 9th, 1995. Examiner R.D. Rackleff.
Thomas Lake
00:36:00
Finally, we're in business, so we head back to Jackie's motor home and turn on the VCR. Jackie gets ready for the circus while I watched the tape. The opening title card, says "J. Daughtry. Forensic Polygraph Examination. March 9, 1995." We see a room with white walls, a lamp casting a weird glow above Jacque's head. She's 22 years younger. Jacque sits in a chair with a thick blue sleeve wrapped around her upper right arm.
Richard Rackleff
00:36:35
Then we'll start with your name. are you known as Jacque Daughtry?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:36:38
Yes.
Thomas Lake
00:36:40
A middle aged man sits in a chair behind her, wearing glasses and a crisp white shirt. This is Richard Radcliffe, or Dick, as she calls him, the former FBI agent giving her the test. He looks down at the peaks and troughs of the line that forms, as Jacque answers each question.
Richard Rackleff
00:36:58
Do you intend to be truthful on this polygraph test?
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:37:01
Yes.
Thomas Lake
00:37:03
As I watched this tape in the circus singer's motor home in 2017, I don't know what's ahead. I don't know. I'll go on to interview more than 200 people and review tens of thousands of documents in a sprawling investigation that examines the adventurous lives and suspicious deaths of James Brown and his wife, Adrienne. I don't know about the long nights lying awake and afraid or the strange encounters with a man called Ghost. I have no way of knowing that once I step into this world with the circus singer, I won't be able to leave. I don't know I'll be stuck there for five years, maybe longer, resembling less and less the person who went in. What I do know as I watch this tape is that we've reached a turning point. Jacque was as good as her word. She said she could find this tape, and it turned out she could. And its contents are just as she described. Time and again, over the next five years, she'll tell me things that sound hard to believe. Time and again, they will prove to be true.
Jacque Hollander, Recording
00:38:10
Dick, I am telling the truth.
Richard Rackleff
00:38:14
I believe you, Jacque. Test shows you're being truthful.
Thomas Lake
00:38:20
Test shows you're being truthful, the FBI man tells Jacque. Here's that small, tangible thing I've been looking for, something concrete I can bring back to my editor to show this is a story worth pursuing. The more I learn about Jacque, the clearer this becomes: all her stories are connected. You can't understand James Brown's death until you go back and study Adrienne Brown's death. You can't understand Adrienne's death until you go back even further to learn about the incident that led Jacque to take this polygraph test. And you can't appreciate all Jackie lost until you know what she had when she first entered the world of James Brown.
Thomas Lake
00:39:11
On the next episode of the James Brown Mystery.
Jacque Hollander
00:39:14
He said hello and he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I said, I want to be a songwriter and I want to write big songs.
Thomas Lake
00:39:25
That ended up trapping Jacque Hollander in a world she couldn't escape.
Jacque Hollander
00:39:29
He screams, "Who wrote this song?" All my friends, "Why are you hanging out with these people? You're going to end up getting hurt." I was warned many times.
Thomas Lake
00:39:40
And led Jacque to one of the darkest moments of her life.
Richard Rackleff
00:39:44
While you were in the van with James Brown that day were you're afraid that you're going to be killed?
Jacque Hollander
00:39:48
Yes.
Richard Rackleff
00:39:49
The James Brown mystery is hosted and reported by me Thomas Lake, 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 Andrest and Nichole Pesaru designed our artwork. Erica Huang is our mix engineer and sound designer. Celina 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, Dalila Paul, Andrea White, Anissa Gray, Johnita Due, Ram Ramgopal, Lisa Namerow and Jon Dianora.
