District Lawyer Paul Howard listened, took notes, and accepted a inexperienced plastic bin full of things that Hollander mentioned have been corroborating proof. The DA mentioned his investigators would look into her claims about Brown’s loss of life.
But it surely appears not a lot was achieved, in line with a CNN overview of inside paperwork launched in current weeks. Potential proof went untested. A key witness died with out being interviewed. There is no such thing as a indication that anybody tried to acquire Brown’s medical data. And when the DA’s workplace returned Hollander’s property in a cardboard field in March 2022, she mentioned all crucial gadgets she’d handed over have been lacking, with out rationalization.
The paperwork obtained by CNN clarify that in almost two years and underneath two Fulton County district attorneys, prosecutors did little or no to reply lingering questions on Brown’s remaining minutes.
Present Fulton County District Lawyer Fani Willis succeeded Howard in 2021 and closed the inquiry with out taking motion. Her spokesperson, Deputy District Lawyer Jeff DiSantis, didn’t reply to an interview request or an in depth checklist of questions.
Hollander first referred to as me in 2017 to allege that the Godfather of Soul had been murdered at an Atlanta hospital on Christmas Day in 2006. His official explanation for loss of life was a coronary heart assault and fluid within the lungs, and his daughter Yamma Brown declined to have an post-mortem achieved.
However I discovered a dozen different individuals who knew Brown and mentioned they wished an post-mortem or a prison investigation. These folks included Marvin Crawford, the physician who signed Brown’s loss of life certificates and later informed me he was “extremely suspicious that any person maybe might have given him a bootleg substance that led to his loss of life”; and Andre White, a longtime pal of Brown who mentioned he saved a vial of Brown’s blood from the hospital within the hope of proving that Brown had been murdered.
“I want to know,” White mentioned in a 2017 interview, “who mainly killed him?”
Early in 2020, a few 12 months after CNN revealed my investigative collection on Brown, Howard agreed to fulfill with Hollander. In that February 12 assembly, which I additionally attended and recorded, Hollander mentioned prosecutors ought to interview the next folks to be taught extra concerning the circumstances of Brown’s loss of life:
- Daryl Brown, a son of James Brown who mentioned he wished a prison investigation into his father’s loss of life.
- Dr. Marvin Crawford, the physician who handled Brown in 2006 and later mentioned he suspected that Brown had not died of pure causes.
- Candice Hurst, the inexperienced plastic bin’s earlier proprietor, a former backup singer and hairdresser for Brown who shared with Hollander what Hollander believed was a confession about Brown’s loss of life. (Hurst has denied any connection to Brown’s loss of life and mentioned Hollander misinterpreted the dialog, throughout which Hurst mentioned she had a “imaginative and prescient” of herself in Brown’s hospital room the night time he died. Hurst informed CNN she was not on the hospital with Brown the night time he died, and her daughter Kayla Cavazo corroborated Hurst’s account in a separate interview.)
- Shana Quinones, a former worker of Brown’s who claimed that Brown’s private supervisor Charles Bobbit informed her that Hurst was on the hospital with Brown.
- Tony Wilson, an affiliate of Brown who contradicted Hurst’s account of the night time Brown died and mentioned Hurst admitted to him she’d been on the hospital with Brown.
- Andre White, the pal who claimed to have the vial of Brown’s blood from the hospital and hoped to have it examined by regulation enforcement.
After Hollander informed her story, the district lawyer mentioned he had an inventory of six folks to interview. His investigators took the bin into proof and gave her a property receipt. Video footage launched by the DA’s workplace exhibits two staff cataloguing quite a few gadgets and putting them into clear plastic proof luggage.
Hollander’s property receipt mentioned, “Inexperienced Plastic Storage Bin… Bin incorporates varied gadgets of clothes, hair rollers, combs, sneakers, and many others… (As a result of nature of what’s ‘mentioned to be contained throughout the bin’ , we didn’t conduct a listing; in order to not contaminate the third ground Grand Jury Room)… A listing can be performed as quickly as sensible…”
“Inside a interval of six months,” Howard informed Hollander, “we are going to see whether or not or not we will discuss to the folks that you have described. If on the finish of that interval, we aren’t capable of substantiate what you’ve got delivered to us, we are going to then name you and return the gadgets to you.”
Regardless of the pandemic, a prosecutor vows the investigation will proceed
Within the months after he agreed to look at Brown’s loss of life, the district lawyer confronted one disaster after one other.
It wasn’t simply the Covid-19 pandemic. In Could 2020, the Atlanta Journal-Structure reported that Howard was underneath prison investigation for the alleged misuse of public funds. (Howard paid $6,500 to settle a case with the state ethics fee however predicted he can be “completely exonerated.” A spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation mentioned the case has been turned over to the Georgia Lawyer Basic.)
In June, Howard was accused of dashing to cost a police officer within the loss of life of Rayshard Brooks earlier than the investigation was full. Howard responded that he was “simply doing his job.”
Because the pandemic continued, Jacque Hollander puzzled what would turn out to be of the James Brown inquiry. However on July 7, 2020, in line with paperwork obtained by CNN by way of the Georgia Open Information Act, she bought some reassurance.
In a notice written that day, Assistant District Lawyer Michael Sprinkel apologized for being out of contact. He mentioned the pandemic had hampered grand jury proceedings and in-person interviews. He informed her to not fear about “varied statements made by varied individuals to varied information shops.” He wrote, “these statements didn’t dissuade me from pursuing this investigation.”
“Lastly,” Sprinkel wrote to Hollander, “I anticipate that within the coming weeks and months, we are going to be taught to co-exist with this virus. So this investigation will proceed.”
Sprinkel despatched a replica of the notice to Chris Hopper, the spokesman for the DA’s workplace. 9 minutes later, he emailed Hopper once more: “I am on the cellphone along with her proper now, too.”
Hollander spent virtually 4 hours on the cellphone with the assistant district lawyer that day, she later informed me. She mentioned he wished to start issuing subpoenas and making use of for search warrants. Hollander and Sprinkel spoke once more the following day. She informed me Sprinkel informed her he would quickly be looking for indictments.
Sprinkel didn’t reply to an in depth checklist of questions I despatched for this story, together with questions on what he informed Hollander.
Did Hollander perceive accurately? Was an indictment on the horizon? A recording of the decision would assist reply these questions. Sprinkel typically data calls with potential witnesses. I do know this as a result of a quick recording of Sprinkel’s name to another person was included within the paperwork I acquired from the DA’s workplace. I requested a replica of Sprinkel’s name with Hollander, however the DA’s authorized counsel, Don Geary, informed me that no such recording exists.
On August 11, 2020, a few month after Sprinkel’s lengthy name with Hollander, DA Paul Howard misplaced a runoff election by a virtually 3-to-1 margin to Fani Willis, his former worker, which meant his time period would expire by the top of the 12 months.
Two days later, Jacque Hollander mentioned she acquired a cellphone name from Candice Hurst. Hollander mentioned it sounded as if Hurst knew one thing that Hollander did not know. (I attempted to succeed in Hurst by cellphone for this story, however my calls weren’t returned.) Hurst additionally texted Hollander a number of footage of herself in skimpy clothes and suggestive poses. Hollander knowledgeable Sprinkel concerning the name and the textual content messages and provided to ahead them to Sprinkel.
“Sure, please ship them,” Sprinkel texted Hollander on August 14. “Why on earth is she doing this? Is it due to the election? Like I mentioned, it is not like a forthcoming altering of the guard magically makes the case disappear from the consideration of the Fulton County D.A.’s Workplace.”
The DA’s workplace launched the textual content message chain between Sprinkel and Hollander in response to CNN’s open-records request.
“She has no purpose to imagine [that the investigation is closed] apart from the current election outcomes, which are not almost as related to the investigation as she believes,” Sprinkel wrote to Hollander, referring to Hurst. “So don’t fret about it — the investigation continues…”
Two days later, Hollander texted Sprinkel to ask why he hadn’t referred to as her again.
“I am sorry about these points with Candice, and no, I have never walked away – I might completely let you know if we ended the investigation,” Sprinkel wrote on August 24. “Proper now, nonetheless, my Supervisor, Adam Abbate (he was within the assembly with Thomas earlier this 12 months), has ordered me to take care of the current inflow of homicides in Atlanta. Mainly he needs me to get these circumstances prepared for Grand Jury presentment at any time when the courtroom re-opens. So particular investigations, reminiscent of this, can be addressed on the resumption of regular operations. This is not an excessive amount of of a deviation from the place I used to be beforehand – my investigatory powers are drastically decreased and not using a sitting Grand Jury to which I could Subpoena witnesses.”
One thing appeared to alter after that. From August to the next January, in line with the textual content chain launched by the DA’s workplace, Hollander wrote to Sprinkel greater than 40 instances. However Sprinkel by no means replied once more.
In the meantime, the scenario saved getting worse for Sprinkel’s boss. In September, Howard’s spokesman confirmed that Howard had acquired a federal grand jury subpoena for data associated to his compensation. (Howard denied wrongdoing; the Justice Division didn’t reply to a request for info on the case.)
I attempted to evaluate the scenario. Would Sprinkel lose his job when the brand new DA took over? The place would that depart the James Brown matter? Hoping to realize some perception, I wrote a notice and mailed it to Sprinkel’s house tackle. He didn’t reply.
Once I reached Howard by cellphone in August 2021, after he’d left the DA’s workplace and gone into personal regulation follow, he didn’t sound like the identical man who met with Hollander the earlier 12 months.
“I simply do not recall,” Howard mentioned after I requested what grew to become of the Brown investigation. “I’ve to say James Brown will not be throughout the scope of my reminiscence or consciousness.”
A brand new DA takes over, and the case takes a perplexing flip
District Lawyer Fani Willis took workplace on January 1, 2021. She saved Michael Sprinkel on her workers of prosecutors. And she or he inherited the James Brown matter, which the earlier DA had left unresolved.
On January 26, Jacque Hollander referred to as to ask concerning the case and the inexperienced plastic bin she’d left in Howard’s care. She was transferred to Chief of Investigations Capers Inexperienced, who emailed Sprinkel simply earlier than midday:
Please contact Ms. Jacque Hollander concerning the standing of the case on the Loss of life of Mr. James Brown.
She defined that she spoke to you and Paul Howard about James Brown being murdered and she or he needs to know what occur to the proof that she introduced you.
An extended e mail chain ensued, throughout which an investigator mentioned the bin was nonetheless in an proof room. Finally Sprinkel gave a number of high-ranking colleagues a abstract of the case.
He didn’t point out Marvin Crawford, the physician who handled Brown and mentioned he was “extremely suspicious that any person maybe might have given him a bootleg substance that led to his loss of life.” He didn’t point out that Hollander had given him 1,256 pages of textual content messages from her iPhone. He didn’t inform his colleagues that the inexperienced plastic bin contained the “James Brown duffle bag” that Hurst referred to in one of many textual content messages on Hollander’s cellphone, or that Hurst wrote it contained “the dope he was doing the final week of his life,” or that she wrote, “All the things will look so unsuitable.”
As an alternative, Sprinkel wrote that after he’d spoken with Hollander for “most likely 10+ hours,” he did not have “affordable suspicion {that a} crime occurred.” He continued: “This may make getting James Brown’s medical data tough as a result of we do not have P.C. (possible trigger) for a search warrant, and we won’t even get them with a Subpoena (not that the hospital would probably honor one if we tried). It is because I can not articulate a criminal offense to kind the premise of a theoretical indictment, which should essentially again the Subpoena.”
Constructing a prison case in Brown’s loss of life can be tough given the passage of time, the loss of life certificates that cited pure causes, and questions on chain of custody with regard to potential proof.
In 2020, Tom Ruocco, then-chairman of the police investigative operations committee on the Worldwide Affiliation of Chiefs of Police, spoke with me after studying CNN’s story on Brown’s loss of life. Ruocco mentioned, “Anyone’s going to have to seek out that piece that is going to blow open this complete factor.”
By early 2021, such a breakthrough appeared unlikely. In his e mail to colleagues on January 26, Sprinkel wrote that after he acquired the letter I mailed to his house, “I reached out to our P.R. man at the moment and was informed not to reply to the reporter and due to this case getting media consideration, to not do something till additional discover. So I’ve put the case on the again burner in the meanwhile.”
Right here was a possible rationalization for Sprinkel’s sudden unresponsiveness to Jacque Hollander. However I’ve by no means heard of a media spokesman with the ability to inform a prosecutor to cease investigating a case. Neither is it believable that an investigation would shut down due to media consideration; in that case, no high-profile case would ever be resolved.
I requested Sprinkel and the DA’s workplace for the identify of “P.R. man” talked about in Sprinkel’s e mail, however I’ve gotten no response. I additionally referred to as and emailed a spokesman who labored for Paul Howard at the moment to ask for his recollections on this episode, however I’ve not heard again.
Even after Sprinkel despatched the e-mail saying he did not have affordable suspicion, others within the DA’s workplace confirmed potential curiosity within the case. Deputy Chief Investigator Michael Inexperienced despatched an e mail in February 2021 asking Sprinkel to kind his handwritten notes from the 2020 assembly between Howard and Hollander and ship them alongside. Sprinkel complied.
It isn’t clear what Inexperienced did with the data. The batch of emails I acquired from the DA’s workplace contains nothing from the following three months.
Potential proof goes lacking
In Could 2021, Jacque Hollander informed me yet one more odd story: For the second time in about 9 months, somebody near Brown had referred to as to taunt her.
This time, she mentioned, it was a collection of cellphone calls from a mysterious man generally known as Ghost. He additionally goes by Christian St. John, Van St. John, and Christian Van St. John, amongst different names. In 2018, a police detective in metro Atlanta tried and failed to find his true id.
Ghost has referred to as me a number of instances as properly. He claims to be associated to James Brown. In 2016, he despatched Hollander a textual content message that indicated he knew one thing about Brown’s loss of life. He requested her about “the lace poisoning” that was “used to poison him.”
Hollander mentioned Ghost referred to as her once more on Could 25, 2021. The calls have been disturbing sufficient that she filed a report along with her native police division. She says he informed her, “You and Lake are f—ing liars and you are going to burn in hell,” and “the district lawyer is doing nothing, as a result of she is aware of you are each items of s—.”
Two days later, there was a quick flurry of exercise on the DA’s workplace. Deputy Chief Working Officer Dexter Q. Bond Jr. emailed Sprinkel with the topic line “James Brown Case” and requested whether or not or not there was a police report. Sprinkel wrote again, “Are you referring to the James Brown that was a well-known musical artist?” About an hour later, Sprinkel forwarded the e-mail chain from January — which included his abstract of the case — to 4 different colleagues, together with Govt District Lawyer George Jenkins, who replied, “Thanks Mike for the replace…”
What investigators did subsequent is unknown. Some requested emails have been lacking from the trove of paperwork the DA’s workplace gave me. Geary supplied no emails from District Lawyer Fani Willis, despite the fact that I emailed her concerning the case in March 2021 and a replica of that e mail ought to have appeared within the search.
On October 11, 2021, Sprinkel submitted a memo on the case. I do not know what it mentioned. In line with Geary, the memo incorporates confidential authorized conclusions that aren’t topic to the Georgia Open Information Act.
However that Sprinkel memo was cited in one other memo I did obtain. This one was dated October 28. Deputy District Lawyer Adriane Love wrote to DA Fani Willis, “My overview of the info of and foundation for the inquiry, and of the memorandum of Chief Sr. ADA Sprinkel, has led me to conclude that there’s an inadequate foundation for the initiation of a Grand Jury investigation into the loss of life of Mr. Brown.”
In line with Geary, the district lawyer accepted Love’s suggestion to shut the case.
Now, two years after Jacque Hollander visited District Lawyer Paul Howard, she doesn’t have the inexperienced plastic bin. She mentioned she made repeated inquiries to the DA’s workplace, however nobody would inform her the place it was. Her lawyer, Bryan Ward, shared with me an e mail he despatched to Sprinkel on February 16 asking for the return of her property. On March 10, Ward bought an e mail from William Chris Clark, assistant chief of proof for the DA’s workplace.
“We’ve got shipped the gadgets requested,” Clark wrote within the e mail, which Hollander shared with me.
Hollander acquired a cardboard field by way of FedEx on Monday morning. It weighed 14.65 kilos, in line with the FedEx transport receipt, significantly lower than the inexperienced plastic bin weighed when Hollander turned it in two years earlier, and the field was smaller than the inexperienced plastic bin. I spoke with Hollander after she opened the field. She mentioned most of the gadgets listed on her receipt from the DA’s workplace — together with hair rollers, a black stiletto shoe, and clothes — have been lacking. So have been different gadgets not listed on the receipt, together with a handwritten notice.
Hollander informed me that the majority of what she acquired in 2022 have been outdated newspaper articles that had one thing to do with James Brown. It seems the DA’s workplace didn’t ship her any of the gadgets that officers had put in proof luggage two years earlier.
Even stranger, she mentioned, the field contained two older cell phones that she didn’t bear in mind seeing within the inexperienced plastic bin when she turned it in. The telephones’ batteries had been eliminated, she mentioned, however they’d small crimson lights that have been glowing crimson.
“There’s something very unsuitable right here,” Hollander mentioned.
There was no stock letter from the DA’s workplace or any rationalization for the lacking gadgets. I made inquiries with spokesman Jeff DiSantis however didn’t get a reply. I filed an open-records request for all paperwork associated to the chain of custody for Hollander’s gadgets on the DA’s workplace, however authorized counsel Don Geary mentioned no such paperwork existed past the unique property receipt.
“Do not staff from the DA’s workplace must signal a log after they deal with proof?” I wrote again in an e mail to Geary. “Is not there a system for protecting proof safe?”
“One would anticipate,” Geary replied, “nonetheless, there aren’t any different paperwork regarding the property.”
A witness dies, taking his secrets and techniques with him
Nothing within the case file launched to me provides any indication that investigators tried to contact even one of many six folks Howard informed Hollander they’d interview. The paperwork make no point out of any contact with Daryl Brown, Dr. Marvin Crawford, Candice Hurst, Shana Quinones or Tony Wilson. They do make an oblique reference to Andre White, the pal who mentioned Brown was murdered.
White was alive in February 2020, when the inquiry started. I missed a name from him in March of that 12 months, because the pandemic intensified. Once I referred to as again, he sounded unwell and mentioned he’d referred to as me accidentally. Later I discovered he was within the hospital that day, March 27, alongside together with his spouse, Joyce. They have been two of Georgia’s early victims of the coronavirus. His spouse died April 2.
Mr. White recovered sufficient to come back house, his daughter Racquel later informed me, though he was too weak to face on his personal. “Then rapidly he could not breathe,” she mentioned.
Once I consider Andre White now, I bear in mind one thing he informed me in 2017: “I am gonna combat ’til I die looking for out what occurred.”
White died on June 9, 2020, about 4 months after the DA pledged to look into James Brown’s loss of life. His daughter informed me that so far as she knew, nobody from regulation enforcement had spoken with him. Once I requested what occurred to the vial of blood he claimed to have saved, she mentioned, “Truthfully, I do not know.”
At his memorial service, his pal Barbara Mobley, a former Georgia state consultant, mentioned this about White: “By the way in which, Andre, an in depth pal of James Brown, by no means ever accepted the official explanation for loss of life reported for James Brown. Not for a second. And appeared happy when early this 12 months, there was a media report of a re-investigation into Brown’s explanation for loss of life.”
Jacque Hollander informed me she despatched Sprinkel a hyperlink to a Fb video of White’s memorial service. Their text-message chain confirms this. Which is why it was shocking to learn what Sprinkel wrote in an e mail to colleagues in January 2021, virtually a 12 months after the inquiry started and 7 months after Andre White’s loss of life.
“Maybe somebody can knock on the door of the man that’s believed to have the vial of blood,” Sprinkel wrote, “and ask him if he nonetheless has it.”
The DA’s workplace closed the file about 9 months later, leaving many questions unanswered. Why did Sprinkel appear so thinking about July 2020 and a lot much less shortly thereafter? Why did not he discuss to the opposite folks? What occurred to the inexperienced plastic bin and the gadgets that have been within the proof room? And what actually occurred to James Brown within the hospital?
In 2017, I sat in Andre White’s automotive as he thought of this final query. His voice was breaking, and tears got here to his eyes.
“How sure are you that somebody did kill him?” I requested.
“Simply as positive as you are sittin’ within the automotive,” he mentioned.
Within the ongoing story of James Brown’s life and loss of life, one thriller all the time results in one other. I bear in mind one other factor White mentioned within the automotive that summer time morning.
“It is simply sure issues that I’ve to take to my grave,” White mentioned.
4 years later, he did.
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