The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime (2024) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
1
[crickets chirping]
[indistinct speech over loudspeaker]
[man, through phone] In 2013,
J. Everett Dutschke
was the mastermind of a rogue operation
that violated an international treaty
signed by hundreds of different countries
against the development
of biological weapons.
Now, this literally qualifies
as a war crime.
Then, strangely,
he was sent to the US ADX Supermax,
into a specialized unit,
the National Security Unit,
where he went very oddly
and uncharacteristically silent.
Years of silence.
And no one had heard from him since.
Well, hello, America.
I am
Everett Dutschke.
[intense music playing]
Now, everything
that you've been told, everything,
is wrong.
In 2013,
a crime was committed.
It was an egregious series of crimes.
But it is not the crime that you think.
And it was not
by who you think.
[intense music continues]
[reporter] 45-year-old Kevin Curtis
made a first appearance
in federal court in Oxford, Mississippi,
this afternoon,
facing charges of threatening the life
of the president.
After a full day of testimony,
FBI agents say they've got their man,
but they have yet to present
any physical proof.
[reporter 2] Agents testified
there was no ricin found
inside Curtis's home or vehicle,
but still believe Curtis is their suspect.
[reporter 3] In federal court,
US attorneys painted Curtis
as mentally disturbed and violent.
Maximum penalty for this one,
says the Justice Department.
Fifteen years,
a half million dollar fine if convicted.
[woman] My question to the government is,
are y'all really gonna proceed on this?
Not only are you denying a man
his liberty, but the longer they stay
just, by gosh, targeted on Kevin Curtis,
the less likely that the true perpetrator
will ever be tried and convicted.
[intense music continues]
So everything we have
is still pointing to Kevin Curtis,
but two things happened.
Uh, number one, the following day
after Kevin was arrested,
our lab looked at the letters,
and in the return area,
there was nothing obviously there,
but upon examination under microscope,
you could see indentations
where somebody had written above
on another piece of paper,
and the indentations
were both old addresses for Kevin Curtis.
When they told me that,
I'm like, "Uh, that's not right."
"That's too convenient."
I mean, I-I It hit my mind like,
"Is this guy being framed?"
And then my partner, John Quaka,
received a tip
that there's this guy in town,
Everett Dutschke, who said,
"If you ever wanna take out
one of these politicians,
just send them poison in the mail
and take care of it."
In the back of my mind,
I remember Kevin kept saying,
"I bet Dutschke did this.
I bet Dutschke did this."
[Kevin] Everett Dutschke
would do something just like this.
James Everett Dutschke.
I'm telling you, it's the karate guy.
I remember that probably happened
on about a Friday.
And court hearings
are gonna start happening immediately
in regard to Kevin Curtis.
I mean, we needed to move.
And so John and I talked to the bosses
in Jackson
and indicated to them
we need to be looking at Everett Dutschke.
That's when we started working
the Dutschke angle.
It's game on.
When you meet Everett Dutschke,
you immediately sense that he's arrogant,
but then you realize he has no conscience,
nor does he have a soul.
[Thomason] During my 25 years
in the bureau,
I interviewed numerous terrorists,
seven different murderers,
one serial killer.
But I don't think I ever talked to anybody
that would fit into the category
of Everett Dutschke.
[music fades]
[Janet] This is the first time in 11 years
that I've spoken with anyone at all.
There are very powerful people
in this town,
and I will say that I am scared
as to what could happen to me
after speaking to you guys.
I didn't know for many, many years
where he was.
I honestly thought that he was dead.
I was told by a military friend
he was in the country's most secure prison
with violent, deadly terrorists.
Then, exactly one month ago,
Everett called me for the first time.
It was almost like
I was speaking to a ghost.
And I realized that the truth
needs to come out.
[female voice] This call
is from a federal prison.
[director] For the audience at home,
can you tell us how you got here?
[Everett hesitates]
I think it was Nietzsche.
He said,
"Fight not with monsters,
lest you become one."
And that's kind of my story.
My childhood was different.
[contemplative music playing]
Truthfully, I-I didn't always fit in.
Most kids hang out with other kids.
I didn't. I hung out with adults.
The older, the better, quite frankly.
In growing up,
I was in the gifted classes.
I had very good
pattern recognition skills.
And at home,
music kind of became my escape.
I spent hours studying radio transmissions
and learning about
satellite launch telemetry.
But my discipline came from karate.
In 1996, I went to the Olympics.
And that is the point at which
I was, uh, approached by recruiters,
and for the next two years, kind of
disappeared off the planet for a while.
2004, I had just finished an assignment
in the middle of freakin' nowhere,
uh, where things had gone very wrong.
So I needed to start over.
And I mean completely over.
With nothing, from nothing.
The only thing I truly desired
was a nice, simple, quiet, ordinary life.
And Tupelo was the place to do that.
Or, at least, so I thought.
[quiet, quirky music playing]
[man 1] One day,
a stranger arrived in town.
He was wearing a nice suit
and carrying a briefcase.
So I'm like,
"Dude, why are you bringing a briefcase?"
"You got secret documents in there?"
[Steve] Nobody knew Dutschke.
He was not born in Mississippi.
He just happened.
He just came on the scene.
[man 2] Everett just kind of popped up
out of nowhere.
Who knows? Borderline psycho,
borderline genius? What is he, you know?
[man 3] All of a sudden,
we have an outsider in our community.
Um, I think a lot of people
may have questions about why,
why is this guy coming into our area?
[director] What do you know
about his past?
Can we turn the camera off?
[music fades]
[Everett] It was really important
that I get back to my roots.
I needed tae kwon do back in my life.
I renovated an office building
on Main Street
and opened my very own dojang.
[gentle guitar playing]
Uh, look, I-I get it.
It's an easy thing to lampoon.
But there's a beauty to it,
because it's for everyone.
And soon, I learned to smile again.
Janet was key to that.
And it was her faith,
it was her determination
to build a new life with me
which reminded me
that I was actually worth it.
[Janet] When I first saw Everett
in Tupelo,
to me, he looked like Val Kilmer,
but that's not what caught my eye.
It was that I found out
that he taught martial arts.
We quickly fell in love
and got married.
[Everett] I now had a new business,
a new house,
a new a new purpose.
Even a new family.
And so I decided I would get a second job
just to kind of help make ends meet.
[Janet] I remember one night,
he was studying,
and I finally just asked him,
you know, "What are you studying for?"
And he was like,
"I'm gonna sell insurance."
And he ended up getting a job
at Jack Curtis's agency.
[videotape whirring]
[tense music playing]
[Quaka] Now, with every investigation,
we're always trying
to piece together the motive.
So we needed to know,
what did the victims have in common,
and what is the connection
between each and every individual?
[Thomason] I remember interviewing Jack,
and him saying,
when he brought up Dutschke's name,
"This guy actually used to work for me."
Not only did Dutschke work there,
but Kevin Curtis's ex-wife, Laura,
did too.
And so we started looking into that office
and learned there was all kinds of issues.
[man] Um,
have you ever watched The Office?
Well, we put The Office to shame.
[laughs]
They should see our office!
Oh boy. It was a wild place to work.
[Laura] At United American,
my nickname there
Kevin's stepdad started this.
They called me The Sexetary.
I tried to make the office
a sexually charged atmosphere,
'cause it was my only fun I had in life,
was at this office.
I'd wear the low cut.
I'd wear the short dresses,
the stiletto pumps.
Laura was my best friend at the office.
She was always dressed very provocative.
Honestly, it made the work environment
actually really good.
We had, like, zero turnover rate.
[Laura] I was happy there,
flirting with all these men.
Hey, Jack. How you doing?
[Laura] It was so much fun.
And that's when Everett came along.
[videotape whirring]
[Kevin] I was doing some computer work
in a back office.
Just like that, Everett Dutschke
walks into my brother's office.
Whoa. It's the newspaper guy.
Dutschke came to me and approached
my office. I didn't know who he was.
[Laura] I come into work one day
and Everett is sitting in our office.
Within 30 seconds,
he's handing out his business card
that says on one side,
"I'm a life insurance agent."
Flip it over and it says,
"Mensa."
[Jack] So he's telling everyone,
I mean, everybody,
"I'm in Mensa."
And I thought, "Wow."
I mean, he was completely infatuated
with being the valedictorian of Mensa.
And what it meant, I have no idea.
It was some type
of aptitude intelligence test
that I probably
would not have passed, but, uh
[Kevin] Mr. Dutschke
strolls through the office.
Then I see him looking around and he said,
"Is that Is that Kevin Curtis in there?"
And he just walked
very calmly up to the door,
and he said,
"Kevin Curtis, well, how are you doing?"
And I said, uh,
"Everett."
[Laura] I was just looking at him.
I was like, "Wow." [laughs]
I love a receding hairline.
That, to me, is the hottest thing.
[Kevin] And I told him,
"To be honest, I've emailed you before,
asking you about interviewing me."
I had the most controversial story
in the state of Mississippi,
and possibly the entire country.
[Brandon] When I saw her with Everett,
I immediately asked Laura,
"What's going on with y'all?"
So I said, "Jack, can I have him?"
You know, to come work in my unit.
[Kevin] "Now, Everett,
you ever heard of black market body parts
being cut from human bodies and sold?"
And his eyes got kind of wild looking.
At that moment, Everett and I
There was this connection
and this vibration, just like this.
But Jack did not like Everett at all.
It was almost like he was giving a speech
every time he talked to you. You know?
He's literally standing there, telling me,
"Mississippi has problems,
and I wanna clean it up,
and I wanna fix some of the problems."
Mississippi has its problems.
I say things
that people are afraid to hear
So I started thinking maybe he has
secret intentions of being a politician.
[Everett] But there is a solution
to every problem.
[Jack] Is Dutschke using my office
to help make him more qualified
to be a political candidate?
[director] How did you decide
to run for Congress?
[Everett] Patriotism is in my blood.
I mean that in the literal sense.
I'm descended from the actual
Founding Fathers of this country.
From William Blount,
signer, ratifier of the US constitution.
Though not himself without,
you know, serious controversy.
[crowd shouting]
[Everett] I remember being 11 years old
and having a huge, huge crush
on Peggy Noonan,
Reagan's speechwriter.
"Slipped off the surly bonds of Earth
and touched the face of God"?
You cannot not be moved by that.
And so I always look to politicians
as the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.
I saw no greater calling than to serve.
Now, when I ran for the House,
I had a lot of support
from the Republican Party.
I was essentially told
from higher powers that be
that my political road
would be paved with gold.
But talking about that
could anger some very powerful people.
[director] So we're trying to find out
more about Everett's political history
Yeah, I really can't help you there.
I can't help you. I'm
I-I may have met
Dutschke twice.
Or maybe just once.
I was aware of him.
[Everett] Come on, man.
Are you kidding me?
You're gonna find five million pictures
of Wicker and myself.
Senator Wicker used to absolutely love me.
Senator Wicker used to love me.
[Janet] Everett had support
from big-time conservative politicians.
Governor Haley Barbour,
Senator Roger Wicker.
They were hugging me, hugging him,
and writing checks like crazy.
They were so excited,
because he was young,
good-looking, powerful,
and was not going to be
scared of the elites.
[sighs] I-I
[hesitates]
I-I played a very minor part.
Now, uh, really, you know,
your story,
uh, should give about 30 seconds
to my part.
I mean, Steve Holland
is is the main character of this story.
[man] Do we have anybody
that's running for local office here?
Yes, sir. Where are you?
I'm Everett Dutschke.
I'm running for District 16
against a man named Steve Holland.
[cheering and applauding]
[man] Time to represent, right?
Send him back to the funeral home, right?
- [Everett] It's time.
- [laughing]
[tense music playing]
[Steve] I had not had an opponent
in over 16 years.
I just didn't know anything about
I didn't know
who Everett Dutschke was in 2007.
Never heard of him.
I didn't do tae kwon do.
But I did know he must be truly stupid
to run against "The Undertaker."
[bell chimes]
Lee County could not dream
of a legislature without me.
Me aside, I just was their man.
I was northeast Mississippi's man.
Natchez's man, Tunica's man.
I was just the man of the hour.
So you've got to get up mighty early
and go to bed mighty late
if you wanna try to topple me.
[music fades]
[Everett] In this life, you
you cannot hit a home run
unless you swing.
And in this country,
unless you are scoring,
you are a nonfactor.
You're a nonentity.
You are disposable.
You are forgotten.
Even disavowed.
But here's the thing.
It's ego.
And it's confidence which flows from that
which says, "I am worthy
of stepping up to the plate."
It's confidence that grants
the ability of some guy
to cast off kings and tyrants.
So I chose the most entrenched politician
as my target.
I want to introduce Steve Holland.
Give him a big hand.
- [crowd cheering]
- Come on up here.
[Everett] Now,
when you do step up to that plate,
plant your feet,
calculate it all just right.
Coordinate your timing.
Even say a small prayer.
But then,
swing.
Remember this moment.
Remember the faces that you see.
Because this is one of those moments
that you will be able to recall
20 years from now,
30, 40, 50 years from now.
You can say, "I was there."
"I was there
the day that Reed Kitchens
got his black belt."
[clapping and whistling]
[Everett] That's some powerful shit
right there.
[yells]
[intense music playing]
Because I was an outsider in Tupelo,
uh, my campaign started
at a huge disadvantage.
I needed to build up a public profile.
I felt like I had a short time
to make a big impact.
I was able to take the dojang
to a whole 'nother level.
[indistinct shouting]
We hit each other.
We'd hammer each other. Hi-yah!
It was intense. Competitive. Hard work.
[Everett] We quickly became
the top karate school
in the entire region.
[on video] Grandmaster Chung
sent me this personally.
We're going to the nationals!
[Everett] And I was named
National Instructor of the Year.
[triumphant music playing]
I shall observe the tenets of tae kwon do.
[group] I shall observe
the tenets of tae kwon do.
[Kevin] I was watching some of Everett's
karate videos on MySpace.
Holy shit, man. Now, this guy's a badass.
Everett was the master of the art.
Different stances, forms,
roundhouse kicks,
snap kicks, scissor kicks.
You know, like,
"Dude, is there anything you don't do?"
I remember, all of a sudden,
Kevin started taking karate lessons
and would do his training
in the living room.
[Everett] Next, I reunited with a
you know, a former lover of mine.
She had a long, slender neck
and beautiful curves.
Uh, I'm talking, of course,
about my old electric guitar.
I'm Everett Dutschke.
- And we are
- [all] The RoboDrum.
[intense music playing]
[Everett] RoboDrum went on tour.
All right, so here we are.
We're on the road
between Tupelo and Atlanta.
Talking Atlanta Pride.
All the on the verge bands are here.
How's it going?
The world-famous St. Louis Arch.
Six Flags tour.
It's the drummer-less
funk fest trio RoboDrum.
It's a mix of dance music
and traditional rock.
- So he calls it ghetto metal.
- [host laughs]
Cos this wolf plays for keeps ♪
[electronic funk playing]
[intense music resumes]
[Everett] We were flown to Hollywood.
Shot a big music video.
Nominated for best band at the Indies.
Even Frankie Muniz gave me a shoutout.
[Kevin] Dutschke was like
a goddamn Jimi Hendrix.
This guy can teach himself the leads
in a matter of weeks.
The motherfucker can play a guitar.
[Everett] I even had a featured cameo
in a motion picture.
The plan was working just perfectly.
Shit. I'm sorry. Can we re-cut that?
[Steve] I asked
the Mississippi Republican Party,
"Where in the ever name of God
did y'all get this Dutschke guy?"
I watched some of his videos
on the Internet.
Dutschke was backwards from the beginning.
I have been trying to steer away
from these kind of thoughts
and thinking for a while.
Every single day that we ignore
the problem of illegal immigration
is a day when another 19 hijackers
can sneak into this country.
[Steve] Holy Jesus.
This guy is
the freaking greatest conspiracy theorist
I've ever seen in my life.
I wonder maybe
if the Mensa mind does that.
It's entirely possible
that George Bush blew up those levees
just to destroy those white towns.
George Bush hates white people.
I wasn't your typical
establishment politician
out there kissing babies.
I mean, it was a guerilla campaign.
I had to do everything I could.
Dutschke ran a brutal campaign against me.
It was one solid World War II attack
on Steve Holland.
He ran his little newspaper,
calling me everything
under the sun, moon, and stars.
Called me a thief. He called me gay.
He called me communist.
But then he's called me Boss Hog.
[whooping]
Dang it, man, where are you?
[Steve] He photoshopped
all of my portraits.
A big white hat,
white coat, and white shoes.
So it was offensive.
And funny.
[Everett] Steve Holland,
with his very, very serious corruption,
absolutely did not deserve that seat
because he's a despicable human being.
He essentially accused me
Said my campaign was nothing but designed
to, quote, "cut his nuts off."
"Who the fuck you think you are?
I oughtta beat your ass."
He was pretty clever.
[Everett] The aliens are here,
but they didn't arrive in a spaceship.
They came over
our unprotected Mexican border.
All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were illegal.
If Steve Holland had his way,
he would throw 'em one big party
with your tax dollars.
If we don't work to reverse the policies
of Steve Holland, we can expect this
[speaking Spanish]
I'm Everett Dutschke,
and after you elect me,
I'll work hard to protect your job.
[dramatic music on video]
Wow. He hated Holland with passion.
Just like me.
And I told Laura, "I admire this man."
"He is going to publish my story
on one of the world's
biggest kept secrets."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] As you earn
the hearts and minds of some people,
you also earn the ire of others.
One of those people
was Paul Kevin Curtis.
[music fades]
[reporter 1] Today in Oxford,
Kevin Curtis is back in federal court
for the second time.
[reporter 2] He remains
in a federal holding cell
while prosecutors continue
building their case.
Have investigators found anything?
Have they been able
to connect the dots here?
We have put in calls to the US attorney
and the FBI day after day,
and thus far, over the last three days
at least, they have said very little
if anything about this case.
[Thomason] So early that Monday morning,
court proceedings are going on
with Mr. Curtis.
John has a great idea.
"Let's do a trash pull
on Dutschke's house."
It's something we can do
without a warrant.
[Quaka] Trash pulls are rarely home runs,
but they're singles in baseball.
So I contacted the local trash company,
and then they took a truck
to Dutschke's house
with new cans.
And I'm following behind at a distance.
We swapped out his can for a new one,
and took it to my house,
dump it in my garage,
spread all the trash out,
and then we saw it.
John's holding up a bag, and he goes,
"Hey, does this mean anything?"
And as I turn around and look at it,
I see yellow paper.
[Quaka] Looked identical
to the threat letters.
All right. The trash pull got us on base.
[Thomason] I called
our surveillance team leader.
"Get your tail over to Tupelo. I got
somebody I want you to take a look at."
"But look, I want loose.
I want as light as you can be."
"You can't let him see you."
[tense music playing]
[Quaka] We were watching him
at the karate studio.
We observed him walk out
and throw away a box.
And after he left,
we went to that garbage can and recovered
a Black & Decker coffee grinder.
[Thomason] Our lab had been telling us,
if somebody's making ricin,
they're gonna use a coffee grinder.
And that's when it really hits.
"This isn't Kevin Curtis.
This is Everett Dutschke."
[Quaka] So now our number one question is,
what happened between these two?
How do you go
from a feud with a former friend
to sending ricin
to the president of the United States?
- [quiet, tense music playing]
- [indistinct speech over radio]
[soft music playing]
[Kevin] With Everett,
there was this hidden wall
in between us that you could just feel.
I-I really don't know why.
I don't know what it is.
But psychologically and spiritually,
you just know,
"I don't think he likes me.
I don't think he appreciates me."
[Janet] I remember
Everett coming home from work
and saying the younger Elvis brother
was kind of weird.
And was also a foot doctor,
and he would rub the feet
of the ladies at the insurance agency.
[Laura] At United American,
Everett filled a void.
Made me feel attractive again.
He became a very best friend
that I was attracted to.
[Kevin] At first,
I sent him some casual emails
explaining all of my research
into body part harvesting.
He doesn't reply to me.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] He kept trying to convince me
to run a story in my newspaper,
um, about some severed head nonsense
at the hospital.
Honestly, I have seen better logic
on episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.
[Kevin] Then I call him up on the phone
and leave a message,
and I say, "Look, I got fired.
I lost my job."
"I lost my house, my hot tub.
I lost my marriage."
"So I would really appreciate you
calling me back."
Never got a call back.
[Everett] If I had actually
published his nonsense,
do you think that he would have
possibly left me alone after that?
Not a chance in hell.
He's dodging me, ignoring my calls,
ignoring my emails, being so evasive.
I knew something's not right.
[Laura] Every day,
Everett would sit at my desk
and say,
"You're the most beautiful secretary."
"Jack, how does it feel
to have this gorgeous secretary?"
[Kevin] My ex-wife started
dropping his name more and more.
She would say he's being really nice
to her, he's complimenting her.
[Everett] This guy would not stop
harassing me about body parts.
I went to Jack first.
He didn't wanna deal with it.
So I talked to Laura, and Laura said,
quote, "He is obsessed with you."
This is not good.
[Laura] At work, we had a porch swing.
Everett would come sit by me.
And I'd say, "You don't need
to be sitting by me in the swing
because Kevin drives by,
and it's not gonna be pretty."
"He will ruin your life."
[Jack] I took my office to lunch.
And Dutschke was there. Laura was there.
[Laura] We're all sitting there,
having a good time,
and in strolls Kevin.
I feel like Kevin had followed us there
and was sitting out in the parking lot.
[Kevin] So I walk in, I look over,
and I see Everett Dutschke, my brother,
my ex-wife, and ten other agents.
[Everett] We were all surprised
to see him walk in.
It was like he was stalking us
or something.
Everett looked like
he was having a panic attack.
A scared mouse.
And I say, "I have left numerous messages
on your answering machine."
He's like, "Kevin, I'm not going
to get into this with you again."
"I can't afford to interview you
about your little body parts conspiracy."
And I said, "Excuse me? Conspiracy?"
[Everett] He just goes absolutely crazy
right there
in the middle of the restaurant.
[Laura] Kevin starts screaming at him.
"You were paid off
by the Northwestern Medical Center,"
and the body parts
I mean, he was upset.
We all jump in to try to calm Kevin down.
[music fades]
[Kevin] I gave him just a serious
"don't fuck with me" look.
I'm like, "Dutschke,
dating her is not an option."
[music resumes]
[man 1] The South loves a good feud.
You know, Priscilla left Elvis
for his karate instructor.
So the whole thing just seemed like it was
some type of weird parallel universe.
[woman] There was another man
in your life. Your karate teacher.
It was said that Elvis wanted him killed.
I think at that time, yes,
he wanted that to happen.
[grunting]
[man 2] This thing
between Everett and Kevin,
it became a war.
A war.
All right? Brutal.
[man 3] I have a quote on my wall.
"Beware that, when fighting monsters,
don't become a monster."
["Kung Fu Fighting" playing]
[Kevin] A couple of weeks
after our confrontation,
Everett walks into the insurance office
super excited, and he goes,
"Kevin,
I've made a major discovery."
"They are selling body parts."
And I was just like
[hesitates] "What?"
And he pulled out
little bags of edible gummy body parts.
[bell dings]
[Kevin] Goddamn it!
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
[Kevin] This guy that's ruining my life,
his intelligence is off the charts.
In fact
It was a little bit frightening ♪
[Kevin] I wasn't gonna back down.
I taught myself Bruce Lee's philosophy,
"No way is way."
[fighters grunting]
[Kevin] You have to dedicate yourself
every single day to be the strongest.
You have to outmaneuver,
outpower, outthink the enemy.
It's an ancient Chinese art ♪
[Kevin] I log on
to my Gateway 2000 computer.
Time for Kevin Curtis to rock and roll.
[Janet] I'm getting ready for work,
and my phone starts blowing up.
My friends are saying,
"Janet, what the hell is going on?"
And they say, "This guy named Billy Bobby
has put your face all over Facebook."
I scrolled down. It was Kevin's face
that I saw on our wedding photos.
[Everett] Who does that?
Who fucking does that?
It's like he was catfishing himself.
Now, as unbelievable as this sounds,
Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator,
he became a Dutschke impersonator.
Kung fu fighting ♪
[Everett] First, pictures started floating
around of him in a tae kwon do uniform,
which, by the way, that's sacrilegious.
This guy's never had a day of lessons
in his entire life.
Then he started dressing like me.
Then he started speaking like me.
I'm J. Everett Dutschke,
and I approve this message.
I am KC, and I approve this message.
[Jim] It was very strange behavior.
It was almost, um, infatuation.
He's always been obsessed over Everett.
[Kevin] Talk about obsessive?
Everett started secretly drilling
my followers on MySpace.
"Who is Kevin? What do you know?
Have you met him in person?"
I told Laura, "This guy is
literally obsessed with Kevin Curtis."
[Kevin, on video] Everett, you've been
to my MySpace page 70 times in one day.
He says, "I saw what you put on Facebook."
I said, "Quit stalking me, bitch."
Every day, this feud grew
by Curtis taunting him online.
[Kevin] "@everett,
you are a spineless coward,
a scared little pussycat,
and a washed-up Republican wannabe."
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
Those cats were fast as lightning ♪
[Kevin] Everett was mean to me.
He would constantly
insult my intelligence.
It says, "You, sir,
are a dumbass."
"I'm ready to, quote,
man up any time or day, dumbass."
It was apparent that he had a huge feud
with Kevin Curtis.
[Everett] What feud?
This guy was so far beneath me.
I mean, can Genghis Khan
feud with a fire ant?
"One of us is playing at Six Flags,
yet the other makes up bullshit stories
about going on tour
with Carrie Underwood. Dumbass."
[Everett] No one actually respects,
you know, Elvis impersonators.
They're, like,
one step above a party clown.
[Kevin] While I'm fighting this war
against my rival enemy,
Jack's agents would tell me
that they observed
Everett being, quote, "sweet on Laura."
So I confronted Laura.
"Is there something going on with him?"
And she says, "Well, I thought about it,
but he was too short and hairy."
[music stops]
You know, I always wondered,
how does Laura know how hairy this man is?
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
Kevin showed up, and he went ballistic.
He destroyed the office.
He was on a mission to find Everett.
And his exact words was,
"I'm going to effing kill him."
[line ringing]
[Kevin] I called him from my phone twice.
It went to voicemail.
I picked up Laura's cell phone,
dialed his number,
and he picked up on the second ring
and said, "Hey, sweetie."
And I'm like, "Okay, say no more.
Have a good day."
All gloves off.
Sat down at my computer.
One final move.
Clone. Copy-paste.
And I posted it.
[gentle music playing]
"Paul K. Curtis."
"Member of Mensa."
It looked really authentic.
Thirty seconds later, Dutschke emailed me.
"I'm giving you one day
to remove your fraudulent claims
from your website."
"By the way, Kevin,
you cannot be both a genius
and retarded at the same time."
"You were given your last chance."
"You blew it.
J. Everett Dutschke. Man up. Dumbass."
[Jim] It highly upset him.
He was the one that validated
whether you got it the right way,
whether you actually earned it.
[Everett] I handled the membership
of who is and who is not a Mensa member,
and I took that responsibility seriously.
Well, Paul Kevin Curtis is,
in fact, a dumbass.
When he posted a Mensa certificate,
I knew exactly what he was doing.
He was trying to be Dutschke again.
It was just one bridge too far.
[steady instrumental music playing]
[Steve] Have y'all heard
about the showdown at Verona?
Well, Verona is the largest
populated precinct in Lee County,
so it's the most important event
in the campaign.
[Kevin] I was just there
to entertain the people.
I saw Judge Sadie Holland,
Sheriff Jim Johnson,
David Daniels,
Senator Roger Wicker,
and I saw
State Representative Steve Holland.
[Everett] On Verona day,
I left black belt camp early.
Very discourteous thing to do.
Particularly somebody of my rank level.
You don't tell Grandmaster Chung,
"I gotta go,"
just so I can go win an election.
[Everett, on video] Don't move.
Get back to my right. In the lion's den.
[voice-over] My speech was designed,
in part, to be scathing to him.
And I saw a chance to take my swing.
When you do step up to that plate,
be bold, be brash,
have the courage, face your adversary,
then swing.
Mr. Holland has been a perfect example
of the exact kind of corruption
that began a revolution 231 years ago.
After federal indictments,
and after $55 million was stolen,
it is time to ask,
"Mr. Holland, can we have our money back?"
He just absolutely crucified
my family's reputation,
and I had to sit there and listen to that.
[Everett, on video]
Your time is done, Grandpa.
Mr. Holland,
you are fired.
[crowd murmuring]
But then Mother called him back
to the podium when she got up to speak.
She said, "I am ashamed of you."
"You just told the biggest pack of lies
I've ever heard in my life."
"So get on your knees
and apologize right now."
And he did.
- [crowd laughing]
- [subdued music playing]
I mean, it was public embarrassment.
[Everett] He said what?
[director] That you got on your knees
and apologized.
[Everett] That's the biggest
line of bullshit I've ever heard
in my entire life.
The only thing I'm sorry about
is that she has a son like Holland.
So fuck them.
[Steve] In the end, I won the election
in a landslide, 85-15,
which was what you call a country
ass-whipping in this part of the world.
I beat the ever-living hell out of him.
[man] Steve Holland is declared
[cheering]
Everett Dutschke was defeated soundly.
Didn't make much of a campaign.
That may have been the only time
he came across my consciousness.
[Steve] I guess not everybody
is ready for the crown
in this wonderful birthplace of the King.
[plaintive music playing]
[Steve] I understand that he was uninvited
to any future
Republican Party meetings after that.
So he became sort of a man without a home
and a man without a family.
I think his soul cooked
after that election.
He almost disappeared.
And things, for a while,
seemed to quiet down.
[plaintive music continues]
[Jimmy] One day, my daughter
comes home from school.
She was upset.
She said, "Dad,
we got off the school bus,
there's a guy
who was playing with himself
in the window."
[reporter 1] Lee County
law enforcement's phones
have been ringing off the hook today
as a number of children came home
reporting an incident
with concerning details.
[Jimmy] When he was finally arrested,
I heard his name was Everett Dutschke.
[reporter 2] Today, Tupelo police arrested
James Everett Dutschke.
[reporter 3] After his arrest
for indecent exposure,
an additional count of underage fondling
has been filed against Dutschke.
Dutschke had been arrested for some
misdemeanor offenses of indecent exposure.
Then we began to investigate
a felony crime
with a child under the age of 18.
And so that was where I realized
who Everett was for the very first time.
[Laura] Kevin and I
took the children to dinner,
and I said, "Everett got charged
with child molestation."
I was elated. I was so happy.
I literally flip out of my chair.
I bolt out of Ruby Tuesday.
People are looking at me.
You could see the look on his face.
I've never seen him that happy.
I was overjoyed with happiness.
[gleefully] Ha ha ha!
Finally, tangible evidence.
This guy is not good.
He's dark.
I go straight to Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo,
and I started tagging his ass.
"Can't wait to see you in court, Everett."
"Enjoy the grits and the cold biscuits."
"Oh yeah,
and they don't put sugar in the tea."
"You in Mississippi now, boy.
How's them chains feel around your legs?"
[Janet] All these charges come up,
and I mean And
There's, like
And they are demonizing him.
And then Kevin sent me
this very startling message,
saying sorry what happened to Everett.
That he will absolutely step in
and continue to teach me martial arts.
He'll be the father figure to my children
and continue Everett's legacy.
This very small molehill
has been blown way out of proportion,
and it has become a mountain
of unsurmountable proportions.
I'm very eager to clear my name.
[Laura] After that, when Everett got out,
Everett struck back.
- [suspenseful music playing]
- [heavy breathing through gas mask]
[man] Go ahead.
My name is Everett Dutschke. I, um
[hesitates]
Yesterday, during Kevin Curtis',
the ricin mailer
During his, uh, pretrial hearing,
um, his attorney accused me
of being the one that sent out
the ricin letters, instead of him.
This morning, I met with the FBI.
I consented to a search,
signed a piece of paper saying
go ahead and search the house.
They're doing that right now,
and the search may be going on all day.
[man] Did you have
anything to do with this?
I don't have anything at all to do
with this. I don't hardly know the guy.
In fact, uh,
we've only met on two occasions.
I don't know him very well at all.
Um I don't know anything about this.
[Thomason] So, April 23rd,
I've got a search team coming in.
Got a search warrant for the house
and martial arts studio.
[distant sirens wailing]
Asked some hard questions.
"Do you have a coffee bean grinder?"
He gets so flustered, then he looks at me
and goes, "Hey, hey. You need to refocus."
"Now, let's move this thing
back to Kevin Curtis."
A local reporter called
and said they wanted to talk to him,
and he's sitting there
looking in the window,
trying to fix his hair,
getting ready for his interview.
He goes, "Hey, you ready?"
I looked at him and said,
"What are you talking about?"
He goes, "We gotta go outside
and talk to the television."
And I'm just like,
"You're an even bigger moron
than I thought."
This man right here who now joins us,
Everett Dutschke, what is
your relationship with Kevin Curtis?
You'd have to ask Kevin.
I have no relationship with Kevin.
I met the gentleman on two occasions.
[Jim] It was very strange behavior.
I mean,
he was wanting to talk to the media.
He was walking up and down.
All about control.
[Quaka] He was trying to create a facade
that he did not do this
and that Kevin Curtis did it.
Don't defend your case
by immediately trying to point out
somebody else.
He kept telling us,
"I'm caught up in this madman's fantasy."
It just simply blows my mind
that the paranoid
anti-government schizophrenic
is the one that wraps up me
in his fantasy world.
There's a madman fantasy here,
no doubt about that.
Just not sure whose it is.
[Quaka] We seized his computer,
and manuals had been found
on that hard drive about ricin.
I have absolutely nothing
to do with any of this.
[Thomason] Our computer experts find
he ordered 100 castor beans
from somebody in Illinois.
- [reporter] Have you ever handled ricin?
- Hold on a second. Uh, no.
I wouldn't
I wouldn't recognize ricin if I saw it.
And then we found
five different positive ricin hits.
Did a swab.
We found a dust mask
and latex gloves as well.
[reporter 1] Did you
have a feud with Curtis?
I was very upset with him
for posting a fake Mensa certificate
on a website.
Uh, he is not a Mensa member. Um
- [reporter 2] Will they find it?
- Of course not.
[reporter 3] Will they find
anything suspicious?
Everybody has something suspicious
in their house,
but no, there's nothing that's related
to these letters. There's nothing
Everett was one of the guys that thinks
he's the smartest person in the room.
And I've met those people before.
They are intelligent,
but they're overconfident,
and that's a weakness.
[heavy breathing through gas mask]
[Thomason] As we concluded
this investigation,
we learned Dutschke hated politicians.
He really hated the government.
There were three victims.
The Hollands.
Senator Wicker. President Obama.
He had a grudge against all three.
[Steve] The FBI told me,
"There was an email that we intercepted
where Dutschke said,
'I really wanted to kill Holland,
but it would hurt him more
to kill his mother.'"
I've about decided that actually
I might have been the target.
I'm a mama's baby
of extraordinary proportions,
and maybe he just said, "What the heck.
If I get his mama, I've got him."
[Janet] After that election,
Roger Wicker and the Republican Party,
everyone just kind of like
turned their back on him.
I told the FBI
Everett hated President Obama.
He thought Obama was this horrible person
that was gonna bring our world down.
[Christi] I do not believe that
Mr. Dutschke, in creating this scheme,
did so with Kevin as the target.
I think it was a terrorist act aimed at
the heart of our United States government.
[Everett] I'm gonna have to
come to terms with
the fact that I'm America's bad guy.
Remember, "Fight not with monsters,
lest you become one."
I had to be the one
to fight those battles
against every injustice that I saw.
Against every single wrong.
Against every single monster that I saw.
How do we know
when we have reached that point?
Pol Pot, Hitler,
Bin Laden, for God's sake.
They all think that they are doing good.
[Kevin] I told the FBI
his evil plan was to send letters
to his rival archenemies
that were also my enemies.
[Jim] He had to figure a way
to connect Kevin with these people.
Because he knew, in our investigation,
that's what we were gonna do.
I hate to say this, but that was
actually intelligent on his part.
Honestly, it was a pretty good frame.
In my opinion, he is a bona fide genius.
At that point, we were all very confident
that we had gotten it right
the second time.
[tense music playing]
[Kevin] I spent seven days in isolation,
solitude, confinement.
I felt hopeless.
And I was scared to death.
It was brutal.
I remember my attorney, Christi McCoy,
walked into the room, sat down with me,
and she said,
"You're about to be a free man, Kevin.
This is about to be over."
And I just started crying.
- [gentle music playing]
- [Kevin sniffles]
Sorry.
Yeah.
[sniffles]
[sniffles]
- [gentle music playing]
- [indistinct chatter]
[reporter] Another breaking story
we're following.
The Mississippi man
accused of sending ricin-tainted letters
to President Obama and other officials
has been cleared.
The charges against Paul Kevin Curtis
were dropped today.
[cameras clicking]
I don't know if I'm allowed to comment.
Christi, am I allowed to comment
on my book or anything right now?
- Let's just wait.
- [Christi] Let's keep it on this.
Let's keep it on this subject.
- How does it feel to be a free man?
- It feels amazing.
- Wonderful.
- What do you think about this experience?
Overwhelming, to say the least.
When you've been charged with something,
and you just
You've never heard of ricin or whatever.
I thought they said rice,
so I said, "I don't even eat rice."
And, uh, you know, so, uh
- I've prepared a statement here.
- Come on up.
[Christi] A lot of things have happened
in the past week,
but there's nothing
that any of us can compare
to what Kevin has been through.
[Kevin] I respect President Obama.
I love my country
and would never do anything
to pose a threat to him
or any other US official.
This past week has been a nightmare
for myself and my family.
I would like to get back to normal,
which for me means being the best father
that I can be to my children
and entertaining through my music.
Thank you.
[indistinct chatter]
Oh my God, this is over, you know?
Relief and exoneration for the family.
I was just so emotional.
And happy for Kevin.
We're gonna be able to wake up tomorrow,
all of us, and just have a normal day.
And, uh, we're just super excited
and just very, very thankful.
[Kevin] When I got home,
I saw that 45,000 people
logged onto my YouTube page
and clicked on one of my videos.
[gasps] Wow,
so I'm getting some recognition.
Now I can publish my book, my screenplay.
Now I can get
the House Bill Resolution passed.
And I realized
if Everett had not framed me,
the world wouldn't know
who Kevin Curtis is.
So, Everett Dutschke
[as Elvis]thank you very much.
Danke schoen ♪
[reporter 1] Feels like
a Coen brothers' movie.
I don't care what you hear today.
I didn't do it. Period. Deal with it.
[reporter 1] A strange Southern tale
of Elvis impersonators,
organ harvesting conspiracies,
and Internet fights
over Mensa certificates.
- So they're online rivals. [laughs]
- [man] Right. Whatever that means.
[laughing] Elvis impersonator and
- And a karate instructor.
- [laughter continues]
[Kevin] I am a licensed reflexologist.
And I'm gonna donate 100,000 hours
to all you ladies
who need foot massage therapy.
- [audience laughing]
- [mouths] What?
You know, he seems like a good guy.
We're now witnessing
one of the most bizarre cases ever.
CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, you got everybody.
I said, "You're famous now.
The whole world knows about this."
Then I'm rushed to New York City
for The Today Show, Inside Edition,
Katie Couric.
Danke schoen ♪
[man] A conspiracy theorist finds himself
at the center of a conspiracy.
He has to be somewhat happy. Correct?
[Kevin] We can't go on together ♪
With suspicious minds ♪
What a week it has been for you.
I know you're grateful to your lawyers,
and even offered a foot massage, so
There's this bad blood between you,
and it just escalated?
[Kevin, voice-over] All fully paid.
The New York Plaza Hotel.
I never stayed in a hotel room like this.
I didn't know they existed.
This is like Sylvester Stallone's room.
It was gold.
[reporter] James Everett Dutschke
was sentenced today
to 25 years in federal prison.
Curtis is just happy an arrest was made.
I was just like
[exhales deeply]
[man] We tried to get hold of Curtis,
but he's giving a bunch of women
foot massages.
100,000 hours?
Danke schoen, oh darling ♪
[Kevin] I was the new king
of the conspiratorial world.
It put me in a whole new seat,
as far as global respect,
with mostly conspiracy people.
[reporter] Kevin,
what are your plans right now?
Huh. Um
Find my dog, Moo Cow.
Good news. Moo Cow, the dog, is safe.
They found Moo Cow!
[barking]
Danke schoen ♪
Auf Wiedersehen ♪
Danke schoen ♪
[music fades]
[water bubbling]
[Steve] William Faulkner famously said,
"In the South, the past is not dead."
"It's not even the past."
And over the years,
this story has caused me
a lot of introspection.
[quiet, gentle music playing]
I mean, it sounds strange. It really does.
But sometimes I almost tear up
when I think about it.
Just the whole episode.
I grieve a little bit
that a human being
that is allegedly as "smart" as he was
would tragically wind up
with an ending like this.
Mississippi, you're on my mind ♪
[Everett] Tupelo,
it crushed me.
My previous life,
despite the dangers of it,
was much easier
than just living a normal life.
[scoffs]
One of the sad tragedies
of this whole thing is that
what other people call normal life
is the one thing that I could
never get right and do well.
I keep asking myself,
was there anything ever
good and kind and meek in his life?
Did he have real friendship?
Did he ever have any joy?
[Everett] The people of Tupelo,
they're fiercely abnormal,
unnatural beings.
They're carnies
that I never could make sense out of
'cause nothing there is normal.
[Steve] And if I'm still around
when he gets out,
hell, he can come eat with me.
He can come to a party at the farm
on a Sunday night.
I'll say, "This is
my old buddy Everett Dutschke."
"He got out of the pen, thank God."
[Everett] Here's the thing.
If you're not careful,
you're gonna find yourself kidnapped.
Like me. Captured by the carny freaks
that are there.
And then developing an affinity
for these back-biting, disloyal,
highly dysfunctional
soap opera characters.
Mississippi, you're on my mind ♪
[Everett] And then you'll learn too late
that you really end up
loving these carnies.
They become like a second family.
[Steve] Hell yeah.
[Everett] I guess that's
something that I miss.
You're on my mind ♪
Oh ♪
Mississippi, you're on my ♪
[Elois] Before I die,
I got two things I wanna do.
I wanna go to Graceland,
and I wanna see Double Trouble.
Because that was a beautiful show
that they messed up.
[mellow music playing]
[Jack] It's been a long time.
I mean, it's been years
since we've performed together.
Kevin and I are putting our show
back together.
We're gonna be
doing a performance very soon.
So Double Trouble is back.
[Kevin] As the journey came to an end
and the dust began to settle,
in the chaos of being framed
in a presidential assassination plot,
KC reflected on the past years
of false arrests,
stalkers, and death threats
and came to the realization
it was time for a new purpose.
[music continues]
All I want in life's a little ♪
Wise men say ♪
[Jimmy] Ladies and gentlemen,
tonight, after 20 years,
Kevin Curtis and Jack Curtis
presents Double Trouble.
The last time they performed
was right here in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Elvis often had dreams about his brother,
Jesse Garon, getting on stage with him.
So sit back, relax,
and enjoy Double Trouble
and Fever the band.
I will love you till I die ♪
And I will love you all the time ♪
So please ♪
Put your sweet hand in mine ♪
And float in space ♪
And drift in time ♪
All I want in life's
A little bit of love ♪
- To take the pain away ♪
- Until I die ♪
- Getting strong today ♪
- We'll float in space ♪
- A giant step each day ♪
- Just you and I ♪
And I will love you till I die ♪
And I will love you all the time ♪
All I want in life's a little ♪
Wise men say ♪
[Kevin] When I started out
writing my screenplay,
all I had were missing pieces.
And I couldn't make sense of anything.
But through this process,
I discovered the missing piece
is your family,
the connection with your children,
your mother,
your father,
your brother.
Now, I had to do several rewrites.
The story began missing pieces,
but guess what?
It's gonna end with
There are no missing pieces.
I know what's important now.
He realized the "missing pieces" was
I can't help falling ♪
[Kevin]was just that
Family.
In love with you ♪
[Kevin] Today, I am no longer active
in the world of conspiracy.
I've already come to terms with
"I'm done with it."
I'm bored with it.
It's a negative for me now.
So I have retired the sword of justice.
I just wanna live a peaceful, nice life.
Falling in love with you ♪
[music fades]
[Kevin] Let it burn, burn, burn ♪
The ring of fire ♪
The ring of fire ♪
I recently googled
the Everett Dutschke case,
and a picture of the attorney-general
with the husband of my attorney,
Christi McCoy, at a party came up.
And I'm like, "Oh shit. What?"
Okay, my brain starts churning.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute."
There's something hidden in this.
There is a conspiracy.
We all know that Everett is
a high-ranking black belt in tae kwon do.
We all know that he is highly intelligent.
It is extremely possible
that he was an operative of the CIA.
[Kevin] Hello, Everett.
I will get straight to my purpose
for writing to you.
I need answers
to some deeply troubling questions.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] You have to understand
the 2013 ricin letters
is far, far bigger than Kevin Curtis.
In September of 2012,
I was working counter intelligence, CIA,
and I was given dangerous information
about operational funding of terrorism.
[Kevin] Was this all
an elaborate government operation?
At what point does a series of events
transform into a covert operation?
What aren't we being told?
[Everett] The financial files
that I was given
uh, were very, very damaging
to Obama administration officials.
And I refused to relinquish it to them.
[Kevin] There's something deep within me
that feels Everett Dutschke
was framed also.
He was ruffling the feathers
of some very powerful people,
and they had reason to get rid of him.
And the people that got rid of him
hated me also.
[Everett] No, no.
Uh, Kevin Curtis is not a part of this.
Uh, he was just a low-level patsy
in this whole scheme.
[Kevin] Is it possible
that you were framed
in orchestrating a frame-up against me?
A framing of a framing?
[Kevin] Ask yourself, do you really think
that this genius
would go online and go,
"I'll take a pint of castor beans"?
[Everett] I had to learn the hard way
in 2013
that you do not defy that State Department
with that administration.
[Kevin] Why were we such a threat
to the good ole boys' system?
Why did they work so hard
to silence us both?
[Everett] No, no. This had absolutely
nothing to do with Paul Kevin Curtis.
This is about my data
and how the most powerful people
in this country
would do anything to prevent someone
from ever disclosing that data.
[Kevin] It's becoming increasingly clear
that a larger, more powerful group
is pulling the strings,
and it's high time we exposed them.
We should team up
and finally become the real Double Trouble
of northeast Mississippi,
tearing down corruption
one kick at a time.
I am KC, and I approve this message.
[Everett] Jesus Christ,
it is absolutely paramount
that you understand
what I'm about to tell you.
I find it really, really hard to believe
that the CIA did not already know
the relevant information
that was in that file.
In fact, now I believe
the CIA actually put it there.
I now think
that the Daraa source was ours.
In part, because of the effort to present
that the Qatari was part of my Aon,
and the fact
that the code name is not Indari.
But what if the source wasn't Daraa?
What if it was ours?
More specifically, what if we were theirs?
[music intensifies]
[Everett] So there's
so much deep backstory.
So many chains of cause and effect.
So many different threads
that go here and there.
And so many dead ends.
No amount of analysis
can get me to 100% confirmation,
which leaves me
with just a bunch of unanswered questions.
How am I supposed to ever get the answers
stuck in here?
How am I supposed
to ever get those answers?
[music quietens]
[Everett] You see,
my head's just in turmoil today.
You don't even have a clue
what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I got to, uh, see
the end of American Idol last night.
And, uh, the person that won
should have won, so that's
All is right with the universe sometimes.
[country music playing]
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Each other blue ♪
- Each other blue ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two? ♪
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
You run round with
Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Joe ♪
And I turn round
And date every girl that I know ♪
It makes no sense, it makes no sense ♪
To do the way we do ♪
'Cause we both know that you love me ♪
And everybody knows how I love you ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Each other blue ♪
- Each other blue ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two? ♪
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two?
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
[as Elvis] Thank you very much.
You've been a wonderful audience.
Foolish you ♪
Crazy me ♪
[steady instrumental music playing]
[crickets chirping]
[indistinct speech over loudspeaker]
[man, through phone] In 2013,
J. Everett Dutschke
was the mastermind of a rogue operation
that violated an international treaty
signed by hundreds of different countries
against the development
of biological weapons.
Now, this literally qualifies
as a war crime.
Then, strangely,
he was sent to the US ADX Supermax,
into a specialized unit,
the National Security Unit,
where he went very oddly
and uncharacteristically silent.
Years of silence.
And no one had heard from him since.
Well, hello, America.
I am
Everett Dutschke.
[intense music playing]
Now, everything
that you've been told, everything,
is wrong.
In 2013,
a crime was committed.
It was an egregious series of crimes.
But it is not the crime that you think.
And it was not
by who you think.
[intense music continues]
[reporter] 45-year-old Kevin Curtis
made a first appearance
in federal court in Oxford, Mississippi,
this afternoon,
facing charges of threatening the life
of the president.
After a full day of testimony,
FBI agents say they've got their man,
but they have yet to present
any physical proof.
[reporter 2] Agents testified
there was no ricin found
inside Curtis's home or vehicle,
but still believe Curtis is their suspect.
[reporter 3] In federal court,
US attorneys painted Curtis
as mentally disturbed and violent.
Maximum penalty for this one,
says the Justice Department.
Fifteen years,
a half million dollar fine if convicted.
[woman] My question to the government is,
are y'all really gonna proceed on this?
Not only are you denying a man
his liberty, but the longer they stay
just, by gosh, targeted on Kevin Curtis,
the less likely that the true perpetrator
will ever be tried and convicted.
[intense music continues]
So everything we have
is still pointing to Kevin Curtis,
but two things happened.
Uh, number one, the following day
after Kevin was arrested,
our lab looked at the letters,
and in the return area,
there was nothing obviously there,
but upon examination under microscope,
you could see indentations
where somebody had written above
on another piece of paper,
and the indentations
were both old addresses for Kevin Curtis.
When they told me that,
I'm like, "Uh, that's not right."
"That's too convenient."
I mean, I-I It hit my mind like,
"Is this guy being framed?"
And then my partner, John Quaka,
received a tip
that there's this guy in town,
Everett Dutschke, who said,
"If you ever wanna take out
one of these politicians,
just send them poison in the mail
and take care of it."
In the back of my mind,
I remember Kevin kept saying,
"I bet Dutschke did this.
I bet Dutschke did this."
[Kevin] Everett Dutschke
would do something just like this.
James Everett Dutschke.
I'm telling you, it's the karate guy.
I remember that probably happened
on about a Friday.
And court hearings
are gonna start happening immediately
in regard to Kevin Curtis.
I mean, we needed to move.
And so John and I talked to the bosses
in Jackson
and indicated to them
we need to be looking at Everett Dutschke.
That's when we started working
the Dutschke angle.
It's game on.
When you meet Everett Dutschke,
you immediately sense that he's arrogant,
but then you realize he has no conscience,
nor does he have a soul.
[Thomason] During my 25 years
in the bureau,
I interviewed numerous terrorists,
seven different murderers,
one serial killer.
But I don't think I ever talked to anybody
that would fit into the category
of Everett Dutschke.
[music fades]
[Janet] This is the first time in 11 years
that I've spoken with anyone at all.
There are very powerful people
in this town,
and I will say that I am scared
as to what could happen to me
after speaking to you guys.
I didn't know for many, many years
where he was.
I honestly thought that he was dead.
I was told by a military friend
he was in the country's most secure prison
with violent, deadly terrorists.
Then, exactly one month ago,
Everett called me for the first time.
It was almost like
I was speaking to a ghost.
And I realized that the truth
needs to come out.
[female voice] This call
is from a federal prison.
[director] For the audience at home,
can you tell us how you got here?
[Everett hesitates]
I think it was Nietzsche.
He said,
"Fight not with monsters,
lest you become one."
And that's kind of my story.
My childhood was different.
[contemplative music playing]
Truthfully, I-I didn't always fit in.
Most kids hang out with other kids.
I didn't. I hung out with adults.
The older, the better, quite frankly.
In growing up,
I was in the gifted classes.
I had very good
pattern recognition skills.
And at home,
music kind of became my escape.
I spent hours studying radio transmissions
and learning about
satellite launch telemetry.
But my discipline came from karate.
In 1996, I went to the Olympics.
And that is the point at which
I was, uh, approached by recruiters,
and for the next two years, kind of
disappeared off the planet for a while.
2004, I had just finished an assignment
in the middle of freakin' nowhere,
uh, where things had gone very wrong.
So I needed to start over.
And I mean completely over.
With nothing, from nothing.
The only thing I truly desired
was a nice, simple, quiet, ordinary life.
And Tupelo was the place to do that.
Or, at least, so I thought.
[quiet, quirky music playing]
[man 1] One day,
a stranger arrived in town.
He was wearing a nice suit
and carrying a briefcase.
So I'm like,
"Dude, why are you bringing a briefcase?"
"You got secret documents in there?"
[Steve] Nobody knew Dutschke.
He was not born in Mississippi.
He just happened.
He just came on the scene.
[man 2] Everett just kind of popped up
out of nowhere.
Who knows? Borderline psycho,
borderline genius? What is he, you know?
[man 3] All of a sudden,
we have an outsider in our community.
Um, I think a lot of people
may have questions about why,
why is this guy coming into our area?
[director] What do you know
about his past?
Can we turn the camera off?
[music fades]
[Everett] It was really important
that I get back to my roots.
I needed tae kwon do back in my life.
I renovated an office building
on Main Street
and opened my very own dojang.
[gentle guitar playing]
Uh, look, I-I get it.
It's an easy thing to lampoon.
But there's a beauty to it,
because it's for everyone.
And soon, I learned to smile again.
Janet was key to that.
And it was her faith,
it was her determination
to build a new life with me
which reminded me
that I was actually worth it.
[Janet] When I first saw Everett
in Tupelo,
to me, he looked like Val Kilmer,
but that's not what caught my eye.
It was that I found out
that he taught martial arts.
We quickly fell in love
and got married.
[Everett] I now had a new business,
a new house,
a new a new purpose.
Even a new family.
And so I decided I would get a second job
just to kind of help make ends meet.
[Janet] I remember one night,
he was studying,
and I finally just asked him,
you know, "What are you studying for?"
And he was like,
"I'm gonna sell insurance."
And he ended up getting a job
at Jack Curtis's agency.
[videotape whirring]
[tense music playing]
[Quaka] Now, with every investigation,
we're always trying
to piece together the motive.
So we needed to know,
what did the victims have in common,
and what is the connection
between each and every individual?
[Thomason] I remember interviewing Jack,
and him saying,
when he brought up Dutschke's name,
"This guy actually used to work for me."
Not only did Dutschke work there,
but Kevin Curtis's ex-wife, Laura,
did too.
And so we started looking into that office
and learned there was all kinds of issues.
[man] Um,
have you ever watched The Office?
Well, we put The Office to shame.
[laughs]
They should see our office!
Oh boy. It was a wild place to work.
[Laura] At United American,
my nickname there
Kevin's stepdad started this.
They called me The Sexetary.
I tried to make the office
a sexually charged atmosphere,
'cause it was my only fun I had in life,
was at this office.
I'd wear the low cut.
I'd wear the short dresses,
the stiletto pumps.
Laura was my best friend at the office.
She was always dressed very provocative.
Honestly, it made the work environment
actually really good.
We had, like, zero turnover rate.
[Laura] I was happy there,
flirting with all these men.
Hey, Jack. How you doing?
[Laura] It was so much fun.
And that's when Everett came along.
[videotape whirring]
[Kevin] I was doing some computer work
in a back office.
Just like that, Everett Dutschke
walks into my brother's office.
Whoa. It's the newspaper guy.
Dutschke came to me and approached
my office. I didn't know who he was.
[Laura] I come into work one day
and Everett is sitting in our office.
Within 30 seconds,
he's handing out his business card
that says on one side,
"I'm a life insurance agent."
Flip it over and it says,
"Mensa."
[Jack] So he's telling everyone,
I mean, everybody,
"I'm in Mensa."
And I thought, "Wow."
I mean, he was completely infatuated
with being the valedictorian of Mensa.
And what it meant, I have no idea.
It was some type
of aptitude intelligence test
that I probably
would not have passed, but, uh
[Kevin] Mr. Dutschke
strolls through the office.
Then I see him looking around and he said,
"Is that Is that Kevin Curtis in there?"
And he just walked
very calmly up to the door,
and he said,
"Kevin Curtis, well, how are you doing?"
And I said, uh,
"Everett."
[Laura] I was just looking at him.
I was like, "Wow." [laughs]
I love a receding hairline.
That, to me, is the hottest thing.
[Kevin] And I told him,
"To be honest, I've emailed you before,
asking you about interviewing me."
I had the most controversial story
in the state of Mississippi,
and possibly the entire country.
[Brandon] When I saw her with Everett,
I immediately asked Laura,
"What's going on with y'all?"
So I said, "Jack, can I have him?"
You know, to come work in my unit.
[Kevin] "Now, Everett,
you ever heard of black market body parts
being cut from human bodies and sold?"
And his eyes got kind of wild looking.
At that moment, Everett and I
There was this connection
and this vibration, just like this.
But Jack did not like Everett at all.
It was almost like he was giving a speech
every time he talked to you. You know?
He's literally standing there, telling me,
"Mississippi has problems,
and I wanna clean it up,
and I wanna fix some of the problems."
Mississippi has its problems.
I say things
that people are afraid to hear
So I started thinking maybe he has
secret intentions of being a politician.
[Everett] But there is a solution
to every problem.
[Jack] Is Dutschke using my office
to help make him more qualified
to be a political candidate?
[director] How did you decide
to run for Congress?
[Everett] Patriotism is in my blood.
I mean that in the literal sense.
I'm descended from the actual
Founding Fathers of this country.
From William Blount,
signer, ratifier of the US constitution.
Though not himself without,
you know, serious controversy.
[crowd shouting]
[Everett] I remember being 11 years old
and having a huge, huge crush
on Peggy Noonan,
Reagan's speechwriter.
"Slipped off the surly bonds of Earth
and touched the face of God"?
You cannot not be moved by that.
And so I always look to politicians
as the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.
I saw no greater calling than to serve.
Now, when I ran for the House,
I had a lot of support
from the Republican Party.
I was essentially told
from higher powers that be
that my political road
would be paved with gold.
But talking about that
could anger some very powerful people.
[director] So we're trying to find out
more about Everett's political history
Yeah, I really can't help you there.
I can't help you. I'm
I-I may have met
Dutschke twice.
Or maybe just once.
I was aware of him.
[Everett] Come on, man.
Are you kidding me?
You're gonna find five million pictures
of Wicker and myself.
Senator Wicker used to absolutely love me.
Senator Wicker used to love me.
[Janet] Everett had support
from big-time conservative politicians.
Governor Haley Barbour,
Senator Roger Wicker.
They were hugging me, hugging him,
and writing checks like crazy.
They were so excited,
because he was young,
good-looking, powerful,
and was not going to be
scared of the elites.
[sighs] I-I
[hesitates]
I-I played a very minor part.
Now, uh, really, you know,
your story,
uh, should give about 30 seconds
to my part.
I mean, Steve Holland
is is the main character of this story.
[man] Do we have anybody
that's running for local office here?
Yes, sir. Where are you?
I'm Everett Dutschke.
I'm running for District 16
against a man named Steve Holland.
[cheering and applauding]
[man] Time to represent, right?
Send him back to the funeral home, right?
- [Everett] It's time.
- [laughing]
[tense music playing]
[Steve] I had not had an opponent
in over 16 years.
I just didn't know anything about
I didn't know
who Everett Dutschke was in 2007.
Never heard of him.
I didn't do tae kwon do.
But I did know he must be truly stupid
to run against "The Undertaker."
[bell chimes]
Lee County could not dream
of a legislature without me.
Me aside, I just was their man.
I was northeast Mississippi's man.
Natchez's man, Tunica's man.
I was just the man of the hour.
So you've got to get up mighty early
and go to bed mighty late
if you wanna try to topple me.
[music fades]
[Everett] In this life, you
you cannot hit a home run
unless you swing.
And in this country,
unless you are scoring,
you are a nonfactor.
You're a nonentity.
You are disposable.
You are forgotten.
Even disavowed.
But here's the thing.
It's ego.
And it's confidence which flows from that
which says, "I am worthy
of stepping up to the plate."
It's confidence that grants
the ability of some guy
to cast off kings and tyrants.
So I chose the most entrenched politician
as my target.
I want to introduce Steve Holland.
Give him a big hand.
- [crowd cheering]
- Come on up here.
[Everett] Now,
when you do step up to that plate,
plant your feet,
calculate it all just right.
Coordinate your timing.
Even say a small prayer.
But then,
swing.
Remember this moment.
Remember the faces that you see.
Because this is one of those moments
that you will be able to recall
20 years from now,
30, 40, 50 years from now.
You can say, "I was there."
"I was there
the day that Reed Kitchens
got his black belt."
[clapping and whistling]
[Everett] That's some powerful shit
right there.
[yells]
[intense music playing]
Because I was an outsider in Tupelo,
uh, my campaign started
at a huge disadvantage.
I needed to build up a public profile.
I felt like I had a short time
to make a big impact.
I was able to take the dojang
to a whole 'nother level.
[indistinct shouting]
We hit each other.
We'd hammer each other. Hi-yah!
It was intense. Competitive. Hard work.
[Everett] We quickly became
the top karate school
in the entire region.
[on video] Grandmaster Chung
sent me this personally.
We're going to the nationals!
[Everett] And I was named
National Instructor of the Year.
[triumphant music playing]
I shall observe the tenets of tae kwon do.
[group] I shall observe
the tenets of tae kwon do.
[Kevin] I was watching some of Everett's
karate videos on MySpace.
Holy shit, man. Now, this guy's a badass.
Everett was the master of the art.
Different stances, forms,
roundhouse kicks,
snap kicks, scissor kicks.
You know, like,
"Dude, is there anything you don't do?"
I remember, all of a sudden,
Kevin started taking karate lessons
and would do his training
in the living room.
[Everett] Next, I reunited with a
you know, a former lover of mine.
She had a long, slender neck
and beautiful curves.
Uh, I'm talking, of course,
about my old electric guitar.
I'm Everett Dutschke.
- And we are
- [all] The RoboDrum.
[intense music playing]
[Everett] RoboDrum went on tour.
All right, so here we are.
We're on the road
between Tupelo and Atlanta.
Talking Atlanta Pride.
All the on the verge bands are here.
How's it going?
The world-famous St. Louis Arch.
Six Flags tour.
It's the drummer-less
funk fest trio RoboDrum.
It's a mix of dance music
and traditional rock.
- So he calls it ghetto metal.
- [host laughs]
Cos this wolf plays for keeps ♪
[electronic funk playing]
[intense music resumes]
[Everett] We were flown to Hollywood.
Shot a big music video.
Nominated for best band at the Indies.
Even Frankie Muniz gave me a shoutout.
[Kevin] Dutschke was like
a goddamn Jimi Hendrix.
This guy can teach himself the leads
in a matter of weeks.
The motherfucker can play a guitar.
[Everett] I even had a featured cameo
in a motion picture.
The plan was working just perfectly.
Shit. I'm sorry. Can we re-cut that?
[Steve] I asked
the Mississippi Republican Party,
"Where in the ever name of God
did y'all get this Dutschke guy?"
I watched some of his videos
on the Internet.
Dutschke was backwards from the beginning.
I have been trying to steer away
from these kind of thoughts
and thinking for a while.
Every single day that we ignore
the problem of illegal immigration
is a day when another 19 hijackers
can sneak into this country.
[Steve] Holy Jesus.
This guy is
the freaking greatest conspiracy theorist
I've ever seen in my life.
I wonder maybe
if the Mensa mind does that.
It's entirely possible
that George Bush blew up those levees
just to destroy those white towns.
George Bush hates white people.
I wasn't your typical
establishment politician
out there kissing babies.
I mean, it was a guerilla campaign.
I had to do everything I could.
Dutschke ran a brutal campaign against me.
It was one solid World War II attack
on Steve Holland.
He ran his little newspaper,
calling me everything
under the sun, moon, and stars.
Called me a thief. He called me gay.
He called me communist.
But then he's called me Boss Hog.
[whooping]
Dang it, man, where are you?
[Steve] He photoshopped
all of my portraits.
A big white hat,
white coat, and white shoes.
So it was offensive.
And funny.
[Everett] Steve Holland,
with his very, very serious corruption,
absolutely did not deserve that seat
because he's a despicable human being.
He essentially accused me
Said my campaign was nothing but designed
to, quote, "cut his nuts off."
"Who the fuck you think you are?
I oughtta beat your ass."
He was pretty clever.
[Everett] The aliens are here,
but they didn't arrive in a spaceship.
They came over
our unprotected Mexican border.
All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were illegal.
If Steve Holland had his way,
he would throw 'em one big party
with your tax dollars.
If we don't work to reverse the policies
of Steve Holland, we can expect this
[speaking Spanish]
I'm Everett Dutschke,
and after you elect me,
I'll work hard to protect your job.
[dramatic music on video]
Wow. He hated Holland with passion.
Just like me.
And I told Laura, "I admire this man."
"He is going to publish my story
on one of the world's
biggest kept secrets."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] As you earn
the hearts and minds of some people,
you also earn the ire of others.
One of those people
was Paul Kevin Curtis.
[music fades]
[reporter 1] Today in Oxford,
Kevin Curtis is back in federal court
for the second time.
[reporter 2] He remains
in a federal holding cell
while prosecutors continue
building their case.
Have investigators found anything?
Have they been able
to connect the dots here?
We have put in calls to the US attorney
and the FBI day after day,
and thus far, over the last three days
at least, they have said very little
if anything about this case.
[Thomason] So early that Monday morning,
court proceedings are going on
with Mr. Curtis.
John has a great idea.
"Let's do a trash pull
on Dutschke's house."
It's something we can do
without a warrant.
[Quaka] Trash pulls are rarely home runs,
but they're singles in baseball.
So I contacted the local trash company,
and then they took a truck
to Dutschke's house
with new cans.
And I'm following behind at a distance.
We swapped out his can for a new one,
and took it to my house,
dump it in my garage,
spread all the trash out,
and then we saw it.
John's holding up a bag, and he goes,
"Hey, does this mean anything?"
And as I turn around and look at it,
I see yellow paper.
[Quaka] Looked identical
to the threat letters.
All right. The trash pull got us on base.
[Thomason] I called
our surveillance team leader.
"Get your tail over to Tupelo. I got
somebody I want you to take a look at."
"But look, I want loose.
I want as light as you can be."
"You can't let him see you."
[tense music playing]
[Quaka] We were watching him
at the karate studio.
We observed him walk out
and throw away a box.
And after he left,
we went to that garbage can and recovered
a Black & Decker coffee grinder.
[Thomason] Our lab had been telling us,
if somebody's making ricin,
they're gonna use a coffee grinder.
And that's when it really hits.
"This isn't Kevin Curtis.
This is Everett Dutschke."
[Quaka] So now our number one question is,
what happened between these two?
How do you go
from a feud with a former friend
to sending ricin
to the president of the United States?
- [quiet, tense music playing]
- [indistinct speech over radio]
[soft music playing]
[Kevin] With Everett,
there was this hidden wall
in between us that you could just feel.
I-I really don't know why.
I don't know what it is.
But psychologically and spiritually,
you just know,
"I don't think he likes me.
I don't think he appreciates me."
[Janet] I remember
Everett coming home from work
and saying the younger Elvis brother
was kind of weird.
And was also a foot doctor,
and he would rub the feet
of the ladies at the insurance agency.
[Laura] At United American,
Everett filled a void.
Made me feel attractive again.
He became a very best friend
that I was attracted to.
[Kevin] At first,
I sent him some casual emails
explaining all of my research
into body part harvesting.
He doesn't reply to me.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] He kept trying to convince me
to run a story in my newspaper,
um, about some severed head nonsense
at the hospital.
Honestly, I have seen better logic
on episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.
[Kevin] Then I call him up on the phone
and leave a message,
and I say, "Look, I got fired.
I lost my job."
"I lost my house, my hot tub.
I lost my marriage."
"So I would really appreciate you
calling me back."
Never got a call back.
[Everett] If I had actually
published his nonsense,
do you think that he would have
possibly left me alone after that?
Not a chance in hell.
He's dodging me, ignoring my calls,
ignoring my emails, being so evasive.
I knew something's not right.
[Laura] Every day,
Everett would sit at my desk
and say,
"You're the most beautiful secretary."
"Jack, how does it feel
to have this gorgeous secretary?"
[Kevin] My ex-wife started
dropping his name more and more.
She would say he's being really nice
to her, he's complimenting her.
[Everett] This guy would not stop
harassing me about body parts.
I went to Jack first.
He didn't wanna deal with it.
So I talked to Laura, and Laura said,
quote, "He is obsessed with you."
This is not good.
[Laura] At work, we had a porch swing.
Everett would come sit by me.
And I'd say, "You don't need
to be sitting by me in the swing
because Kevin drives by,
and it's not gonna be pretty."
"He will ruin your life."
[Jack] I took my office to lunch.
And Dutschke was there. Laura was there.
[Laura] We're all sitting there,
having a good time,
and in strolls Kevin.
I feel like Kevin had followed us there
and was sitting out in the parking lot.
[Kevin] So I walk in, I look over,
and I see Everett Dutschke, my brother,
my ex-wife, and ten other agents.
[Everett] We were all surprised
to see him walk in.
It was like he was stalking us
or something.
Everett looked like
he was having a panic attack.
A scared mouse.
And I say, "I have left numerous messages
on your answering machine."
He's like, "Kevin, I'm not going
to get into this with you again."
"I can't afford to interview you
about your little body parts conspiracy."
And I said, "Excuse me? Conspiracy?"
[Everett] He just goes absolutely crazy
right there
in the middle of the restaurant.
[Laura] Kevin starts screaming at him.
"You were paid off
by the Northwestern Medical Center,"
and the body parts
I mean, he was upset.
We all jump in to try to calm Kevin down.
[music fades]
[Kevin] I gave him just a serious
"don't fuck with me" look.
I'm like, "Dutschke,
dating her is not an option."
[music resumes]
[man 1] The South loves a good feud.
You know, Priscilla left Elvis
for his karate instructor.
So the whole thing just seemed like it was
some type of weird parallel universe.
[woman] There was another man
in your life. Your karate teacher.
It was said that Elvis wanted him killed.
I think at that time, yes,
he wanted that to happen.
[grunting]
[man 2] This thing
between Everett and Kevin,
it became a war.
A war.
All right? Brutal.
[man 3] I have a quote on my wall.
"Beware that, when fighting monsters,
don't become a monster."
["Kung Fu Fighting" playing]
[Kevin] A couple of weeks
after our confrontation,
Everett walks into the insurance office
super excited, and he goes,
"Kevin,
I've made a major discovery."
"They are selling body parts."
And I was just like
[hesitates] "What?"
And he pulled out
little bags of edible gummy body parts.
[bell dings]
[Kevin] Goddamn it!
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
[Kevin] This guy that's ruining my life,
his intelligence is off the charts.
In fact
It was a little bit frightening ♪
[Kevin] I wasn't gonna back down.
I taught myself Bruce Lee's philosophy,
"No way is way."
[fighters grunting]
[Kevin] You have to dedicate yourself
every single day to be the strongest.
You have to outmaneuver,
outpower, outthink the enemy.
It's an ancient Chinese art ♪
[Kevin] I log on
to my Gateway 2000 computer.
Time for Kevin Curtis to rock and roll.
[Janet] I'm getting ready for work,
and my phone starts blowing up.
My friends are saying,
"Janet, what the hell is going on?"
And they say, "This guy named Billy Bobby
has put your face all over Facebook."
I scrolled down. It was Kevin's face
that I saw on our wedding photos.
[Everett] Who does that?
Who fucking does that?
It's like he was catfishing himself.
Now, as unbelievable as this sounds,
Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator,
he became a Dutschke impersonator.
Kung fu fighting ♪
[Everett] First, pictures started floating
around of him in a tae kwon do uniform,
which, by the way, that's sacrilegious.
This guy's never had a day of lessons
in his entire life.
Then he started dressing like me.
Then he started speaking like me.
I'm J. Everett Dutschke,
and I approve this message.
I am KC, and I approve this message.
[Jim] It was very strange behavior.
It was almost, um, infatuation.
He's always been obsessed over Everett.
[Kevin] Talk about obsessive?
Everett started secretly drilling
my followers on MySpace.
"Who is Kevin? What do you know?
Have you met him in person?"
I told Laura, "This guy is
literally obsessed with Kevin Curtis."
[Kevin, on video] Everett, you've been
to my MySpace page 70 times in one day.
He says, "I saw what you put on Facebook."
I said, "Quit stalking me, bitch."
Every day, this feud grew
by Curtis taunting him online.
[Kevin] "@everett,
you are a spineless coward,
a scared little pussycat,
and a washed-up Republican wannabe."
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
Those cats were fast as lightning ♪
[Kevin] Everett was mean to me.
He would constantly
insult my intelligence.
It says, "You, sir,
are a dumbass."
"I'm ready to, quote,
man up any time or day, dumbass."
It was apparent that he had a huge feud
with Kevin Curtis.
[Everett] What feud?
This guy was so far beneath me.
I mean, can Genghis Khan
feud with a fire ant?
"One of us is playing at Six Flags,
yet the other makes up bullshit stories
about going on tour
with Carrie Underwood. Dumbass."
[Everett] No one actually respects,
you know, Elvis impersonators.
They're, like,
one step above a party clown.
[Kevin] While I'm fighting this war
against my rival enemy,
Jack's agents would tell me
that they observed
Everett being, quote, "sweet on Laura."
So I confronted Laura.
"Is there something going on with him?"
And she says, "Well, I thought about it,
but he was too short and hairy."
[music stops]
You know, I always wondered,
how does Laura know how hairy this man is?
Everybody was kung fu fighting ♪
Kevin showed up, and he went ballistic.
He destroyed the office.
He was on a mission to find Everett.
And his exact words was,
"I'm going to effing kill him."
[line ringing]
[Kevin] I called him from my phone twice.
It went to voicemail.
I picked up Laura's cell phone,
dialed his number,
and he picked up on the second ring
and said, "Hey, sweetie."
And I'm like, "Okay, say no more.
Have a good day."
All gloves off.
Sat down at my computer.
One final move.
Clone. Copy-paste.
And I posted it.
[gentle music playing]
"Paul K. Curtis."
"Member of Mensa."
It looked really authentic.
Thirty seconds later, Dutschke emailed me.
"I'm giving you one day
to remove your fraudulent claims
from your website."
"By the way, Kevin,
you cannot be both a genius
and retarded at the same time."
"You were given your last chance."
"You blew it.
J. Everett Dutschke. Man up. Dumbass."
[Jim] It highly upset him.
He was the one that validated
whether you got it the right way,
whether you actually earned it.
[Everett] I handled the membership
of who is and who is not a Mensa member,
and I took that responsibility seriously.
Well, Paul Kevin Curtis is,
in fact, a dumbass.
When he posted a Mensa certificate,
I knew exactly what he was doing.
He was trying to be Dutschke again.
It was just one bridge too far.
[steady instrumental music playing]
[Steve] Have y'all heard
about the showdown at Verona?
Well, Verona is the largest
populated precinct in Lee County,
so it's the most important event
in the campaign.
[Kevin] I was just there
to entertain the people.
I saw Judge Sadie Holland,
Sheriff Jim Johnson,
David Daniels,
Senator Roger Wicker,
and I saw
State Representative Steve Holland.
[Everett] On Verona day,
I left black belt camp early.
Very discourteous thing to do.
Particularly somebody of my rank level.
You don't tell Grandmaster Chung,
"I gotta go,"
just so I can go win an election.
[Everett, on video] Don't move.
Get back to my right. In the lion's den.
[voice-over] My speech was designed,
in part, to be scathing to him.
And I saw a chance to take my swing.
When you do step up to that plate,
be bold, be brash,
have the courage, face your adversary,
then swing.
Mr. Holland has been a perfect example
of the exact kind of corruption
that began a revolution 231 years ago.
After federal indictments,
and after $55 million was stolen,
it is time to ask,
"Mr. Holland, can we have our money back?"
He just absolutely crucified
my family's reputation,
and I had to sit there and listen to that.
[Everett, on video]
Your time is done, Grandpa.
Mr. Holland,
you are fired.
[crowd murmuring]
But then Mother called him back
to the podium when she got up to speak.
She said, "I am ashamed of you."
"You just told the biggest pack of lies
I've ever heard in my life."
"So get on your knees
and apologize right now."
And he did.
- [crowd laughing]
- [subdued music playing]
I mean, it was public embarrassment.
[Everett] He said what?
[director] That you got on your knees
and apologized.
[Everett] That's the biggest
line of bullshit I've ever heard
in my entire life.
The only thing I'm sorry about
is that she has a son like Holland.
So fuck them.
[Steve] In the end, I won the election
in a landslide, 85-15,
which was what you call a country
ass-whipping in this part of the world.
I beat the ever-living hell out of him.
[man] Steve Holland is declared
[cheering]
Everett Dutschke was defeated soundly.
Didn't make much of a campaign.
That may have been the only time
he came across my consciousness.
[Steve] I guess not everybody
is ready for the crown
in this wonderful birthplace of the King.
[plaintive music playing]
[Steve] I understand that he was uninvited
to any future
Republican Party meetings after that.
So he became sort of a man without a home
and a man without a family.
I think his soul cooked
after that election.
He almost disappeared.
And things, for a while,
seemed to quiet down.
[plaintive music continues]
[Jimmy] One day, my daughter
comes home from school.
She was upset.
She said, "Dad,
we got off the school bus,
there's a guy
who was playing with himself
in the window."
[reporter 1] Lee County
law enforcement's phones
have been ringing off the hook today
as a number of children came home
reporting an incident
with concerning details.
[Jimmy] When he was finally arrested,
I heard his name was Everett Dutschke.
[reporter 2] Today, Tupelo police arrested
James Everett Dutschke.
[reporter 3] After his arrest
for indecent exposure,
an additional count of underage fondling
has been filed against Dutschke.
Dutschke had been arrested for some
misdemeanor offenses of indecent exposure.
Then we began to investigate
a felony crime
with a child under the age of 18.
And so that was where I realized
who Everett was for the very first time.
[Laura] Kevin and I
took the children to dinner,
and I said, "Everett got charged
with child molestation."
I was elated. I was so happy.
I literally flip out of my chair.
I bolt out of Ruby Tuesday.
People are looking at me.
You could see the look on his face.
I've never seen him that happy.
I was overjoyed with happiness.
[gleefully] Ha ha ha!
Finally, tangible evidence.
This guy is not good.
He's dark.
I go straight to Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo,
and I started tagging his ass.
"Can't wait to see you in court, Everett."
"Enjoy the grits and the cold biscuits."
"Oh yeah,
and they don't put sugar in the tea."
"You in Mississippi now, boy.
How's them chains feel around your legs?"
[Janet] All these charges come up,
and I mean And
There's, like
And they are demonizing him.
And then Kevin sent me
this very startling message,
saying sorry what happened to Everett.
That he will absolutely step in
and continue to teach me martial arts.
He'll be the father figure to my children
and continue Everett's legacy.
This very small molehill
has been blown way out of proportion,
and it has become a mountain
of unsurmountable proportions.
I'm very eager to clear my name.
[Laura] After that, when Everett got out,
Everett struck back.
- [suspenseful music playing]
- [heavy breathing through gas mask]
[man] Go ahead.
My name is Everett Dutschke. I, um
[hesitates]
Yesterday, during Kevin Curtis',
the ricin mailer
During his, uh, pretrial hearing,
um, his attorney accused me
of being the one that sent out
the ricin letters, instead of him.
This morning, I met with the FBI.
I consented to a search,
signed a piece of paper saying
go ahead and search the house.
They're doing that right now,
and the search may be going on all day.
[man] Did you have
anything to do with this?
I don't have anything at all to do
with this. I don't hardly know the guy.
In fact, uh,
we've only met on two occasions.
I don't know him very well at all.
Um I don't know anything about this.
[Thomason] So, April 23rd,
I've got a search team coming in.
Got a search warrant for the house
and martial arts studio.
[distant sirens wailing]
Asked some hard questions.
"Do you have a coffee bean grinder?"
He gets so flustered, then he looks at me
and goes, "Hey, hey. You need to refocus."
"Now, let's move this thing
back to Kevin Curtis."
A local reporter called
and said they wanted to talk to him,
and he's sitting there
looking in the window,
trying to fix his hair,
getting ready for his interview.
He goes, "Hey, you ready?"
I looked at him and said,
"What are you talking about?"
He goes, "We gotta go outside
and talk to the television."
And I'm just like,
"You're an even bigger moron
than I thought."
This man right here who now joins us,
Everett Dutschke, what is
your relationship with Kevin Curtis?
You'd have to ask Kevin.
I have no relationship with Kevin.
I met the gentleman on two occasions.
[Jim] It was very strange behavior.
I mean,
he was wanting to talk to the media.
He was walking up and down.
All about control.
[Quaka] He was trying to create a facade
that he did not do this
and that Kevin Curtis did it.
Don't defend your case
by immediately trying to point out
somebody else.
He kept telling us,
"I'm caught up in this madman's fantasy."
It just simply blows my mind
that the paranoid
anti-government schizophrenic
is the one that wraps up me
in his fantasy world.
There's a madman fantasy here,
no doubt about that.
Just not sure whose it is.
[Quaka] We seized his computer,
and manuals had been found
on that hard drive about ricin.
I have absolutely nothing
to do with any of this.
[Thomason] Our computer experts find
he ordered 100 castor beans
from somebody in Illinois.
- [reporter] Have you ever handled ricin?
- Hold on a second. Uh, no.
I wouldn't
I wouldn't recognize ricin if I saw it.
And then we found
five different positive ricin hits.
Did a swab.
We found a dust mask
and latex gloves as well.
[reporter 1] Did you
have a feud with Curtis?
I was very upset with him
for posting a fake Mensa certificate
on a website.
Uh, he is not a Mensa member. Um
- [reporter 2] Will they find it?
- Of course not.
[reporter 3] Will they find
anything suspicious?
Everybody has something suspicious
in their house,
but no, there's nothing that's related
to these letters. There's nothing
Everett was one of the guys that thinks
he's the smartest person in the room.
And I've met those people before.
They are intelligent,
but they're overconfident,
and that's a weakness.
[heavy breathing through gas mask]
[Thomason] As we concluded
this investigation,
we learned Dutschke hated politicians.
He really hated the government.
There were three victims.
The Hollands.
Senator Wicker. President Obama.
He had a grudge against all three.
[Steve] The FBI told me,
"There was an email that we intercepted
where Dutschke said,
'I really wanted to kill Holland,
but it would hurt him more
to kill his mother.'"
I've about decided that actually
I might have been the target.
I'm a mama's baby
of extraordinary proportions,
and maybe he just said, "What the heck.
If I get his mama, I've got him."
[Janet] After that election,
Roger Wicker and the Republican Party,
everyone just kind of like
turned their back on him.
I told the FBI
Everett hated President Obama.
He thought Obama was this horrible person
that was gonna bring our world down.
[Christi] I do not believe that
Mr. Dutschke, in creating this scheme,
did so with Kevin as the target.
I think it was a terrorist act aimed at
the heart of our United States government.
[Everett] I'm gonna have to
come to terms with
the fact that I'm America's bad guy.
Remember, "Fight not with monsters,
lest you become one."
I had to be the one
to fight those battles
against every injustice that I saw.
Against every single wrong.
Against every single monster that I saw.
How do we know
when we have reached that point?
Pol Pot, Hitler,
Bin Laden, for God's sake.
They all think that they are doing good.
[Kevin] I told the FBI
his evil plan was to send letters
to his rival archenemies
that were also my enemies.
[Jim] He had to figure a way
to connect Kevin with these people.
Because he knew, in our investigation,
that's what we were gonna do.
I hate to say this, but that was
actually intelligent on his part.
Honestly, it was a pretty good frame.
In my opinion, he is a bona fide genius.
At that point, we were all very confident
that we had gotten it right
the second time.
[tense music playing]
[Kevin] I spent seven days in isolation,
solitude, confinement.
I felt hopeless.
And I was scared to death.
It was brutal.
I remember my attorney, Christi McCoy,
walked into the room, sat down with me,
and she said,
"You're about to be a free man, Kevin.
This is about to be over."
And I just started crying.
- [gentle music playing]
- [Kevin sniffles]
Sorry.
Yeah.
[sniffles]
[sniffles]
- [gentle music playing]
- [indistinct chatter]
[reporter] Another breaking story
we're following.
The Mississippi man
accused of sending ricin-tainted letters
to President Obama and other officials
has been cleared.
The charges against Paul Kevin Curtis
were dropped today.
[cameras clicking]
I don't know if I'm allowed to comment.
Christi, am I allowed to comment
on my book or anything right now?
- Let's just wait.
- [Christi] Let's keep it on this.
Let's keep it on this subject.
- How does it feel to be a free man?
- It feels amazing.
- Wonderful.
- What do you think about this experience?
Overwhelming, to say the least.
When you've been charged with something,
and you just
You've never heard of ricin or whatever.
I thought they said rice,
so I said, "I don't even eat rice."
And, uh, you know, so, uh
- I've prepared a statement here.
- Come on up.
[Christi] A lot of things have happened
in the past week,
but there's nothing
that any of us can compare
to what Kevin has been through.
[Kevin] I respect President Obama.
I love my country
and would never do anything
to pose a threat to him
or any other US official.
This past week has been a nightmare
for myself and my family.
I would like to get back to normal,
which for me means being the best father
that I can be to my children
and entertaining through my music.
Thank you.
[indistinct chatter]
Oh my God, this is over, you know?
Relief and exoneration for the family.
I was just so emotional.
And happy for Kevin.
We're gonna be able to wake up tomorrow,
all of us, and just have a normal day.
And, uh, we're just super excited
and just very, very thankful.
[Kevin] When I got home,
I saw that 45,000 people
logged onto my YouTube page
and clicked on one of my videos.
[gasps] Wow,
so I'm getting some recognition.
Now I can publish my book, my screenplay.
Now I can get
the House Bill Resolution passed.
And I realized
if Everett had not framed me,
the world wouldn't know
who Kevin Curtis is.
So, Everett Dutschke
[as Elvis]thank you very much.
Danke schoen ♪
[reporter 1] Feels like
a Coen brothers' movie.
I don't care what you hear today.
I didn't do it. Period. Deal with it.
[reporter 1] A strange Southern tale
of Elvis impersonators,
organ harvesting conspiracies,
and Internet fights
over Mensa certificates.
- So they're online rivals. [laughs]
- [man] Right. Whatever that means.
[laughing] Elvis impersonator and
- And a karate instructor.
- [laughter continues]
[Kevin] I am a licensed reflexologist.
And I'm gonna donate 100,000 hours
to all you ladies
who need foot massage therapy.
- [audience laughing]
- [mouths] What?
You know, he seems like a good guy.
We're now witnessing
one of the most bizarre cases ever.
CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, you got everybody.
I said, "You're famous now.
The whole world knows about this."
Then I'm rushed to New York City
for The Today Show, Inside Edition,
Katie Couric.
Danke schoen ♪
[man] A conspiracy theorist finds himself
at the center of a conspiracy.
He has to be somewhat happy. Correct?
[Kevin] We can't go on together ♪
With suspicious minds ♪
What a week it has been for you.
I know you're grateful to your lawyers,
and even offered a foot massage, so
There's this bad blood between you,
and it just escalated?
[Kevin, voice-over] All fully paid.
The New York Plaza Hotel.
I never stayed in a hotel room like this.
I didn't know they existed.
This is like Sylvester Stallone's room.
It was gold.
[reporter] James Everett Dutschke
was sentenced today
to 25 years in federal prison.
Curtis is just happy an arrest was made.
I was just like
[exhales deeply]
[man] We tried to get hold of Curtis,
but he's giving a bunch of women
foot massages.
100,000 hours?
Danke schoen, oh darling ♪
[Kevin] I was the new king
of the conspiratorial world.
It put me in a whole new seat,
as far as global respect,
with mostly conspiracy people.
[reporter] Kevin,
what are your plans right now?
Huh. Um
Find my dog, Moo Cow.
Good news. Moo Cow, the dog, is safe.
They found Moo Cow!
[barking]
Danke schoen ♪
Auf Wiedersehen ♪
Danke schoen ♪
[music fades]
[water bubbling]
[Steve] William Faulkner famously said,
"In the South, the past is not dead."
"It's not even the past."
And over the years,
this story has caused me
a lot of introspection.
[quiet, gentle music playing]
I mean, it sounds strange. It really does.
But sometimes I almost tear up
when I think about it.
Just the whole episode.
I grieve a little bit
that a human being
that is allegedly as "smart" as he was
would tragically wind up
with an ending like this.
Mississippi, you're on my mind ♪
[Everett] Tupelo,
it crushed me.
My previous life,
despite the dangers of it,
was much easier
than just living a normal life.
[scoffs]
One of the sad tragedies
of this whole thing is that
what other people call normal life
is the one thing that I could
never get right and do well.
I keep asking myself,
was there anything ever
good and kind and meek in his life?
Did he have real friendship?
Did he ever have any joy?
[Everett] The people of Tupelo,
they're fiercely abnormal,
unnatural beings.
They're carnies
that I never could make sense out of
'cause nothing there is normal.
[Steve] And if I'm still around
when he gets out,
hell, he can come eat with me.
He can come to a party at the farm
on a Sunday night.
I'll say, "This is
my old buddy Everett Dutschke."
"He got out of the pen, thank God."
[Everett] Here's the thing.
If you're not careful,
you're gonna find yourself kidnapped.
Like me. Captured by the carny freaks
that are there.
And then developing an affinity
for these back-biting, disloyal,
highly dysfunctional
soap opera characters.
Mississippi, you're on my mind ♪
[Everett] And then you'll learn too late
that you really end up
loving these carnies.
They become like a second family.
[Steve] Hell yeah.
[Everett] I guess that's
something that I miss.
You're on my mind ♪
Oh ♪
Mississippi, you're on my ♪
[Elois] Before I die,
I got two things I wanna do.
I wanna go to Graceland,
and I wanna see Double Trouble.
Because that was a beautiful show
that they messed up.
[mellow music playing]
[Jack] It's been a long time.
I mean, it's been years
since we've performed together.
Kevin and I are putting our show
back together.
We're gonna be
doing a performance very soon.
So Double Trouble is back.
[Kevin] As the journey came to an end
and the dust began to settle,
in the chaos of being framed
in a presidential assassination plot,
KC reflected on the past years
of false arrests,
stalkers, and death threats
and came to the realization
it was time for a new purpose.
[music continues]
All I want in life's a little ♪
Wise men say ♪
[Jimmy] Ladies and gentlemen,
tonight, after 20 years,
Kevin Curtis and Jack Curtis
presents Double Trouble.
The last time they performed
was right here in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Elvis often had dreams about his brother,
Jesse Garon, getting on stage with him.
So sit back, relax,
and enjoy Double Trouble
and Fever the band.
I will love you till I die ♪
And I will love you all the time ♪
So please ♪
Put your sweet hand in mine ♪
And float in space ♪
And drift in time ♪
All I want in life's
A little bit of love ♪
- To take the pain away ♪
- Until I die ♪
- Getting strong today ♪
- We'll float in space ♪
- A giant step each day ♪
- Just you and I ♪
And I will love you till I die ♪
And I will love you all the time ♪
All I want in life's a little ♪
Wise men say ♪
[Kevin] When I started out
writing my screenplay,
all I had were missing pieces.
And I couldn't make sense of anything.
But through this process,
I discovered the missing piece
is your family,
the connection with your children,
your mother,
your father,
your brother.
Now, I had to do several rewrites.
The story began missing pieces,
but guess what?
It's gonna end with
There are no missing pieces.
I know what's important now.
He realized the "missing pieces" was
I can't help falling ♪
[Kevin]was just that
Family.
In love with you ♪
[Kevin] Today, I am no longer active
in the world of conspiracy.
I've already come to terms with
"I'm done with it."
I'm bored with it.
It's a negative for me now.
So I have retired the sword of justice.
I just wanna live a peaceful, nice life.
Falling in love with you ♪
[music fades]
[Kevin] Let it burn, burn, burn ♪
The ring of fire ♪
The ring of fire ♪
I recently googled
the Everett Dutschke case,
and a picture of the attorney-general
with the husband of my attorney,
Christi McCoy, at a party came up.
And I'm like, "Oh shit. What?"
Okay, my brain starts churning.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute."
There's something hidden in this.
There is a conspiracy.
We all know that Everett is
a high-ranking black belt in tae kwon do.
We all know that he is highly intelligent.
It is extremely possible
that he was an operative of the CIA.
[Kevin] Hello, Everett.
I will get straight to my purpose
for writing to you.
I need answers
to some deeply troubling questions.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Everett] You have to understand
the 2013 ricin letters
is far, far bigger than Kevin Curtis.
In September of 2012,
I was working counter intelligence, CIA,
and I was given dangerous information
about operational funding of terrorism.
[Kevin] Was this all
an elaborate government operation?
At what point does a series of events
transform into a covert operation?
What aren't we being told?
[Everett] The financial files
that I was given
uh, were very, very damaging
to Obama administration officials.
And I refused to relinquish it to them.
[Kevin] There's something deep within me
that feels Everett Dutschke
was framed also.
He was ruffling the feathers
of some very powerful people,
and they had reason to get rid of him.
And the people that got rid of him
hated me also.
[Everett] No, no.
Uh, Kevin Curtis is not a part of this.
Uh, he was just a low-level patsy
in this whole scheme.
[Kevin] Is it possible
that you were framed
in orchestrating a frame-up against me?
A framing of a framing?
[Kevin] Ask yourself, do you really think
that this genius
would go online and go,
"I'll take a pint of castor beans"?
[Everett] I had to learn the hard way
in 2013
that you do not defy that State Department
with that administration.
[Kevin] Why were we such a threat
to the good ole boys' system?
Why did they work so hard
to silence us both?
[Everett] No, no. This had absolutely
nothing to do with Paul Kevin Curtis.
This is about my data
and how the most powerful people
in this country
would do anything to prevent someone
from ever disclosing that data.
[Kevin] It's becoming increasingly clear
that a larger, more powerful group
is pulling the strings,
and it's high time we exposed them.
We should team up
and finally become the real Double Trouble
of northeast Mississippi,
tearing down corruption
one kick at a time.
I am KC, and I approve this message.
[Everett] Jesus Christ,
it is absolutely paramount
that you understand
what I'm about to tell you.
I find it really, really hard to believe
that the CIA did not already know
the relevant information
that was in that file.
In fact, now I believe
the CIA actually put it there.
I now think
that the Daraa source was ours.
In part, because of the effort to present
that the Qatari was part of my Aon,
and the fact
that the code name is not Indari.
But what if the source wasn't Daraa?
What if it was ours?
More specifically, what if we were theirs?
[music intensifies]
[Everett] So there's
so much deep backstory.
So many chains of cause and effect.
So many different threads
that go here and there.
And so many dead ends.
No amount of analysis
can get me to 100% confirmation,
which leaves me
with just a bunch of unanswered questions.
How am I supposed to ever get the answers
stuck in here?
How am I supposed
to ever get those answers?
[music quietens]
[Everett] You see,
my head's just in turmoil today.
You don't even have a clue
what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I got to, uh, see
the end of American Idol last night.
And, uh, the person that won
should have won, so that's
All is right with the universe sometimes.
[country music playing]
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Each other blue ♪
- Each other blue ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two? ♪
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
You run round with
Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Joe ♪
And I turn round
And date every girl that I know ♪
It makes no sense, it makes no sense ♪
To do the way we do ♪
'Cause we both know that you love me ♪
And everybody knows how I love you ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Crazy me ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Foolish you ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Fools that make ♪
- Each other blue ♪
- Each other blue ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two? ♪
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
Why do we break ♪
Our hearts in two?
Crazy me, foolish you ♪
[as Elvis] Thank you very much.
You've been a wonderful audience.
Foolish you ♪
Crazy me ♪
[steady instrumental music playing]