Will the DEA enter the Danny Gans case?

Is the Drug Enforcement Administration entering the investigation into the drug overdose of Las Vegas superstar entertainer Danny Gans?

After all, the musical impressionist died at 53 after ingesting a powerful opiate he did not have a prescription for — "drug store heroin” that was given to him by an associate or pusher, or acquired by a doctor under an assumed name. Such illegal activities are currently being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department in the apparent drug overdose death of superstar entertainer Michael Jackson. The LAPD has reportedly asked federal drug agents to help them find out who was feeding painkillers to 50-year-old Jacko. But will the enablers, pushers and Dr. Feelgoods who helped grease Danny Gans’ skids to oblivion at 53 be brought to justice? Not very damn likely. CASE CLOSED Police in Henderson, Nevada closed the case on the same day Jacko died, despite glaring clues and questions raised by their incident report, and after eight weeks in which the lead detective apparently did the same thing the corrupted Las Vegas news media did: sat back and waited for a politician to give him the news. We decided to give the Las Vegas news media a week to let the police report sink in, and react in some investigative way to the fact that police closed the case with minimal investigation. With the events unfolding in the Michael Jackson in such stark contrast to the secrecy and palm-greasing so evident in the Gans aftermath — and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which still has not reported what its journalists know about Danny Gans’ habits and lifestyle, reprinting Associated Press reports that detail allegations and findings about Jackson’s drug abuse (even though the toxicology report is still pending), they’d be bound to come up with something. They didn’t. Danny Gans is past history in Las Vegas now, swept under the sand like those bodies in the desert. The Vegas journalism ambassador and symbol of all that’s wrong in “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” local media scene, national freelancer, comp queen and Gay Vegas author Steve Friess (above right) celebrates Jacko’s death in today's Las Vegas Weekly, stating that “Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson’s music” because “a dead Michael Jackson provides show producers in Vegas… no more surprises.“ Enough (for now) with these bozos with buffet coupons.

NEVER MIND THE 911 CALL Ponder this line from the skimpy police report typed up by Detective Chad Mitchell, of the Henderson Police Department, the lead investigator in the Danny Gans death case: “Julia told me at the direction of the Henderson Police she had gathered and placed all of her husband’s medications on a table located directly outside of the master bedroom doorway so that they could be examined. "Henderson Crime Scene Analyst Jennie Ayers then responded to the scene to complete the procesing and collection of evidence...” "Julia" is better known as Danny Gans' wife Julie, and with all due respect to her, in the case of a premature death in the initial hours of investigation, especially one as high-profile as that of Danny Gans, the wife is often regarded as “the first suspect.” Yet in this case, she was allowed to go alone into what we’d assume would be the bathroom, and come out on her own with a selection of medications to be examined. What, if anything, did Julie Gans choose to not show the police officers? Detective Chad Mitchell also indicates he did nio further investigation while awaiting the autopsy: "ENTERED DATE 5/5/2009 “Upon conducting the autopsy, (pathologist) Dr. (Gary) Telgenhoff was unable to determine the cause of death and told me that he would need to wait for the toxicology results to rule the cause and manner of Daniel’s death. Dr. Telgenhoff did not feel that foul play was involved in the death. This case will remain open until the results of the autopsy are available.” By all indications, Detective Chad Mitchell did what the Las Vegas news media did in the six weeks between Danny Gans’ mysterious, untimely death and Mike Murphy’s press conference: He waited. When Tabloid Baby’s man in Las Vegas tried to obtain a copy of the police report on June 22nd, he was told, and we broke the news, that the case was still open. As it turned out, Detective Chad Mitchell was not out doing shoe leather research all that time-- he was on vacation. At our prodding, he typed out the final entries in the report and Henderson police released the report and the long-withheld 911 tape on Thursday, June 25th, only to be overshadowed by the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson the same day. "ENTERED DATE 6/25.2009 “The Clark County Coroner has ruled the death iof Daniel Gans an accident. The case will be closed non-criminal.” The autopsy on Michael Jackson was inconclusive, as well, but in the week since his body was found unresponsive in his bedroom, journalists and police alike have worked to uncover leads in the case without waiting for a toxicology report from the coroner. Friends and associates have been interviewed, property has been searched, and most important, the hunt is on for the person or persons who supplied Michael Jackson with the drugs that killed him. One of Danny Gans’s doctors stepped forward shakily after the coroner’s findings to insist he wasn’t currently prescribing Danny Gans any hydromorphone and that his own search of computer records showed no doctor in Nevada or California was either. Despite the doctor’s cockamamie single-bullet theory that Gans was done in by an accidental dose from a five-year-old prescription, the revelation should have been enough for Detective Chad Mitchell to strap on his shoulder holster and do some investigating. Detective Chad Mitchell’s not talking. Neither is the crime scene analyst. But it has been stated that Julie Gans and her family do not want to know more, and do not want the public to know more, than the scant details released by the coroner. JUSTICE From the start, we've been talking about "justice" for Danny Gans. It doesn't matter that he didn't practice the clean life he preached. He was an entertainment giant who employed many people, added a new facet to the Las Vegas scene and chose cannily to market himself to two of the biggest niche audiences in the Western world: tourists and evangelical Christians. It's the police's job to find out who gave him the oxymorphone that killd him-- as well as all the other drugs in his body that the politician coroner wouldn't reveal. It's the job of the news media to be the watchdogs and sniff out evidence on their own. For now, there is no justice for Danny Gans. His killers remain at large. We'll leave it to the mayor of Las Vegas, and his words on the day Danny Gans died-- and the comments from our readers on the day the Dany Gans case was closed:

"He lived the life he preached. It was always a clean show, it was always a wholesome show. That's the way he really lived. That's unusual in and of itself. Most people are a little bit phony about that, but Danny Gans was not a phony,"

--Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman

Anonymous said... I find it odd in the 911 call that the wife is clearly talking directly into the phone (not on speaker)-- how was she able to do that while using both hands to do chest compression? Couldn't hear any of the children's voices or the son's when they were moving him from the bed to the floor but you can hear her direct in the phone when she is compressing with both hands - huh?? No background voices, no emotion, very odd. Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:02:00 PM PDT Anonymous said... I know people respond differently to a crisis, but honestly, could she sound any more bored or like this was routine? Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:52:00 PM PDT Anonymous said... You mean that the Gans death gets a pass on drug enablers, unlike Michael Jackson ? Wow, the Vegas Press and Police really CAN be bought off by casino owners ! In the wake of the Michael Jackson death, they are going after the drug "enablers" or "drug peddler" that surrounded Michael and caused his death. This is a manslaughter charge in any state...except, apparently, in Nevada. ...It is a disgrace that this case is not being investigated. Wednesday, July 1, 2009 1:36:00 PM PDT