Danny Gans died one year ago today

It was a year ago today that the world learned of the death of Las Vegas musical impressionist, Strip superstar and uniquely American show business legend Danny Gans. One year later, the feature-length articles on the unexplored areas of his life and the unanswered and uninvestigated aspects of his death that more than one Las Vegas journalist had promised would be written have yet to materialize. And neither of the two daily newspapers has posted any mention of the tragic anniversary on its website.

Read our coverage here.

And click here to visit the official Danny Gans website, which includes performance footage and other Gans, including his favorite recipes, cooked by his wife Julie, who reported his death at age 52 in his bedroom in the early hours of May 1, 2009, to police.

The 911 call

911 calls: Corey Haim vs. Danny Gans

JUDY HAIM 911 CALL ..... JULIE GANS 911 CALL

How would one react upon awakening to find a loved one unexpectedly unresponsive, and from all indications, dead? The continuing drumbeat of celebrity deaths and the intense investigation and speculation accorded them by the media have made these awful events open to public scrutiny and interpretation. In January, we contrasted the 911 call made by the mother of tragic actress Brittany Murphy with the call made in the early hours of May 1st by the wife of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans. Today, it is the 911 call made by Judy Haim, mother of addict and former teen idol Corey Haim, that reveals the reactions and actions of those tossed into the grief-stricken maelstrom of prescription drug-related death vary considerably, and are certainly not so easy to judge.

COREY HAIM DEATH SITE, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA

DANNY GANS DEATH HOUSE, HENDERSON, NEVADA

Click here for Sharon Murphy's 911 call

DANNY GANS EXCLUSIVE: Cops say "there is no evidence to not believe Mrs. Gans' timeline" on death-- despite manager's statement

A spokesman for the Henderson, Nevada Police Department says that recent comments by Danny Gans' manager do not lead them to question the accepted timeline about Gans' death on May 1st, nor to suspect any evidence of foul play.

Tabloid Baby has been in contact with Henderson Police spokesman Keith Paul since the beginning of the week. After conferring with detectives assigned to the Gans case, he told us exclusively:

"There is absolutely no evidence based on their investigation to not believe Mrs. Gans' timeline. There is no indication of foul play, no indication for us to suspect that Mrs. Gans' timeline is incorrect or that Mr. Gans was dead for any perceptible amount of time prior to his wife calling.

"Again, there is absolutely no indication of foul play."

Danny Gans' wife Julie called the Henderson 911 operator at 3:44 a.m. on May 1st, to say she had awakened four minutes earlier to find her 52-year-old husband was not breathing. She then performed CPR while the 911 operator guided her through the motions.

In the December 23rd edition of the Las Vegas Sun, however, Gans' manager Chip Lightman spoke of how he learned his friend and client had passed away:

“I get a call at 3:15 in the morning, and it’s Julie, his wife, and she goes, ‘Dan is gone.’ I’m like, “What!?” At that moment, it was like I was dreaming. I didn’t think I was awake and on the phone, and then I go, What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘Danny died, Chip.’

“...I asked, ‘When did it happen?’ She said, ‘A couple of hours ago.’”


Lightman's statement not only indicated that Danny Gans had been discovered dead hours earlier, but that his wife had phoned Lightman a half hour before calling 911.

Police spokesman Paul would not say if detectives had interviewed Lightman about his latest story, or whether they had checked cell and home phone records in their investigation. "We will not be releasing details into the death investigation," he said.

Las Vegas news media fails again

Of perhaps equal significance, Paul also told us that no other news organization-- not the Las Vegas Sun, whose columnist John Katsilometes got the explosive scoop, not the competing Las Vegas Review-Journal, not any television news outfit, blogger or gossip columnist, had contacted Henderson Police to inquire about this latest twist. No one in the Las Vegas news media has followed up since December 23rd, despite the fact that Tabloid Baby representatives had reached out to Katsilometes and several other Las Vegas journalists to tip them on the story.

No one with a journalistic background could deny the Lightman statement was provocative and compelling. Any journo with a stake in Las Vegas crime reporting would check it out, even knock it down. But no curiosity whatsoever? Not even a phone call?

That's another reason the behaviour of the Las Vegas news media has become a story of its own.

LISTEN TO JULIE GANS' 911 CALL

From Danny to Donny: Gans line lives on

Musical impressionist Danny Gans may be a distant memory in Las Vegas in 2010, but a little bit of his act and legacy live on thanks to Donny Osmond, whose sibling show with sister Marie at the Flamingo was produced by Gans and his manager Chip Lightman.

Las Vegas Sun entertainment columnist John Katsilometes mentions in another 2009 wrapup column that the crowd-pleasing Gans, who was guaranteed to bring the audience to its feet more than once in every show, gave his pal Donny am "awww"-inspiring line he uses every night:

"A line Danny Gans gave to Donny Osmond: When Donny is cheered during 'Puppy Love,' he says, 'I still got it.' Osmond still uses it in the show at Flamingo."

Katsilometes brought a new twist to the Danny Gan's death in an article published on December 23rd, in which Lightman contradicts the official police report that says Julie Gans told Henderson Police Detective Chad Mitchell that she suddenly awoke at 3:40 a.m. when she no longer heard her husband's snoring dialed 911 four minutes later:

Said Lightman:

"I get a call at 3:15 in the morning, and it’s Julie, his wife, and she goes, 'Dan is gone.' I’m like, 'What!?' At that moment, it was like I was dreaming. I didn’t think I was awake and on the phone, and then I go, 'What do you mean?' And she said, 'Danny died, Chip.' I’m saying, 'No.' She said, 'Call whoever you have to call and let them know, and I’ll talk to you later.'

"I asked, 'When did it happen?' She said, 'A couple of hours ago.'"

No Las Vegas news organization has yet followed up on the story. In fact, one prominent Las Vegas journalist suggested in an email that this out-of-state volunteer organization do the work they're paid to do:

"Nobody cares about Gans as much as you do... Why would you 'want' us to investigate it? If you're this big-shot investigative guy... and you're convinced there's a big story being covered up in a concerted, orchestrated effort by a daily newspaper, wouldn't you be trying to uncover and sell it yourself?"

Aside from the "selling," every "journo" in Las Vegas knows that's what we've been doing for eight months now...

DANNY GANS BOMBSHELL: MANAGER SAYS VEGAS STAR DIED "A COUPLE OF HOURS" BEFORE HIS WIFE CALLED 911

LEILA NAVIDI

In a shocking interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Danny Gans’ manager has raised disturbing new questions about the circumstances of the musical impressionist’s drug-related death.

Chip Lightman, who was first to receive word from Gans’ wife Julie that the Las Vegas Strip star had died in his bed early on the morning of May 1st, indicates that Gans may have died hours earlier than police reported, and that Julie Gans phoned Lightman a half hour before she called 911.

STEVE MARCUS/LAS VEGAS SUN

According to the incident report from the Henderson Police Department, Gans’ wife Julie (“Julia”) awoke “at approximately 0340 hours… and realized Daniel was no longer snoring. When Julia checked on Daniel she realized he was unresponsive and she could not tell if he was breathing and or if he had a pulse.  Julia immediately called 911.”

Lightman, however, tells Sun columnist John Katsilometes that Julie Gans called him at 3:15 a.m., and told him that Gans had died “a couple of hours ago.”

“I get a call at 3:15 in the morning, and it’s Julie, his wife, and she goes, ‘Dan is gone.’  I’m like, 'What!?’  At that moment, it was like I was dreaming.  I didn’t think I was awake and on the phone, and then I go, 'What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘Danny died, Chip.’ I’m saying, ‘No.’  She said, ‘Call whoever you have to call and let them know, and I’ll talk to you later.’

“I asked, ‘When did it happen?’ She said, ‘A couple of hours ago.’”

Henderson police report that Julie Gans called 911 at 3:44 a.m.


Lightman also responds to a question Tabloid Baby first asked in the days following Gans’ death: why he immediately phoned Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen turned local entertainment reporter who flaunted her close relationship with Gans, to inform her of Gans' passing.

“I had collected my thoughts, and I thought, ‘OK, how do I get the word out? Do I get Steve Wynn up at about 4 in the morning and tell him?  Or do I call (Wynn Las Vegas spokeswoman) Jennifer Dunne?  ... I finally just called Alicia.  She was the first person I thought of to get the word out, get it on the air, and I knew her number.  When something like that happens, you’re in shock.  Danny had just done an interview with her, and she was fresh on my mind when I thought ‘media.’  I thought, ‘I’ll just call Alicia.’  They were friends, too.”

HENDERSON, NEVADA POLICE REPORT

Lightman’s latest statements are all the more disturbing in light of the fact that they come more than seven months after Gans’ death, with more than enough time to prepare his answers, and after he and others close to the situation have altered their stories more than once to fit new information and circumstances that arise.


And while it's Lightman's backhanded swipe at Gans' widow in an interview to promote the Gans autobiography that stands out, Lightman's latest version also paints a very different picture of Gans.

While he once claimed that Gans seemed to be in perfect health in the days leading to his death, he now tells Katsilometes that the star was ill.

“A few days before he died, I said, ‘You don’t look like you feel well.’  He said, “I’ve been fighting something.  I’m just drained beyond drained.  My shoulder has been acting up, the kids are sick, everyone around me is sick.’  The Wednesday night before he died — we always sat and met before onstage, usually at 7:10 — and he didn’t look good.  He looked worn out..."

He admits that Gans may have been using steroids-- for his vocal cords:

"People said to me, when the coroner’s (report) hadn’t come out yet, 'We know he’s doing tons of steroids, and he had bulked up like the Hulk,' and all this stuff.  And you know, if Dan did that, he didn’t do it around me.  If Dan took any steroids, it was for his voice, to lessen the inflammation on his vocal chords...  He worked out five days a week, and he had a 2,000-square-foot gym at his house."

He even says Gans' Encore Theatre may have been cursed.

“The biggest concern was the room People said it was a bad-luck room, it’s cursed.  Dan was saying, ‘Spamalot didn’t work, Avenue Q before Spamalot didn’t work.  Nothing has worked, and they were very good shows.’"

The Henderson Police Department investigation into Gans’ death was open for almost two months, but no criminal charges were filed.  We do not know if the police looked into the records of Gans' home or Chip Lightman's phone calls.

Julie Gans and her children moved to Los Angeles during that time.  Although the three teenage children have been brought out to speak with the media twice since the tragic death, Julie Gans has not been seen in public.

The Las Vegas news media as a group deliberately avoided any investigation of the circumstance of Gans' death or unexamined private life (Katsilometes wrote the day after Gans’ death about rumours of Gans’ steroid use — but never followed up), and Steve Friess, a local blogger, comp queen, New York Times stringer and close associate with Gans boss Steve Wynn, joined with Jacobs in a campaign to stop any investigation into the death and in fact, have this site shut down.

Public perception of the Born Again Christian, athletic, corporate entertainer has shifted in recent months with the revelations that a pharmacy co-owned by Gans marketed a male erection party pill.  Gans’ children, brought out to face the media last month to promote the recently-published autobiography, changed a story they’d told earlier to acknowledge that their father did take prescription medication.

Developing...

AUDIO: JULIE GANS' 911 call

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

Cops release Danny Gans report & 911 tape

Thanks to the persistence of TabloidBaby.com correspondent on the scene, police in Henderson, Nevada have released the incident report and 911 tape from the morning of May 1st, when paramedics were called to his home to find Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans dead of what would be revealed as an overdose of the powerful opiate Dilaudid.

According to the five page report written by Detective Chad Mitchell, Gans' wife Julia said her husband had been asleep since the afternoon of May 31st.

At about 6 pm, she asked her son to awaken Gans, but that he decided not to wake him up because he was snoring.

Four hours later she went to the master bedroom and found Gans asleep in bed-- lying on his back with his feet slightly elevated. Gans was still snoring. Julia Gans said she thought nothing of it because he often snored when he slept.

She said she awoke at 3:40 am and realized he wasn't snoring.

The report says Julia Gans couldn't tell if he was breathing or if he had a pulse. She called 911 and was given instructions on how to administer CPR. She pulled Gans off the bed, put him on the floor and performed CPR until Henderson police arrived.

Danny Gans was dead.

Julia Gans told Henderson Police investigators that at the direction of the police she had gathered and placed all of her husband's medications so they could be examined.

Henderson Police collected the evidence she gave them, and according to the report, noted "nothing remarkable" about the number of pills that were found and counted.

Coroner's investigators examined Gans' body and noticed that his faced was swollen and red. They found nothing during the examination that suggested foul play.

Police also released the 911 tape in which Julia Gans calls the dispatcher and says she can't tell if her husband is breathing.

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE 911 TAPE

While the local Las Vegas news media has willfully ignored, underplayed and failed to pursue leads in the story, we revealed on Monday that the Henderson Police had not closed the books on the Gans case, despite the controversial and incomplete conclusion (accidental "toxic reaction") from the Clark County Coroner on June 9th.

Today, Henderson Police say the Danny Gans case is closed.

Developing...

READ THE POLICE INCIDENT REPORT
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE):