Hollander instructed the prosecutors she’d obtained the inexperienced plastic bin from Candice Hurst, Brown’s former hairdresser and backup singer. She mentioned Hurst was so apprehensive in regards to the contents of the bin that she anticipated to “go to jail if these items got here to gentle.”
In a 2017 interview, Hurst instructed me she’d stored a few of the gadgets within the bin to show her innocence with regard to Brown’s demise. She mentioned she was not in Atlanta the evening Brown died. However she apprehensive that the gadgets, which included sneakers, lingerie, and drug residue, “might additionally make me look responsible.”
Hollander completed her story. The DA made an inventory of potential witnesses, took custody of the inexperienced plastic bin, and gave Hollander a property receipt.
“Inside a interval of six months, we’ll see whether or not or not we are able to speak to the folks that you’ve got described,” he instructed her. “If on the finish of that interval, we’re not in a position to substantiate what you’ve got dropped at us, we’ll then name you and return the gadgets to you.”
Howard’s sixth and closing time period will finish at midnight on December 31. The place does that go away the inquiry into James Brown’s demise? Howard did not reply to my interview request or an inventory of questions I despatched his spokesman. Nor has he returned the gadgets to Hollander, regardless that the six months elapsed August 12. However sooner or later later, on August 13, Jacque Hollander was stunned to get a telephone name and textual content messages from Candice Hurst, the previous proprietor of the inexperienced plastic bin.
Hollander known as the police. In line with the report, “Jacquelyn said that Candice despatched an image of a cat with a clock indicating a potential demise time and different footage of her residence in addition to inappropriate footage of herself.”
No prices had been filed, as a result of the officer didn’t understand any threats within the textual content messages, however the report says the officer known as Hurst and requested her to not contact Hollander once more. It was August 14. Hurst known as me that afternoon.
I agreed to talk along with her daughter, who had hung up on me after I known as for an interview in 2018. Now Cavazo corroborated her mom’s story: They had been each at residence in Augusta on Christmas Eve 2006. Hurst by no means left the home, the daughter mentioned, and thus she couldn’t have been with Brown when he died in his hospital room early Christmas morning.
In a follow-up interview with Hurst, I reminded her {that a} man named Tony Wilson mentioned Hurst instructed him she was on the hospital with Brown, partied with Brown earlier than his demise, and “possibly that killed him.” A former James Brown worker named Shana Quinones mentioned Brown’s right-hand man Charles Bobbit reported seeing Hurst on the hospital. (Bobbit instructed many variations of the story of that evening. He died in 2017. Quinones is the one particular person I’ve interviewed who says he instructed her Hurst was on the hospital.)
In his first interview with me, her former boyfriend Carlos Cavazo mentioned Hurst “known as me from the hospital.” (In a follow-up interview, he mentioned he thought she’d known as him from residence.) A “imaginative and prescient” Hurst admitted sharing with Jacque Hollander sounded to Hollander as if it got here from somebody who was within the hospital room. (Hurst additionally instructed me this was a dream she had, not an account of being within the hospital room.)
A lab take a look at commissioned by CNN confirmed a drug known as Diltiazem on Hurst’s shoe, and Dr. Marvin Crawford instructed me he’d given Brown Diltiazem on the hospital. And the gadgets from her storage unit included a notice Hurst admitted writing to herself: “How did Mr. Brown know I used to be gonna be with him when he died?” (Hurst has mentioned the notice meant Brown wished her to be with him when he died—not that she truly was with him.)
“In order that’s six separate unbiased indications that you simply had been on the hospital,” I mentioned. “Once you add all of them up, an affordable particular person would possibly conclude that you simply had been, the truth is, on the hospital. What do you say to that?”
“Effectively, once more, I want I used to be,” she mentioned, “so I might have mentioned ‘thanks.’ And ‘I like you.’ And, , ‘God bless you.’ , actually. However I used to be by no means in Atlanta, by no means on the hospital.”
“And I did not homicide anyone.”
“My daughter was with me. We had been in my lounge. I didn’t go away. And so I could not have been on the hospital to kill him.”
The strangest a part of the interview got here after I requested Hurst in regards to the footage she had texted to Jacque Hollander earlier that month. Hurst did not ship me the image of the cat and the clock, however she did ship me most of the others she despatched Hollander, exhibiting herself in skimpy clothes and suggestive poses. Hurst claimed this was a “character” she was enjoying, somebody named Countess Sheba, a recording artist attempting to ship a constructive message via music.
“Tick-tock goes the clock,” she sang to me. “Gonna get received.”
I known as her again in September and requested her what that meant. She mentioned it was not a menace.
“Everyone that is executed dangerous, and won’t do justice for James Brown, their time is coming, and God has vengeance.”
