O.K., let’s file this one under …
THE CONSPIRACY TO KILL THE FAIRYTALE PRINCESS
As I have often said, sometimes a pea is just a pea.
Round, green, and uncomfortable to royalty when placed under a mattress, they have at times come to represent tiny brains that can get connected together into a pod of a conspiracy theory.
I am, of course, paraphrasing even more here, but sometimes even horrible tragic accidents are just horrible tragic accidents.
There's been more British Royal Family in the mainstream media this week than anyone can take.
I’m as far from mainstream media on this blog as is digitally possible, but I do work for NY1 in my day job, so it’s hard not to get caught up in the twenty-four hour news cycle.
With all the hoopla surrounding the marriage of The Prince and The Commoner in London this week it almost feels like we won neither The War of Independence nor The War of 1812.
On Friday morning, before all of us had even had our morning coffee, perhaps the most famous couple on the planet, William and Kate, exchanged vows with around two billion people watching.
I didn’t get invited -
William is of course, the son of Princess Diana.
Twenty years ago, Princess Diana, and the current heir to the British thrown, Prince Charles, was probably the most famous couple on the planet.
The Princess of Wales -
The fairy tale romance of Charles and Diana was overtaken by scandal and ended with her tragic death.
So while the rest of the world was talking about hats and dresses and the tolling of Big Ben, what do you think Jeff and I were arguing about?
A Royal Conspiracy Theory.
Here's how it went down:
Jeff: You know the Queen killed his mother.
Me: I heard. She used a paparazzi as the murder weapon.
And I will use words as mine.
But, was the Queen part of conspiracy to murder Princess Diana?
And was there any evidence of conspiracy at all?
Here are the indisputable facts:
On the evening of August 31, 1997, a limousine carrying Diana, the divorced Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed, the son of an Egyptian billionaire, collided with a pillar in the Alma Tunnel in central Paris. Al Fayed and the driver, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene.
The Tunnel -
The Princess was taken by ambulance to Pitié-Salpétrière Hospital, where she died a few hours later of cardiac arrest.
Only Al Fayed's bodyguard survived the accident.
Among the first details to surface about the accident that killed her was the fact that the driver of the limousine had been speeding to evade paparazzi photographers. Autopsy results revealed that Henri Paul had a blood alcohol level at least three times the legal limit.
Jeff’s theory is that the Royal Family wanted the Princess dead.
Why, you ask, would the House of Windsor want Princess Diana dead? Because, say Jeff, she was poised to embarrass the crown by marrying Dodi Al Fayed who would then become stepfather to Princes William and Harry, the heirs to the British throne. So, on Friday morning, Fayed would have been there at the wedding with the Groom’s mother.
Horror of horrors.
To this day, Jeff’s theory also has it’s biggest champion in Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi Al Fayed’s father, who refuses to this day to believe the fatal car crash was a mere accident. He claims an Agent of British Intelligence engineered the accident at the behest of Queen Elizabeth herself.
The intelligence Agent was driving a mysterious white Fiat Uno to block the limousine’s route. This phantom car forced the driver to swerve and collide with the pillar.
The recordings from closed-circuit cameras in the Alma Tunnel, which would have documented the precise sequence of events were, of course, either tampered with or summarily disposed of.
Add to that, the surviving bodyguard, Trevor Rees, has little memory of the event. Conspiracy theorists say he is being paid to keep silent.
Why would he put his life at so much risk? And why would he agree to keep silent against the wishes of his employer?
It's hard to imagine a government inquiry into the accident (or as Jeff claims, murder) more thorough than the 900-page Operation Paget, supervised by Lord Stevens, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, at a cost of four million pounds.
There were no unaccounted-for vehicles, least of all a phantom Fiat, involved in the crash, or caught by any of the cameras
There was no evidence of tampering with any of the security cameras.
Nor was there any evidence of motive. Contradicting long-standing rumors, family and friends denied in interviews that Diana was about to marry Fayed.
"From the evidence of her close friends and associates, she was not engaged and not about to get engaged," Stevens said.
Prince William himself had said that there had been no indication that his mother, Diana, was about to get married again.
Earl Spencer, Diana's brother, and her sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, also supported Stevens' findings. There was no marriage in the offing, according to all three of them.
"We have been briefed on the conclusions of the inquiry and agree with them entirely, and look forward to reading the full report in detail," their statement said.
Said Lord Stevens: "Our conclusion is that, on all the evidence available at this time, there was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of the car. This was a tragic accident."
Findings showed undisputed proof that he driver was going twice the 30 mile per hour speed limit through the tunnel at the time of the crash.
"We can say with certainty that the car hit the curb just before the 13th pillar of the central reservation in the Alma underpass, at a speed of 61 to 63 miles per hour," Stevens said. "Nothing in the very rapid sequence of events we have reconstructed supports the allegation of conspiracy to murder."
Perhaps the idea that a drunk driver could have been responsible for the horrible accident seems too simple. The public seems constantly in need of bogymen including phantom drivers, paparazzi, and intelligence agents.
But sometimes drunk driving is just drunk driving.
The supposed architect of the conspiracy, the grandmother of Diana’s children, who would have to be a real Evil Queen to have the mother of her two young grandchildren murdered.
Where’s the Poison Apple? -
I can’t resist. Sometimes a poison apple is not a poison apple.
As Lord Stevens concluded: "Three people tragically lost their lives in the accident and one was seriously injured. Many more have suffered from the intense scrutiny, speculation and misinformed judgments in the years that have followed. I very much hope that all the work we have done and the publication of this report will help to bring some closure to all who continue to mourn the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed, and Henri Paul."
Sorry Jeff, it’s all just a fairy tale.
It does not connect –
Back to round the clock wedding coverage…
Emails, Direct Messages, and Royal Decrees are always welcome.
But please no poison apples.
By the way, I wonder if I should change my twitter to @commoner?
Never mind, it's probably already taken by the new duchess…
I’m sure Jeff will suggest that I change it to @peabrain, but that’s probably taken too…
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