Conspiracy Theories Never Die

March 8, 2007
On February 3, 1959, musicians Buddy Holly ("That’ll Be the Day"), Ritchie Valens ("La Bamba"), and The Big Bopper ("Chantilly Lace"), died in the crash of a Beech Bonanza on a charter trip from Clear Lake, IA, to Fargo, ND. The conspiracy theories started almost immediately and continue to this day. Evidently they have a half-life somewhere up there with theories about what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. I was a high school senior at the time, and loved Holly’s music (still do). To me the crash really was, as Don McLean put it in his great and still popular song, "American Pie," "the day the music died." In 1972 I first heard the "pistol" rumor from an aviation insurance man who stated it as absolute fact. The pilot, he said, had been shot through the back of his seat by a pistol. Some said that Holly was committing suicide by firing the shot. According to this insurance man, the insurance carrier’s settlement with the families included a hush-up of the gunfire and the fact that Holly owned a pistol. As far as I know, there was no proof at all that the story was true, but it survives to this day. The theories all came to life again recently when the Big Bopper’s family decided to move his grave to another location. His son hired Dr. Bill Bass, a well-known forensic anthropologist at the University of Tennessee, to take a new look at the remains. Dr Bass took X-rays of the body and found nothing to support those theories. "There was no indication of foul play," Bass said in a telephone interview from Beaumont. "There are fractures from head to toe. Massive fractures. ... (He) died immediately." Well, now maybe we can forget the conspiracy theories. But probably not, I got e-mail this week "proving" a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. We'd love to post your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.