Journalist Savanah Hernandez is shedding light on one abhorrent story out of New York City — where a man who used his weapon to protect himself was sent to prison for four years.“I just attended the sentencing for Charles Foehner, a 67-year-old retiree who was just sentenced to four years in prison after defending himself from a 15-time career criminal here in New York City,” Hernandez reported.“Now, if you’re not familiar with the story of Charles, basically, back in 2023, a 15-time career criminal with a history of mental illness ended up threatening him and lunging at him. Charles, who had a handgun in his pocket, which he had, by the way, because of his fears of rising crime throughout the city, ended up pulling out his weapon, telling this man to stop,” she continued.“He did not heed the warning. He continued to lunge at Charles. Charles opened fire and ended up killing him,” she said.While even the DA of Queens, Melinda Katz, did not bring homicide or manslaughter charges because she agreed that it was clearly self-defense, she did go after Charles for criminal possession of a weapon.The cops then searched his home and found what they called an “arsenal of unlicensed weapons.”“Charles’ attorney stated that Charles has been shooting guns since he was a kid. Charles has no criminal history, and he has been around guns his entire life. However, because he was in New York and these were unlicensed, the DA decided to bring forward these charges,” Hernandez reported.“It’s incredible that this is happening in the United States of America. So he ended up — this 67-year-old retiree ended up losing his home because of the legal fees and him being cut off from his Social Security benefits while he’s in prison. You can’t get that when you’re in prison,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”“It’s really incredible that there is such a thing as unlicensed firearms in this country. It’s like, says who? That is completely unconstitutional, because I have a Second Amendment right to protect myself however I see fit,” she says.“This man would not be alive if it weren’t for the weapon that he carried. And the fact that doing that — protecting his own life — now causes him to be in prison because then they can go and raid your home and say, ‘Oh, actually, you have an arsenal here. You’re not allowed to do that,’ is so very chilling,” she adds.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The Trump administration officials are pushing California to return over $1 billion in federal taxpayer funds that may have been used to cover the health care costs of illegal aliens.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in May that it was increasing oversight on states that illegally used Medicaid funding to provide illegal immigrants with health care services, noting that Medicaid funding is generally available to illegal aliens only for emergency medical services. 'We are teaming up to combat healthcare fraud so the money can be used for American citizens who need it!'As part of the announcement, the CMS declared that states could be forced to reimburse the federal government for funds spent on noncitizens. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz revealed in October that the agency found more than $1 billion of federal taxpayer funds were spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. “And my team is getting it back,” he remarked.Oz called CMS’ findings “shocking.”“In a preliminary review of six states, we found those states improperly using federal tax dollars for their allegedly state-funded program and providing coverage to individuals, including some with criminal records of murder and assault,” he stated.Those findings included $1.3 billion in California, $2.1 million in Washington, D.C., $30 million in Illinois, $2.4 million in Washington, $1.5 million in Colorado, and $5.4 million in Oregon. RELATED: Dr. Oz exposes the nonprofit lie at the heart of US health care Mehmet Oz, Bill Essayli. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty ImagesOz explained that the states had been notified and that “many” had begun issuing refunds to CMS. However the administrator provided an update on Wednesday, stating that additional uncovered data revealed the total had reached $1.8 billion across eight states. He announced that the CMS is withholding nearly $300 million from California, which Oz labeled “the worst offender,” until the state’s leadership proves “they’re spending the money properly.”Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, stated, “California must return more than $1 billion to the federal government after an audit by @DrOzCMS and his team uncovered federal dollars being spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants. We are teaming up to combat healthcare fraud so the money can be used for American citizens who need it!”California officials have rejected claims that the federal funds were misused.The California Department of Health Care Services previously told the New York Times, “Claims that California improperly used federal Medicaid dollars to provide health care to undocumented immigrants are flatly false and misrepresent both federal law and standard administrative practice.”Gov. Gavin Newsom's office did not respond to a request for comment.RELATED: Illegal-alien patients drain Texas hospitals, racking up billion-dollar bill — in less than a year Gavin Newsom. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C., has agreed to pay back over $650,000 to CMS by mid-November.An Illinois Medicaid spokesperson previously told PolitiFact, “Once again, the Trump administration is spreading misinformation about standard uses of Medicaid dollars.”“This is not a reality show, and there is no conspiracy to circumvent federal law and provide ineligible individuals with Medicaid coverage. Dr. Oz should stop pushing conspiracy theories and focus on improving health care for the American people,” the spokesperson added.A Washington State Health Care Authority also pushed back on CMS’ claims, calling the estimates shared by Oz “inaccurate.”“We were very surprised to see Dr. Oz’s post, especially considering we continue to work with CMS in good faith to answer their questions and clear up any confusion,” the spokesperson said. Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing also insisted the state did not break the law. “Our payments for coverage of undocumented individuals are in accordance with state and federal laws,” a spokesperson told PolitiFact. "The $1.5 million number referenced by federal leaders today is based on an incorrect preliminary finding, and has been refuted with supporting data by our Department experts."Oregon Health Authority previously told KOIN that CMS’ claim was “false and mischaracterizes not just this essential part of our nation’s emergency care infrastructure, but also an ongoing, routine audit process.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Try explaining this one: President Donald Trump’s relaxed — almost insouciant — response to news that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged allegiance to a China-centered “new world order."Why did Trump appear to shrug off Carney’s insistence that Canada’s future lies more with China than with the United States?Carney’s favorable assessment of China’s role in climate and green finance is not an isolated remark.Perhaps it has something to do with Greenland and Canada being viewed as components of Trump’s broader Western Hemisphere security plan.Cue the black helicoptersNot long ago, “new world order” belonged firmly in the vocabulary of conspiracy theorists. But in Beijing last week, Carney elevated the phrase into an official Liberal talking point.So what did Carney say? Plenty.Mine is the first visit of a Canadian prime minister to China in nearly a decade. The world has changed much since that last visit, and I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new world order.Trump did not respond immediately. Instead, he waited until the end of the news day last Friday before offering his reaction.“That’s what he should be doing, and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said.Not the response many expected from a president who has urged countries in the Western Hemisphere to distance themselves from Beijing.World order word saladPressed on what he meant by a “new world order,” Carney responded with his characteristic blend of abstraction and deflection.So the question is, what gets built in that place? How much of a patchwork is it? How much is it just on a bilateral basis? Or where do like-minded countries in certain areas? So like-minded countries, just to be clear, doesn't mean you agree on everything. So aspects, for example, on digital trade or agricultural trade, climate finance as another area to move into areas of geo-strategy, geo-security, you will have different coalitions that are formed. So what this partnership does is in areas, for example, of clean energy, conventional energy, agriculture, as we were just talking about, and financial services, which we have talked less about, but the evolution of the global financial system.Trump’s nonchalance was not shared by conservative commentators, who sharply criticized Carney’s remarks.Alex Jones, for one, described Carney as “a Klaus Schwab acolyte” and warned: “You are about to see the globalist prime minister of Canada pledge allegiance to the communist dictator in China, Xi Jinping."RELATED: What does Trump see in Canada's pro-China prime minister? Chip Somodevilla/Dave Chan/Getty ImagesChina guySo far, Carney’s new world order with China has produced a trade agreement allowing up to 49,000 electric vehicles to be imported into Canada annually at a reduced tariff of 6.1%. In return, China is expected to lower tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports — most notably canola oil, a key cash crop for Canadian farmers — to roughly 15%.But there is nothing new about Carney’s deference to China.After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney became vice chairman of the board of Bloomberg L.P., the privately held financial data and media company founded by Michael Bloomberg. During the same period, he also served as co-chair of the U.N.-backed Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, working alongside Bloomberg in his separate capacity as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions.In that capacity, Carney consistently praised the alleged environmental stewardship of China, somehow locating a deep commitment to fighting climate change in a country that continues to power its economy with coal-fired plants.Take Carney’s March 2024 visit to China, during which he told a reporter for the Chinese business outlet 21st Century Business Herald (English translation via Google Translate):China has made a huge contribution to the fight against climate change, not only in terms of its massive investment in clean technologies and exporting them to other countries, but also in actively developing the financial system needed for the green transition.Yuan to grow onCarney’s favorable assessment of China’s role in climate and green finance is not an isolated remark. It aligns with a broader argument he has advanced in recent years: that global economic leadership should become more multipolar, with China playing a larger role alongside — rather than beneath — U.S. dominance.That worldview extends to currency and finance. At the 2019 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Carney argued that the world should reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar by exploring a new “synthetic hegemonic currency,” a framework designed to dilute the dominance of any single national currency.Carney did not explicitly call for the Chinese yuan to replace the U.S. dollar outright. But his proposal would, by design, weaken the centrality of the dollar and expand the influence of non-U.S. currencies and financial systems.Trump, for his part, has twice endorsed Carney during Canadian federal elections. Their relationship — particularly during Oval Office meetings — has been described as friendly, though it may be better understood as Trump indulging a leader he views as temporary.Why does Trump consistently give Carney a pass?Perhaps because Trump sees Carney less as a lasting architect of global order than as a passing phenomenon — unlikely to impede the president’s broader aim of reinforcing American economic primacy, regardless of how warmly Carney speaks of China’s place in the world.

On August 22, 2005, Stacey Castor called 911. Seemingly distraught, she said that her husband had locked himself in his room and that she feared he’d hurt himself. Indeed, police found Castor’s husband David dead in their bedroom — next to a glass of antifreeze. YouTubeStacey Castor and her first husband, Michael Wallace. But in the subsequent weeks, authorities began to doubt Castor’s story. They’d found a number of strange clues at the Castor home. And when investigators realized that Castor’s first husband, Michael Wallace, had also died young, they knew that both deaths needed a second look. What they found would shock Stacey Castor’s community of Syracuse, New York — especially when Castor showed how far she was willing to go to stay out of jail. Who Was Stacey Castor? Born Stacey Daniels, Castor was born on July 24, 1967 to Jerry Daniels and Judie Eaton in Clay, New York. Little is known about her early life — her later infamy overshadowed her youth — but Castor’s mother says that her daughter once envisioned great things for herself. “Stacey was very intelligent,” her mother, Judie Eaton, said. “She always wanted to be a paralegal or a lawyer.” But although Castor had started taking relevant classes in high school, she abandoned her dreams when she met Michael Wallace at the age of 17. In Castor’s telling, it was love at first sight. YouTubeStacey Castor’s first husband, Michael Wallace. “Michael’s the love of my life,” Castor said, years after his death. “I knew five minutes after I met him that I was gonna marry him.” And on April 7, 1990, Castor’s prediction came true: she married Michael Wallace. To outsiders, it looked like they had a strong marriage. Eaton recalled that her daughter was “as happy as she had ever been,” following her wedding. Castor and Wallace had two daughters, Ashley and Bree, and Castor seemed well-suited for motherhood. “I knew from [the minute Ashley was born], my whole reason for being here was to take care of her,” Castor said. But all was not well beneath the surface. Castor later complained that Wallace drank too much. And they had no money — despite both working full-time jobs with opposite schedules. Then, in the winter of 1999, things seemed to get even worse. Michael Wallace got sick. “He was having a hard time walking, and he was having a hard time talking,” Ashley Wallace remembered. “And one time, he sat up, and he just vomited across the coffee table and laid back down went back to sleep like nothing ever happened.” Wallace told doctors that he felt drunk, but that he hadn’t had anything to drink. They were stumped — nothing seemed to help. And, on Jan. 11, 2000, Wallace died. He was 38 years old. Following his death, doctors attributed his early demise to a heart attack. But his family wasn’t sure — they wanted an autopsy. Castor refused. “When the doctors told me that they believed he’d died of a heart attack, I believed that,” she later said. “There was no reason for me to question that.” Instead, Stacey Castor quietly moved on. She collected Wallace’s $55,000 life insurance policy. And, the next year, she met her second husband: David Castor. David Castor ‘Commits Suicide’ YouTubeStacey Castor and David Castor’s wedding. After meeting David Castor in 2001, Stacey Castor married him in 2003. At first, her second marriage seemed as strong as her first. “David was very conscientious, very work-driven,” Castor later said. “David was support and strength and security to me.” But on August 22, 2005, terrible luck seemed to strike Stacey Castor again. She called 911 in a panic, telling the operator that her husband had locked himself in their room and wouldn’t respond to her. “My husband just locked himself in the bedroom for the last day … I’m really scared, you know?” she said. When the police arrived, they found David Castor naked and dead in bed. Investigators noted green liquid in a glass next to the bed, and a bottle of antifreeze nearby. Onondaga Prosecutor’s OfficeA crime scene photo showing a glass full of antifreeze. “It appears to be a simple suicide by antifreeze poisoning,” Sgt. Michael Norton of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office later said. But a couple of things struck investigators as odd. Castor claimed that her husband had been depressed following the death of his father — but his ex-wife swore he would never kill himself. And David Castor had left his entire $300,000 estate to his wife — cutting out his son. Plus, detectives had discovered an unsettling clue in the Castor home: a turkey baster in a trash can. The turkey baster had traces of antifreeze as well as David Castor’s DNA. Investigators had also found Stacey Castor’s fingerprints on the bottom of the glass in the bedroom. “The fingerprints [were] in such a way that it was as if someone held the glass from the bottom,” lead investigator Detective Dominick Spinelli later explained. He knew that the placement of her fingerprints could have a logical explanation. But it could also suggest something sinister. “Stacey may have held the glass up to his mouth.” The Investigation Into Stacey Castor YouTubeThe exhumation of Mike Wallace, who was buried next to David Castor. Suspicious of Stacey Castor’s story, investigators decided they needed to get a better sense of Castor herself. They decided to speak to her ex-husband, Michael Wallace. Of course, they found that he, too, had died under mysterious circumstances. So Spinelli decided to exhume Wallace’s body in September 2007. “The last thing I want to do is disturb someone that’s at peace, especially if nothing showed up in his system,” Spinelli recalled. However, Spinelli’s hunch paid off. Wallace’s body showed traces of antifreeze poisoning. Suddenly, one of his strange symptoms — feeling drunk when he wasn’t — made sense. “That’s a classic symptom of antifreeze poisoning,” explained District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick. With a good idea of what might have happened to Michael Wallace and David Castor, investigators decided to ask Stacey Castor some pointed questions. “She seemed nervous,” Valerie Brogan, another detective on the case, recalled. “She was pacing, and she just was surprised that we were there.” The detectives went through a number of questions with Castor. Then, Spinelli tossed out a seemingly harmless one: Of the two glasses on David Castor’s bedside table, he asked, which glass had Castor poured cranberry juice in? “Well,” Castor responded. “When I poured the anti-free — I mean, cranberry juice.” At that point, she stopped the interview and accused the detectives of trying to frame her. But although investigators thought they were getting close to an arrest, Stacey Castor had one more trick up her sleeve. The Attempted Murder Of Ashley Wallace YouTubeAshley Wallace speaking to ABC News. A few days after Stacey Castor’s slip-of-the-tongue, detectives informed her 20-year-old daughter, Ashley, that her father Michael had been poisoned. Ashley called her mother for comfort. As detectives listened over a wire-tap, Castor invited Ashley over for a drink because they’d “had a hard day.” “I was like, ‘Cool!’ You know, what kind of teenager wouldn’t think that was awesome?” Ashley later recalled. “Your parents just gave you permission to drink. Sweet!” But after her mother made her a drink, Ashley felt tired. She went to sleep. The next day, Castor suggested they do it again. So, again, Ashley drank something that her mother gave her. She later recalled that it didn’t taste good, so her mother gave her a straw. Castor instructed Ashley to put the straw at the back of her throat. Just like the night before, the cocktail made Ashley tired. She went to her room to lie down. But this time, Ashley didn’t get up. When her sister Bree tried to wake her the next morning, Ashley was unresponsive. The next thing Ashley knew, she was in the hospital. A grim-faced detective was sitting before her. He told her that the EMTs had found her with a typed suicide note that confessed to the murders of Michael Wallace and David Castor. “I’m like, ‘What are they talking about?'” Ashley Wallace remembered in 2009. “‘I didn’t do any of these things that you’re saying that I did.'” The note, which rambled on for 750 words without punctuation, included lines like: “none was ever supposed to know but now they do and thay think you did it but you didn’t it was me.” But to detectives, one thing in the note stood out in particular: the spelling of antifreeze. The writer had spelled it “antifree” — the same way that Stacey Castor had pronounced the word during her interrogation. The Trial And Conviction Of ‘Black Widow’ Stacey Castor YouTubeStacey Castor maintained her innocence until her death in 2016. That same day, police arrested Stacey Castor. In February 2009, a jury convicted her of second-degree murder of David Castor, attempted murder of her daughter, and forging David Castor’s will. Prosecutors had plenty of evidence. They had Castor’s fingerprints on the glass of antifreeze in David Castor’s bedroom, the turkey baster with traces of antifreeze in the trash can, and proof that she had written various drafts of Ashley’s “suicide note” on her home computer. Not to mention that both her husbands had died of antifreeze poisoning. But as the media clamored around the sensational trial — calling Castor the “Black Widow” — at least one person refused to believe that Stacey Castor had killed her husbands. Castor’s mother believes that Ashley Wallace is the true killer. “Ashley had ample time,” Eaton said, although Ashley Wallace was just 11 when her father died. “Ample opportunity.” Stacey Castor, too, maintained her innocence. “I did not kill Michael Wallace, I did not kill David Castor, and I did not try to kill my daughter, period,” she said in 2009. “And I will never say that I did, ever.” Stacey Castor died without ever admitting to killing either of her husbands. In 2016, she had a heart attack in jail. “She was my best friend, too,” Ashley Wallace said of her mom. “She was. And then she took that all away.” “I would have done anything for her, but she decided she wanted to kill me instead.” After reading about Stacey Castor, discover the stories of two other women accused of murdering their husbands. Belle Gunness killed two of her husbands as well as dozens of suitors. And Nannie Doss, the “Giggling Granny,” spent decades murdering husbands and relatives. The post The Twisted Case Of Stacey Castor, The ‘Black Widow’ Whose Weapon Of Choice Was Antifreeze appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainAqua Tofana was often disguised as “Manna of St Nicholas of Bari,” an ointment for blemishes. The deadly poison Aqua Tofana came in a pretty bottle. It was colorless, odorless, and tasteless. And for almost 20 years in 17th-century Italy, hundreds of women used it to stealthily kill their husbands. Their motivations may have differed, but the results were the same. The poison worked quickly and quietly and killed without leaving a trace. By the 1650s, it’s estimated that Aqua Tofana killed some 600 people. But the truth about this elusive poison can be hard to pin down. What Was Aqua Tofana? For women living in 17th-century Italy, marriage could be a cage. They had few options aside from finding a husband, and once they had one, it was nearly impossible to leave. But a woman named Giulia Tofana had a solution. Born in Palermo, Italy, around 1620, Tofana knew a thing or two about death. When she was just 13, a woman named Thofania d’Amado — likely her mother — was executed for killing what some sources have claimed was her own husband with poison. In the aftermath, Tofana carried on her mother’s legacy using her old recipe. She began selling Aqua Tofana, an odorless poison that she disguised as an ointment. Though the exact concoction has since been lost, Tofana likely made her poison with arsenic, lead, and belladonna. Tofana established quite the business in Rome, where she hired associates to operate a covert apothecary to quietly sell their deadly potion among actual cosmetic products. Soon, men began dying by the dozens as a result of women desperate to leave their unhappy marriages or collect the inheritance money and begin anew. Giulia Tofana’s Downfall Public DomainA 19th-century depiction of the poison ring that helped women to kill their husbands in the 1600s. For women who wanted to kill their husbands, Aqua Tofana was the perfect murder weapon. It came in a simple bottle that they could hide among their toiletries. And it was odorless and tasteless, which meant they could slip it into their husband’s food and drink without him noticing. What’s more, the effects of Aqua Tofana mirrored an actual illness. The first dose caused symptoms similar to a cold. The second triggered stomach aches, vomiting, and diarrhea. And the third or fourth dose dragged the victim to death’s door. For almost two decades, Giulia Tofana quietly sold her poison until one of her customers brought her downfall. As the story goes, one of Tofana’s clients decided to use Aqua Tofana to kill her husband. She put a few drops in his soup and brought it to their table. But when he brought the bowl to his lips, she had a change of heart. Begging him not to drink the soup, the wife eventually — perhaps after being beaten — admitted that she’d poisoned it. She then told her husband where she purchased it. Another version, however, suggests that women had started confessing murder to their priests. At the same time, people had started to notice that “young widows were unusually abundant.” Tofana was then possibly arrested, tortured, and put on trial after she admitted that her poison had killed some 600 people. She and her associates were executed, as were a number of her lower-class clients. Some of her more prominent clients were spared at the request of the Pope, however. According to one historian, though, Giulia Tofana might not have met such a gruesome fate after all. The Legacy Of Aqua Tofana Though a poison-ring trial in Rome did happen in 1658, it’s possible that Giulia Tofana missed it entirely. Historian Mike Dash of the University of Cambridge has suggested that Tofana died, probably peacefully, and possibly in 1651. He believes her associates and clients stood trial without her. Regardless, Aqua Tofana took on the specter of legend in the years that followed. As Dash writes, the poison became a sort of “catch-all” phrase “to describe a supposed class of subtle, precise, slow-acting poisons that were believed to be undetectable and invariably fatal.” Indeed, the legend of Aqua Tofana and the murderous wives of Rome grew with time. The basic facts of the story — hundreds of husbands dead, poison sold by a woman — spread across 17th-century Europe. Even the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worried that he’d been poisoned with Aqua Tofana when he started suffering an unexplained illness in 1791 at the age of 35. “I am sure that I have been poisoned,” Mozart wrote. “I cannot rid myself of this idea … Someone has given me Aqua Tofana and calculated the precise time of my death.” Mozart did indeed die — mysteriously — though there’s no proof that this infamous poison is what did it. In the end, the story of Aqua Tofana is as slippery as the poison itself. The basic facts of Aqua Tofana are obscured by history, just as it once helped wives to obscure the truth of their husbands’ demise. After reading about Aqua Tofana and its maker Giulia Tofana, learn about the “Angel Makers” of Nagrev who poisoned their husbands and children. Or, discover the chilling story of Stacey Castor who killed her husbands with antifreeze. The post The Shocking History Of Aqua Tofana, The 17th-Century ‘Blemish Serum’ That Killed Hundreds Of Unwanted Husbands appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Elvis Presley’s grandson Benjamin Keough with his mother, Lisa Marie Presley. As the grandson of Elvis Presley, Benjamin Keough grew up in wealth and luxury. He shared his iconic grandfather’s rock star looks and seemed destined for fame. Unfortunately, he also felt increasing pressure to match his grandfather’s meteoric success. Eventually, this contributed to a deep depression that would ultimately lead to Benjamin Keough’s death by suicide in July 2020 at the age of just 27. Only a few details of that tragic night have since been made public, but the story of that devastating night and the events that led up to it will surely cast a pall over the family for decades to come. Life As Elvis Presley’s Grandson Left: RB/Redferns/Getty Images. Right: FacebookLisa Marie called her son’s resemblance to her father “just uncanny.” Benjamin Storm Presley Keough was born on October 21, 1992, in Tampa, Florida. Unlike his grandfather, who was born in the throes of the Depression in the Deep South, Keough’s parents were well off. His mother, and Elvis’ only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was both a singer in her own right and the sole heir to the Presley fortune. Keough’s father Danny Keough, meanwhile, was a touring musician for jazz legend Chick Corea and had a respectable career of his own. The Chicago native moved to California in 1984 and met Lisa Marie at the Church of Scientology’s Celebrity Center in Los Angeles. Presley and Keough kept their relationship out of the public eye until their October 1988 wedding made headlines all over the world. The couple’s first child, Danielle Riley Keough, who is known professionally as actress Riley Keough, was born the following May. But Benjamin would be the one to make headlines, especially for his resemblance to the King. Lisa Marie Presley and her son Benjamin Keough had matching Celtic tattoos. Lisa Marie Presley seemed to foster a particularly strong affinity for her son, while Danielle spent much of her childhood with her father. “She adored that boy,” Lisa Marie Presley’s manager once said. “He was the love of her life.” The Keough children got the first shock of their lives when their mother left their father for Michael Jackson in 1994. But that marriage ended in 1996 and young Keough watched as his mother quickly left the King of Pop for fellow Hollywood scion Nicolas Cage. Their marriage lasted only 100 days. When his mother tied the knot with guitarist Michael Lockwood in 2006, the Keough kids seemed to have finally found some stability. Lisa Marie would go on to have a pair of twin daughters with their new stepfather. FacebookBen Keough had “We Are All Beautiful” tattooed on his neck. Meanwhile, by the time he turned 17, Keough expressed a desire to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. In his effort to become a singer, Universal offered him a $5 million record contract in 2009. Despite the deal outlining the possibility of as many as five albums and despite actually going into the studio to record some songs, no music from the young singer was ever released. The Tragic Death Of Benjamin Keough At Age 27 ZillowThe Calabasas, California home where Keough shot himself. Wherever he went, Benjamin Keough attracted attention for looking like his legendary grandfather. Even Lisa Marie Presley noticed how much her father and her son resembled one another. “Ben does look so much like Elvis,” she once said to CMT. “He was at the Opry and was the quiet storm behind the stage. Everybody turned around and looked when he was over there. Everybody was grabbing him for a photo because it is just uncanny. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed when I look at him.” Reports that Keough was becoming increasingly surly, however, were chalked up to typical teenage antics. “He’s a typical 17-year-old who loves music,” his representative once said. “He doesn’t get up before midday and then grunts at you.” It was only after his death that people would learn the shocking truth. FacebookDiana Pinto and Benjamin Keough. In the last few years of his life, the grandson of Elvis Presley watched helplessly as his mother weathered some brutal financial storms. In 2018, Lisa Marie Presley sued her financial manager because he dwindled the multimillion-dollar Elvis Presley trust to a measly $14,000 and left her hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid debt. Keough’s grandmother, Priscilla Presley, ended up having to sell her $8 million Beverly Hills estate to help her struggling daughter. As his mother also approached her fourth divorce, the grandson of Elvis Presley struggled with drugs and alcohol. He blamed his upbringing in the Church of Scientology for many of his issues and claimed the controversial religion “messes you up.” He unsuccessfully completed a stint in rehab before the night that brought a tragic end to his story. On July 12, 2020, Keough shot himself while at a joint party for his girlfriend, Diana Pinto, and brother-in-law Ben Smith-Peterson. Neighbors alleged that they heard someone scream “don’t do it” before hearing a shotgun blast. While an initial report suggested that Keough died by pointing a gun to his chest, the Los Angeles coroner later confirmed that he died by putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. The Legacy Of Elvis Presley’s Grandson Benjamin Keough’s autopsy report revealed that he had cocaine and alcohol in his system and suggested that he’d made previous attempts to die by suicide. His family’s grief was palpable. “She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated,” said Lisa Marie’s representative Roger Widynowski, “But trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley.” His sister paid tribute to him by posting a photo that described him as: “Too sensitive for this harsh world.” One of Keough’s friends, meanwhile, described the incident as “shocking news but it also isn’t a huge surprise as he had been struggling.” Lisa Marie Presley moved out of her home as Keough’s death had left her in shambles. Benjamin Keough was buried at Graceland alongside Elvis Presley and his great-grandparents. “The sad reality is she lives her life these days in a thick, unhappy fog,” a friend said. “The death of Benjamin, who she adored, will make things much worse.” Benjamin Keough was buried at the Meditation Garden at Graceland alongside his grandfather. Despite his charmed beginnings, the grandson of Elvis Presley was plagued with depression — and it would follow him for the rest of his short life. In the end, no amount of money, fame, or pedigree could save him from his demons. After learning about the life of Elvis Presley’s grandson and his suicide at 27, learn about how Elvis died. Then, read about the tragic story of Janis Joplin’s death. The post The Tragic Story Of Benjamin Keough, Elvis Presley’s Grandson appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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