The Graceland Scam: How Lisa Findley Nearly Stole Elvis’s Estate

[0:06] The woman who signed the deed to steal Graceland had been dead for 18 months. [0:15] I'm Steve, your host of True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard. This episode involves a king. The king. Elvis Presley. And this show has particular significance for me. You see, at the very time it was announced on the radio that Elvis had died, I was driving on the highway through Memphis in my 1969 VW bus. Elvis Presley died here about 3.30 this afternoon. He had been found in his bathroom, unconscious, not breathing. He was brought to the hospital by ambulance. Efforts to revive him in the ambulance and efforts to revive him here at the hospital were unsuccessful. And Elvis was declared dead at 3.30. He had probably died earlier in the day, sometime between 9 and 2.30, doctors say. What happened next was unbelievable. The entire interstate, all the lanes, just stopped. [1:19] Not a traffic jam, just a complete standstill. I watched a businessman in a rumpled suit stumble out of his Lincoln Continental, His tie was loose. One hand pressed on the hood like he needed it to hold him up. His shoulders shook, not violently, just these kind of small helpless tremors. And a woman in a floral sundress stepped out from a station wagon full of kids. She walked about three steps on the hot asphalt, dropped to her knees right there, and just wept. And then there was this trucker this massive bearded guy who climbed down from his rig and just started kind of full-throated wailing grief-stricken house no shame no holding back just loss it still stands with me today. [2:17] The august heat made everything shimmer like we were all trapped in some fever dream it's a moment I hope I never forget Memphis mourning its king. And now 47 years later, someone tried to steal his home. Not with a crowbar, with paperwork. [2:41] The following episode is based entirely on verified public records, sworn testimony, official court filings, and publicly reported news coverage. Some commentary is provided by Dr. Patricia Wells, a fictional criminologist character created for narrative context. Her insights are based on established patterns in fraud cases and the actual evidence presented in court. Now, let me tell you about the 54,000 pages of evidence, five seized phones, and shredded documents that told this story. Someone tried to steal Graceland. And for a few terrifying days in 2024, it almost worked. If you're not already subscribed, visit TrueCrimeUnheard.com to sign up. Now, let's jump into this week's show. [3:51] May 22nd, 2024. Memphis, Tennessee. In less than 24 hours, Graceland, Elvis Presley's 13.8-acre estate, will be auctioned to the highest bidder on the courthouse steps. The foreclosure notice has run three times in the commercial appeal. Thousands have seen it. But in a packed Shelby County Chancery courtroom, Chancellor Jodej Jenkins waits. According to FBI Special Agent Christopher Townsend's sworn affidavit, Quote, No one appeared on behalf of Gregory Nossany or Nossany Investments. Because Gregory Nausanyi didn't exist. Neither does Kurt Nausanyi or Carolyn Williams. They're all the same person. A 54-year-old career con artist named Lisa Janine Findlay. Breaking news. Sitting in her Missouri home, watching the news coverage on her laptop. About to make the worst decision of her life. [5:10] From July 2023 to May 2024, 10 months of forged documents, fake emails, and escalating lies. She wrote as Gregory first, confident, professional. The loan documentation is completely legitimate. Then as Carolyn, nervous and defensive, I myself did not make that loan. [5:41] And as Kurt, angry and desperate. That's not my company. One woman, three email accounts, arguing with herself in public view. Let me read directly from the federal indictment. The defendant, also known as Lisa Holden, Lisa Howell, Gregory Nausanyi, Kurt Nausanyi, Lisa Janine Sullins, and Carolyn Williams, was a resident of Kimberling City, Missouri. Seven names, one woman, one target. Hey, listen up. Be sure to stick around till the very end for a bonus interview I recorded with Dr. Patricia Wells about this case. Let's keep going. The timeline from court documents. January 12, 2023. Lisa Marie Presley dies. May 20, 23. Riley Keough inherits Graceland through the Promenade Trust. July 14, 2023. The first fraudulent email arrives exactly six months later. [7:01] May 15th, 2024, 6.47 a.m. Court documents show Riley Keough's lawyer delivered just seven words. Check the newspaper, Graceland, foreclosure today. We can only imagine the silence that followed. According to court filings, Riley's team immediately recognized the fraud. But Lisa Marie Presley had been in California throughout 2018, never traveled to Florida where the loan was supposedly signed. Our criminologist, Dr. Patricia Wells, said, That six-month gap is textbook predatory behavior. Findlay waited for acute grief to pass, but struck before the estate was fully settled. The foreclosure notice, and I'm quoting from FBI evidence, stated, Graceland will be sold to the highest bidder for cash at public auction May 23, 2024. The newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, ran it three times, May 5th, May 12th, and May 19th. The cost of those ads? Well, less than two grand. The potential gain? A $100 million landmark. [8:27] But no one called it fake. Not yet. Now I need to stop here. when I read that Lisa Marie had been dead for six months when this started. I mean, look, I saw Memphis mourn Elvis to target his daughter's memory, his granddaughter's inheritance. There's something especially vicious about that timing. [8:57] Lisa Findley's criminal history reads like a textbook on deception. 2005, bank fraud in Oklahoma stole $25,000 using a fake Social Security number. 2006, failed to appear in court, federal warrant issued. But here's the truly disturbing part. From her probation officer's report, Findlay falsely reported a diagnosis of osteosarcoma. She provided a fabricated letter from Cancer Treatment Centers of America. She was never a patient. She faked cancer for sympathy, for missed court dates, for leniency. In November 2009, she finally admitted the lie. She also wrote $682 in bad checks, stole a Kmart customer's check, created fraudulent refunds, and now a forged deed to Graceland. She'd be arrested August 16, 2024, 47 years and one day after Elvis died. Lisa Findley had seven names and a history of fraud. And now she was targeting Graceland. [10:18] The package from Kimberling City? Well, the FBI traced it to P.O. Box 1015, Hollister, Missouri. And it contained documents designed to fool anyone. The promissory note claimed Lisa Marie Presley borrowed $3.8 million in 2018 in Florida. The notary who allegedly witnessed it, Kimberly Philbrick, provided a sworn affidavit. She said, I have never met Lisa Marie Presley. I have never notarized any documents signed by Lisa Marie Presley. But Findlay's masterstroke was the settlement offer. $2,850,000 to make it go away. High enough to hurt, but low enough to tempt. [11:16] May 20, 2024. CBS News reaches out to Nausanyi Investments. The response came in five minutes. Five minutes! [11:29] She wrote back immediately, and these spelling errors are exactly as typed. I have no knowledge of any filing in Chancery. C-H-A-U-N-C-E-R-Y. Well, that's wrong. It should be Chancery Court. She couldn't even spell the correct court she should be dealing with. Mr. Nausanyi has known LMP since Martiach? To Michael Jackson? Listen, M-A-R-T-I-A-G-E is not how you spell marriage. Within hours, 27 emails, three personas, and one IP address. Findlay's arguing with herself via email to CBS News. After losing in court, it got worse. She claimed Nigerian scammers stole her identity. She sent messages in Spanish and in Ganda, a language from Uganda, from the same email she'd been using as Gregory Nossany. Dr. Patricia Wells said, Pure psychological desperation. She's throwing everything at the wall. [12:58] Here's the moment the FBI knew they had her. Nausanyi Investments was not registered as a corporate entity in Florida until May 21, 2024. May 21st, that's the day before the court hearing, for a loan supposedly made in 2018. Finley had created the company six years after it supposedly loaned millions. Bank records? Never issued. Certified mail? Fabricated. The loan? Never existed. May 22nd, 2024. The Shelby County Courthouse Two locations, 600 miles apart, one woman watching her scheme collapse. The court transcript reads, Chancellor Jenkins held a hearing. No one appeared on behalf of Gregory Nausanyi or Nausanyi Investments. The judge's gavel came down in three words in the transcript. [14:15] Motion. Granted. Enjoy. Graceland was saved, but Lisa Findley? Oh, she wasn't done yet. The court might have stopped the sale, but the FBI was closing in. The warrant return shows agents knocked at her door 6.23 a.m. FBI! Another knock, louder this time. The shredder was still warm. Paper strips everywhere. She'd been shredding for hours. The FBI pulled records from everywhere. Microsoft. Text Now. T-Mobile. Google. USPS. Evidence collected, 54,000 pages, five phones, and loads of shredded paper to be reconstructed. I mean, think about the desperation. She's shredding evidence while the FBI is literally at her door. That's not just criminal. That's just pure panic. [15:30] February 25th 2025 Findley admits guilt September 23rd 2025 it's sentencing day no Presley family members attended their absence speaks volumes, The judge asked if Findlay wished to speak. Nothing. Not a word. His assessment? It was brazen. The sentence? 57 months in federal prison. Findlay did win one thing, however. A federal prisoner number. [16:17] Graceland Estate, Memphis, Tennessee. opening bid $2 million. Do I hear $2 million? Going once, going twice. That almost happened. Days away, hours away. I mean, think about what you just heard. She created a company in May 2024 for a loan she claimed happened in 2018. [16:42] How desperate do you have to be to miss that detail? Graceland survived, but the system almost let it happen. That's still broken. Since the case, Shelby County updated deed protocols. Graceland implemented dual verification. And the FBI classifies this as a culture crime. But the vulnerability remains. The system still runs on trust. Today at Graceland. Today at FCI Carswell Federal Prison. One is eternal. One is temporary. Lisa Findley didn't break in with a crowbar. She used a notary stamp, Microsoft Outlook, a P.O. Box, and trust. She almost stole the most iconic home in American history. Almost. [18:00] I've driven that same stretch of Memphis Highway since 1977. I think about those people crying on the asphalt. They were mourning a man who couldn't be replaced. Lisa Findley thought Graceland was just property, just paper, just money. She forgot it was a grave. Kind of a church, but definitely a piece of America's soul. You can forge a signature, but you can't forge faith. If this story surprised you, hey, leave me a five-star review on the platform you're listening on, and especially on Apple Podcasts. You can visit True Crime Unheard for the case files on this particular case. Hey, wait, before you go, I had to share this with you. After we finished the main episode, I sat down with our series criminologist, Dr. Patricia Wells. We had such an interesting conversation about what makes someone like Lisa Findley tick that I wanted you to hear it. [19:11] So, Doc, I keep coming back to one thing. She made the fake company the day before the court hearing. How does someone think that's going to work? You know what's wild, Steve? I think she actually believed it would. I mean, come on. No, seriously. Think about it like this. She'd been lying for 20 years and getting away with it. Fake cancer, fake checks, fake names. Every time it worked, her brain got a little hit of, I'm smarter than everyone. I guess like a drug. Exactly like a drug. And just like drugs, you need bigger and bigger hits. First, it's a bad check for a hundred bucks, then it's fake cancer, then suddenly you're looking at Graceland thinking, why not? But the spelling mistakes, I mean, Chancery instead of Chancery. That's just... Panic. Pure panic. Her hands were probably shaking so bad she couldn't type. But here's the thing. She still hits send. Even with the typos, she still thought this might work. I don't know. That just kind of sounds delusional to me. It is. But think about how you get there. Every lie that works makes the next lie easier. Pretty soon, you're not living in the real world anymore. You're living in this fantasy where you can just... [20:30] I mean, like when she pretended to be three different people arguing over email, almost all simultaneously? To CBS News. She's writing to actual reporters as three different people from the same laptop. Part of her brain has to know that's insane. But another part is thinking, if I just make this complicated enough, everyone will give up. The shredder thing gets me. I mean, the FBI is knocking at the door. And she's still shredding. That's my favorite detail, psychologically speaking. Favorite? Well, most telling. She's not really shredding evidence anymore. She's trying to shred reality. Like if she destroys the papers, maybe the crime goes away too. Kind of like a kid covering their eyes, thinking you can't see them. That's exactly what it's like. When you lie this much for this long, you become like a child who thinks they can change reality by wishing hard enough. But she was smart enough to run all these scams for years. See, that's the trap. She was smart. But every successful lie made her feel invincible. It's like, you know those people who win five hands of poker and suddenly think they can't lose? And then they bet the house. And she literally tried to bet the house. Elvis' house. The Nigerian scammer thing where she pretended Nigerian scammers did it? [21:56] That was just bizarre to me. That's when I knew she'd completely lost touch with reality. She's sending emails in languages she doesn't speak, pretending to be a scammer who stole her identity, which doesn't exist, to commit a crime she actually did commit. Oh, my head hurts. Well, imagine being in her head. It must be exhausting being that many people. I mean, excuse me, Dr. Wells, but you kind of almost sound sorry for her. Not sorry, but sad. Not for her, for what she became. Nobody starts out thinking, I'm going to be the person who tries to steal Graceland. You start with one small lie, then another. Then 20 years later, you're in federal prison because you thought you could steal Elvis' house with Microsoft Word. I guess when you put it that way, it sounds almost... [22:50] Pathetic. It is pathetic, but also dangerous. Because people like Findlay, they leave damage everywhere. Riley Keough had to fight for her family's legacy. The court system wasted time and money. And Findlay, she gets 57 months to think about how she got from fake checks to fake deeds. You think she'll learn anything? People who fake cancer for sympathy? Who create seven different identities? Who try to steal Graceland? They usually don't learn. They just find smaller targets. That's kind of depressing. Here's what's not depressing. [23:26] The system worked. The newspaper ran the ad, but the lawyers caught it. The judge saw through it. The FBI traced every email, every document, every lie. Well, I guess you're right. I guess reality did win. Reality always wins. Sometimes it just takes a while to catch up. And sometimes it catches up at 6.23 in the morning while you're shredding papers. With the motor still warm. Well, thanks, Doc. This helps make sense of something that made absolutely no sense. That's the thing about people like Findlay. They don't make sense because they've lost the ability to see sense. When you lie to everyone, including yourself, for that long, eventually you forget what the truth even looks like. I guess she's now Federal Prisoner 09845-062. That's the only identity she has left now. The only real one she's had in years. All right. Now, I think we're finally done. For real this time. See ya.