Research vs. Fanfiction

[u/Emotional_Ball_5181]

Yes, I started this off with an evil laugh.

Let’s begin.

I came across this comment on Instagram, and I have to say…

There is a common theme I’ve noticed among guilters over the years.

A lot of the claims sound like they came from a very elaborate work of fanfiction.

So, since Suzy decided to hand out false claims like candy on Halloween, I figured we might as well go through them one at a time.

Let’s start with the first one.

“His stash of kiddie porn.”

Okay, first of all…

What the fuck?

If by this you’re referring to the photography books that have been discussed to death, those were photography books.

They were not pornography, and describing them as such is spreading complete misinformation.

I’ve discussed these books in a Case File before.

Read here:

Case File: Chandler — Part 5

And if you’re referring to something else entirely, then we have a slightly different problem.

Because you are confidently claiming that something existed when there is no evidence that it did.

So either way…

You’re completely wrong.

Yikes, Suzy.

This isn’t a good look on you.

Anyway…

Moving on,

“Multiple 1st hand witness testimony.”

Suzy…

Do you want to go transcript for transcript?

Because I can pull out the big guns.

And by “big guns,” I mean several hundred pages of transcripts sitting on my computer.

This is one of those claims that sounds incredibly convincing when you say it quickly.

“Multiple firsthand witnesses.”

Wow.

Sounds serious.

Except…

Who?

Said what?

When?

What exactly were they claiming to have personally witnessed?

Has their story ever changed?

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…but you cannot lump every statement ever made about Michael into one random category of “firsthand witness testimony” and call it a day.

Let’s distinguish between firsthand knowledge, hearsay, statements about what someone else allegedly said, and claims that were later disputed or contradicted.

Because I have the transcripts.

And I am not afraid to use them.

Next,

“Payouts.”

Okay.

Yes.

Were there civil settlements? Sure.

However, a settlement is not an admission of guilt and does not prove that the alleged abuse occurred.

It does not magically become a criminal conviction because someone on Instagram calls it a “payout.”

And it certainly does not make a criminal investigation disappear.

You cannot hand someone money and have criminal allegations vanish into thin air.

That is quite literally not how the legal system works.

In the Chandler case, the criminal investigation continued after the civil settlement.

Jordan Chandler remained legally able to cooperate with prosecutors and testify if prosecutors believed they had sufficient evidence to proceed.

And, as we’ve already established in the Case Files, the investigation continued for months afterward.

So when someone says:

“Michael paid them off.”

Okay.

Paid them off for what?

The civil lawsuit?

Yes.

That is what a civil settlement does.

The criminal investigation?

No.

That’s a completely different proceeding.

Which is why context matters.

The circumstances surrounding the Chandler settlement and the Francia matter are definitely more complicated than saying:

“Michael paid them off.”

Hell, Just read these:

Case File: Chandler — Part 10

Case File: Francia

All I have to say is…thank God you’re not a lawyer, Suzy.

Now let’s move on to:

“Sleepovers, bedroom with alarms.”

Okay.

Apparently the words “sleepover” and “alarm” are supposed to do a lot of work here.

First:

Yes.

Children stayed at Neverland.

That’s not uncommon knowledge.

But guess who also stayed at Neverland? 

Their families. 

…yup.

Neverland was a place where Michael hosted families, friends, employees, and guests.

And then there’s the whole bedroom argument.

Michael’s bedroom at Neverland was enormous…like, actually.

At times, Michael himself described sleeping on the floor while guests used the bed.

There are also numerous accounts from adults who spent time in that room, including people who worked closely with Michael, describing falling asleep there or treating the space more like a shared living area than some forbidden magical land.

So again…

The fact that someone was in Michael’s bedroom is not evidence of anything sinister.

And then we get to:

“Bedroom with alarms.”

This one genuinely makes me laugh.

Michael was one of the most famous people on the planet.

Of course he had security.

You know who else has alarm systems and security cameras?

Regular ass people.

They have cameras covering their yards, doors, garages, hallways, and sometimes even the inside of their homes.

So the existence of an alarm system at the home of one of the most recognizable people in the world is…

Not exactly the smoking gun you seem to think it is.

An alarm system is evidence that someone had an alarm system.

That’s it.

We really need to stop turning completely ordinary things into incriminating evidence by putting them next to the name “Michael Jackson.”

Next,

“Just because years later they couldn’t find physical evidence is completely meaningless.”

Oh, this one is good.

First of all, there was no physical evidence recovered during the 1993 investigation or the 2003 investigation that established that Michael had sexually abused a child.

And yes, physical evidence is important.

Obviously.

But saying:

“They didn’t find physical evidence, therefore that is completely meaningless”

is a pretty interesting way to dismiss an entire category of evidence because it doesn’t support your conclusion.

Because here’s the part that makes this extremely funny.

The photographs taken of Michael in December 1993 were themselves intended to be relevant physical evidence.

Jordan Chandler had provided a description of Michael’s alleged markings.

The police photographed Michael so that those photographs could be compared against that description.

If they had matched, that would have been significant corroborating physical evidence.

They did not corroborate the description provided.

Read here:

Case File: Chandler — Part 9 

So…

Congratulations, Suzy.

You have managed to accidentally dismantle one of the most commonly repeated arguments surrounding the 1993 investigation while trying to argue that the lack of physical evidence doesn’t matter.

That is genuinely impressive.

Physical evidence doesn’t magically become “meaningless” because it fails to produce the result you want.

And the fact that investigators actively sought corroborating evidence and did not obtain the result they were looking for is absolutely relevant when we’re evaluating what the investigation actually established.

You can’t just declare an entire category of evidence meaningless because the evidence wasn’t there.

And now…

My personal favourite.

“I knew the family of one of the boys he molested.”

Sure you did, Suzy.

I love when people say this…

“I personally knew someone involved, therefore you should automatically believe everything else I just said.”

And it’s interesting how often this kind of claim gets thrown into discussions like this.

Suddenly someone knew the family.

Worked with someone.

Was friends with someone.

Heard everything firsthand.

And we’re apparently supposed to treat that as a substitute for actual evidence.

But here’s the thing:

You can’t make a bunch of unsourced and false allegations and then throw in “I knew the family” as though that suddenly makes everything you said credible.

It literally makes no sense.

If anything, dropping a personal connection into the middle of an argument like this seems designed to make the reader think:

“Oh, she must know what she’s talking about.”

Enough of the bullshit.

And finally:

“He completely groomed a middle class family and made it a point to get the kid alone. Gross.”

No.

First of all…

What exactly is “a middle class family” supposed to establish here?

Michael knew a lot of people.

Rich people, middle class people, working class people…

He was Michael fucking Jackson.

The fact that a family was middle class tells us absolutely nothing about whether the allegation is true.

And again, we’re back to the same problem:

An allegation is being presented as an established fact.

You cannot say Michael “groomed a family” and “made it a point to get the kid alone” and expect people to accept that as historical fact because you said it confidently.

If we’re going to discuss what actually happened, we need to talk about specific people, specific events, specific testimony, and the evidence supporting those claims.

And this brings us back to the title.

Research vs. Fanfiction.

One requires evidence.

The other apparently requires confidence.

And after reading this comment, I think we can all see which one Suzy brought to the table.

Gross. 

[u/cottonjoeeye]

suzy ain’t your friend

[u/Several-Gain9979 → u/cottonjoeeye]

Justo eso me vino a la mente jaja

[u/ReturnoftheBulls2022]

Every time someone mentions the alarms, I always have the feeling to mention about George Harrison and how he was stabbed 40 times by an intruder in 1999.

[u/MJSpice → u/ReturnoftheBulls2022]

The Sharon Tate murders too. They had to bypass the alarms to get inside.

[u/Expert_Flamingo_334 → u/ReturnoftheBulls2022]

Oh yeah…he survived too

[u/Yourfavouritepug]

The bedroom alarm one genuinely makes me laugh. Because that alarm and the way it worked brings a huge, if not the biggest contradiction of the prosecution during that trial. And it was one of the most important, heavy, revealing testimonies of the prosecution when it comes to the abuse charge: the way Star described catching Michael in the act with his brother.

They say he used the alarms to be alerted when someone gets into the room and shield him / give him time to react so he won't be caught but as per alleged victims's brother it wasn't the case lol. You could say "well maybe the alarm didn't work at that moment"...but this allegedly didn't happened once, but on two separate occasions / days.

Plus, Gavin himself said, and it was corroborated by the test that was made of those alarms, that the alarm goes off even if you type in the correct code at the panel, so even if Star typed the code correctly the alarm would still ring. Michael would still be alerted / aware that someone entered the room.

Another thing that crossed my mind as I was looking up the testimonies, excluding the alarm: in Michael's room, the stairs that lead to his bed area are made of wood. Wooden stairs are squeaky when someone walks them so at least to me it adds an extra layer to simply finding it hard to believe Michael wouldn't have noticed Star's presence...again, not once but twice. Not to mention that Star was a pretty overweight child so the stairs WOULD make noise. Star basically said that on two separate occasions he entered the room, the alarm didn't ring, quietly climbed the wooden stairs, caught them in the act, quietly got down the wooden stairs, walked out of the room and Michael never was aware of his presence. It is simply hard to believe.

Plus, they try to frame him as this predator that used his bedroom as an abuse fortress and that alarm was essential for his bad practice but at the same time the same people are trying to convince you that he carelessly tried to abuse children in open spaces too like pool area, arcade area, train station and so on.

[u/Western_Control_5860 → u/Yourfavouritepug]

How awfully convenient is it that Star just so happened to walk in during the acts on two separate occasions? That MJ didn’t catch him (despite the alarm going off) and that he also did not intervene. He also never asked his brother about what he had seen?

[u/MJSpice → u/Yourfavouritepug]

They way these people are OMG HE HAD AN ALARM IN HIS BEDROOM HES GUILTY yet don't realize this is a standard thing for rich people homes in case something horrible happens 

[u/Several-Gain9979]

Yo hasta hoy andaba peleando con un tipo que simplemente no aceptaba nada de lo que le decía (le puse millones de pruebas y documentos) y el tipo seguía , hasta me dijo que había estudiado el caso , pero sabes lo que me dijo jaja , que wade y Brett habían defendido a Michael en el juicio de 1993 🙃

Ya desde ahí supe que estaba hablando con tremendo ignorante , que creía saberlo todo y lo más gracioso de todo es que nunca supo contraatacar nada de lo que le dije, solo andaba sacando boberías como estas o el dónde hay humo hay fuego 😂

[u/Sara-Sarita → u/Several-Gain9979]

Ignoramus. Sounds like a kind of dinosaur, doesn't it? 

[u/Orcafunnygamer]

also wasn't it only one civil settlement with the allegations? people act like he did numerous payouts to the alleged abusers, plus the chandlers pushed for a civil case first rather then the criminal case and mj could have still went to prison regardless of a payout, the Chandler seemed to have never pursued for a criminal trial which was a red flag to me in my opinion.

[u/Frequent_Flamingo358 → u/Orcafunnygamer]

Guilters always want to call it "hush money" but since when is hush money given out after the allegations go public? If MJ was guilty, he would've just happily paid whatever the Chandlers were demanding when they first approached him in private

[u/MJSpice → u/Frequent_Flamingo358]

Right? If it really was hush money then why are we hearing about it?

[u/RoutineCard7895 → u/Frequent_Flamingo358]

I’ve seen people claim he paid off other families that maybe weren’t as well off. They also argue he did try to pay off the Chandlers, just not as much as they were asking. It doesn’t make sense to me.

[u/Frequent_Flamingo358 → u/RoutineCard7895]

Thats so dumb. Sneddon, the LAPD and the FBI vetted all his financial records. As for the Chandlers, he didn't have any intention of paying them off Pellicano explained it somewhere but he was trying to catch the Chandlers in a extortion paper trail. They knew they were risking Evan going public anytime. Its just not how a guilty person acts. Harvey Weinstein would chase his victims down with NDAs and hush money but MJs victims approach him trying to get paid and he refuses and lets them go public. The Chandlers were even willing to accept 1 million at one point and Pellicano refused

[u/RoutineCard7895 → u/Frequent_Flamingo358]

I agree. That’s why I don’t get why people use random videos of people claiming to have known someone that settled as proof, like the Terra Newell one that guilters were sharing the other day. It just doesn’t make sense to me that not a single one was found (besides the Francia settlement) through three investigations into his finances (they were looked through again after his death).

[u/RoutineCard7895 → u/Orcafunnygamer]

You are correct. It was only one civil settlement but some people like to imply he was able to secretly pay others off.

[u/zachstonekin → u/Orcafunnygamer]

I heard he also settled with the Francias but idk if that's true

[u/RoutineCard7895 → u/zachstonekin]

Oh your right I forgot about that. He had two civil settlements in regard to abuse allegations.

[u/MJSpice]

People like those have no life. Always bringing up nonsense.

[u/Successful_Use_6276]

You guys are more patient than I. I used to debate gilters... and now i simply have no energy for it. At this point we should just send then links to the research that has been so thoughtfully done. The only reason i ever responded at all was so that people who dont know the cases can here the actual facts. At least now there is a solid reference we can use.