Fred La Bour - "Paul Is Dead"

"Paul Is Dead"

LaBour was instrumental in the spread of the Paul is Dead urban legend. While a junior at the University of Michigan, having heard the October 12, 1969 WKNR broadcast about the rumor, he and John Gray wrote a satiric parody review of Abbey Road called "McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light", itemising various "clues", many of them of their own invention, of McCartney's death. The article was published in the October 14, 1969 issue of the Michigan Daily. Rolling Stone described LaBour's article as "the most baroque explication" of the supposed death, claiming that the Abbey Road cover depicted a funeral procession from a cemetery, with John as "anthropomorphic God, followed by Ringo the undertaker, followed by Paul the resurrected, barefoot with a cigaret in his right hand (the original was left-handed), followed by George, the grave digger", and adding details that Paul had died in a car crash three years earlier, the top of his head sheared off, and that he was the subject of the "A Day in the Life" car crash on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. LaBour and Gray were astonished when the story was picked up first by newspapers in Detroit, then Chicago, and by the weekend, both coasts. Beatle scholar Andru J. Reeve, opined that LaBour's story was "the single most significant factor in the breadth of the rumor's spread."

LaBour also participated in a RKO television special that featured celebrity attorney F. Lee Bailey conducting a mock trial in which he examined various expert "witnesses" on the subject of McCartney's alleged death. LaBour told Bailey during a pre-show meeting that he had made the whole thing up. Bailey responded, "Well, we have an hour of television to do. You're going to have to go along with this." The program aired locally in New York City on November 30, 1969, and was never re-aired.

LaBour was interviewed about his role in these events in the 2005 NPS Dutch television documentary, Who Buried Paul McCartney?