Essential Elvis: Any idea when Scatter died Richard?
Richard: I can’t remember the exact year that Scatter died, but I can tell you how I think he died. We brought him back to Memphis and Elvis had a big iron cage built in the back yard. We built this nice little garage around it like a storage bin and he had his own television, air conditioning and heating and everything out there, just like his own little house. The maids would go out and feed him everyday. They had a little place where they would just slide the food through the bars everyday. One morning, Marty Lacker and I were sitting in the kitchen at Graceland having breakfast. Elvis wasn’t even up. Hattie, one of Elvis’ maids in Memphis, took Scatter’s food out there to feed him and then all of a sudden she came running back in the house screaming and hollering saying, “That monkey, that monkey he jerked my wig off my head and tripped me right out of my house shoes”
We couldn’t stop laughing, we said that she should just go back out there and get them, she said. “No, I’m not going anywhere near that monkey no more.” So I said that I’d go out and I went and got her wig and her house shoes and gave them back to her. She said, “I’m not gonna feed that monkey no more, he scares me.” Well, the next day he was dead and we really believed that she had poisoned him. So, we had to call the animal shelter out to take him away.