Conspiracy Theories Swirl Around Justice Scalia's Death

AUSTIN, TX -- Despite official assertions that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in a West Texas ranch of apparently natural causes, conspiracy theories about his death continue to emerge.

The leading conspiracist is Alex Jones in Austin, who runs the ultra-conservative InfoWars website that trades in condemning the liberal agenda.

“Former Intel Officer Suspects Foul Play in Death of Antonin Scalia,” screams a recent headline on the InfoWars site, in a font size normally reserved for international incidents of warfare. “Who dies with a pillow over their head?” a subhead tantalizingly asks.

Jones is famous (or infamous) about town -- and nationally -- for his extreme views. His InfoWars radio show is nationally syndicated and a published version is distributed at sites throughout the city.

“The circumstances surrounding Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia’s death are growing more suspicious by the minute,” the story quotes Ray Starmann, who reportedly worked in U.S. Army intelligence for eight years, as writing.

“Starmann points to the fact that the story appears to keep changing, with initial reports that Scalia had died of a heart attack later denied,” the story continues. “He also questions why no autopsy was performed and why Scalia’s body was quickly embalmed, ‘erasing any chance for the coroner to conduct efficient toxicology tests.’“

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From there, the rant degenerates further -- touching on issues of class, nefarious motive and entrenched ideology. Along the way, the prose descends to really bad prose referencing tactics seen in The Godfather movies.

“Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,” Starmann writes. “The pillow over Scalia’s head wasn’t put there by a Hispanic maid. The pillow over the head is a warning,” the “source” for the story continues.

It’s all part of a grander plan, and that’s no inference but stated plainly: “Now that Scalia is gone and likely to be replaced by a leftist activist judge, Starmann fears that the Constitution is about to be eviscerated,” the piece continues.

Starmann advances the theory: “Scalia was the tie-breaking judge, the man who could push back any liberal policies being shoved through the court,” he writes. “With Scalia’s death, the Obama Administration or a future Hillary Clinton Administration has a green door to confiscate guns, flood the country with illegals and wreck the Constitution.”

Amid his feverish theories, the author betrays political partisanship as possibly informing his conjecture.

“The same people who want you to believe Scalia died of a heart attack or natural causes are the same people who want you to believe that Hillary won the Iowa Caucuses with six coin tosses and the same people who want you to believe after fifty years that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy,” the author writes.

To call Jones loud in professing his world view is an understatement. Former CNN host Piers Morgan is likely still shaking in his British loafers after a, um, decidedly spirited give-and-take during a previously aired discussion on gun control.

Even the official coroner’s protocol attending to Scalia’s passing -- normally the mundane vagaries of recording a death -- has somehow been suffused with intrigue among the conspiratorial-minded.

Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara told ABC News the death certificate will read Scalia -- who had a history of heart trouble and high blood pressure -- died of natural causes. Succinctly, the certificate will denote a death of “Natural causes — heart attack,” she told the network.

While not as strident, other conspiracy theories have swirled in the days after Scalia’s death.

The pillow-over-the-head scenario was initiated by businessman John Poindexter, the owner of the 30,000-acre luxury ranch near Marfa, Texas, that Scalia was visiting at the time of his death: “We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled,” he was quoted as saying in WorldNet Daily and other sites.

Other conspiracy theorists have lit up social media outlets with their own take, outright affirming that President Barack Obama ordered Scalia dead (although providing no evidence for their assertion).

Breibart.com, another right-wing forum, takes a less assertive view on the matter, noting that no conspiracist can explain “... why, if the president had wanted Scalia (or another conservative jurist) dead, he would have waited past so many big decisions.”

On Monday, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump joined the chorus of assassination theorists during a broadcast of The Savage Nation with conservative commentator Michael Savage. Savage raised the possibility that Scalia had been murdered, yielding Trump’s insights into the matter (largely based on his expertise on pillow placement).

“Well, I just heard today and that was just a little while ago actually—you know I just landed and I’m hearing it’s a big topic—that’s the question,” Trump said. “And it’s a horrible topic, but they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.”

Not all new/information sites advancing conspiracy theories are partisan. The venerable Washington Post recently ran a story indulging the various theories of foul play in the death of the elderly jurist.

“Scalia was found dead in his room at a luxury hunting resort in the state’s Big Bend region by the resort’s owner,” the Post article reads. “It took hours for authorities to find a justice of the peace. When they did, Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body — which is permissible under Texas law — and without ordering an autopsy.”

Cue dramatic music.

Back in Austin, the daily newspaper of record also inadvertently advances the theories in noting the discrepancies surrounding details of Scalia’s death.

“Bryan Garner, one of Scalia’s close friends and the co-author of two books with the justice, said in an interview that Scalia seemed happy and jovial during recent trips to Hong Kong and Singapore in late January and early February,” the Austin American-Statesman writes. “Garner said Scalia never mentioned anything about heart problems or other ailments during the trip.”

The reality is that Scalia had a history of health trouble, and the trip may have been overly taxing. What’s more, the remote location of his hunting trip was not optimal for taking ill, with the area hospital about an hour away.

The Daily Banter offered an inelegant rebuttal to Jones’ theories: “No, Alex Jones and the Rest of You Conspiracy Theorist Idiots, Scalia Wasn’t F**ing ‘Assassinated.’ ”

But that likely won’t quell the conspiracies, yielding Austin’s Jones rich fodder to fill the pages of his publication and nationally syndicated airwaves.