Joy Davis bio
Joy Davis was born January 31, 1974, and was joined two years later by brother Peter. She died on December 21, 2018. The official cause of death was suicide.
Joy was an avid Elvis collector and fan who fell in love with the star when she was in her teens. She became known in later years as having one of the best collections of Elvis memorabilia in the country.
Joy graduated from business college and worked as a secretary, but her main focus was on her role as president of the Mississippi chapter of the Love Me Tender Elvis Fan Club. She was instrumental in organizing activities for Elvis fans, including field trips to see Elvis' mansion, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee.
From the time she was a teenager, Joy was committed several times to the Mississippi State Mental Hospital for treatment for severe depression. Despite her struggles, in 2004, she married another Elvis fan, whom she met at an Elvis convention. Unfortunately, the couple divorced after five years. They had no children. After her divorce, Joy suffered a nervous breakdown and was put on medical disability.
Joy found a new purpose in life after learning about the Elvis Faithful and had planned to attend the conference in Oxford to support them. She confessed to a friend that she thought the medications she was taking were affecting her ability to "feel Elvis' music." She stopped taking her meds weeks before the event because she believed it would help her get the most out of the conference.
Joy had discovered the Elvis letters hidden in the bottom of a box containing old sheet music sheet, which she'd bought from a music collector at a flea market. The day after the purchase, she excitedly told her sister-in-law and fellow Elvis fan, Sonya Davis, about the letters, but said she hadn't read them yet.
Joy later told friends she never would've told anyone the letters existed if she'd realized how inflammatory they were. She refused to believe what the letters said and vowed to never let them see the light of day.
But whatever she learned from the letters seemed to weigh on her, and Joy was in a depressed state when she confided in her friend Kelly about how much the letters and their content troubled her
Soon after, Kelly introduced Joy to Jared Plunk, who persuaded Joy to sell him the letters so he could protect them and Elvis' legacy. A few weeks after she'd handed over the letters, Joy found out Jared had tricked her and planned to reveal their contents to the world.
Joy couldn't get over the idea that she was ultimately responsible for tarnishing the image of her idol, Elvis, whom she'd loved since her youth. She fell into a severe depression and felt she could no longer stand the guilt. She put on her favorite tape of Elvis songs and washed down a handful of antidepressants and painkillers with a bottle of red wine.
She died after choking on her own vomit and was found dead on the couch in her one-bedroom, studio apartment just before Christmas.
