It may end up becoming an enduring mystery of the Palin family brawl: What happened to video that was supposedly recorded showing the melee?
And did the video really ever exist at all?
On Tuesday, police in Anchorage, Alaska released photos and audio from their investigation of the Sept. 6 house party, which was attended by former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her family, and which turned into a bloody, violent mess.
The audio recordings contained even more evidence that someone made video recordings of the brawls, which allegedly involved multiple members of the Palin clan.
Yet no video has ever surfaced.
In two separate audio recordings, witnesses to the brawl mentioned the existence of video. That matches with police reports released on Oct. 9 that first mentioned video might exist.
In one of the recordings, the owner of the house where the party went down, Korey Klingenmeyer, casually referenced a video after telling officers he had been attacked by Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol.
“I think Janice Schnell has it on video,” Klingenmeyer told an officer.
“Where is she?” the officer said.
“Mmm, I think she went home in a cab, but I can, I can call her,” Klingenmeyer said.
According to a police report, investigators followed up with Klingenmeyer two days later.
By then, the story had changed.
Klingenmeyer said he had spoken to guests at the party and there actually wasn’t any video of the altercations.
Listen to the audio below. The relevant portion begins at about the 30-second mark.
In a second bit of audio, a police officer’s recording picked up an argument between a woman and a man identified as “Marc” — possibly Marc McKenna, a guest of the party who was also Klingenmeyer’s friend and boss.
The woman was shouting at “Marc,” saying he was wrong about the altercations.
“There’s video,” the man said.
“Hey, Marc, I, I watched the whole thing,” the woman said. “She didn’t, she didn’t hit him once in the face. She missed. She missed every fucking time. Okay, before that ‘Fuck you. Fuck you. You’re a fucking slut.’ What about that part? What about – is that on fucking video?”
That’s when the officer stepped into the argument.
“Excuse me, sir,” the officer said. “You mentioned that it was on video, is there any way that we could look at that?”
The man refused.
“No, no way,” the man said. “These are friends of mine and it ain’t going out to nobody. The video don’t exist.”
“So you’re saying there is no video?” the officer said. “There is no video?”
“I’m saying there’s no video,” the man said.
“Why were you telling her there’s a video?” the cop asked.
“Big deal,” the man said. “Do I got to give you video? No.”
“I’m just curious why you were telling her there’s video,” the officer said.
“I don’t care if you’re curious,” the man said. “There’s no video. I don’t have to owe you video ’cause you’re a cop. That’s my private video. K? I know my rights. I know my rights. Do you know my rights? ‘Cause I know my rights.”
Listen to the audio below. The relevant portion begins at about the 1:25 mark.
