On January 8, 1935, in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, Gladys Presley gave birth to a baby boy. His name was Jesse Garon Presley, and he never took a breath. Thirty-five minutes later, she gave birth to his identical twin. That baby lived. His name was Elvis Aaron Presley — who became the best rock music had seen, and for the rest of his life, the King of Rock and Roll believed he was carrying his brother with him.
The Presleys were desperately poor and could not afford a coffin. So Jesse was buried in a shoebox, tied with a red ribbon, and laid in the ground the very next day at Priceville Cemetery just outside Tupelo — a short walk from the little house where he’d been born.
His grave lies beside those of his great-aunt Susan and great-uncle Noah Presley. To this day, the stone there doesn’t carry his name.
What Happened To Elvis Presley’s Twin Brother?
There’s a small detail in Elvis’s own name that most people have never noticed. His parents spelled his middle name “Aron” on his birth certificate — an unusual spelling — because it was chosen to rhyme with “Garon.” The twins were named to match. Elvis carried his brother’s name inside his own from the day he was born.
What happened after that shaped the whole family. Gladys was never able to have another child, so Elvis grew up an only child who knew he was supposed to be one of two. His mother spoke to him about Jesse. She held onto Elvis with a fierce, watchful love that people around them noticed and sometimes found overwhelming. He wasn’t just her son. In her mind, he was the one who lived.
Elvis never let it go. As a boy in Tupelo, he would go and visit his brother’s grave, and relatives said he talked to him there. Friends and biographers say the habit never stopped. His longtime friend and hairstylist Larry Geller said Elvis thought about Jesse constantly.
The Heartbreaking Truth About Elvis Presley’s Twin Brother That Destroyed Him
People close to him described something heavier underneath it too — a kind of survivor’s guilt, a sense that he was living a life meant for two people, and that he owed something for it.
Today, Elvis is buried in the Meditation Garden at Graceland alongside his mother, his father, his grandmother, and his daughter Lisa Marie. There is a memorial stone for Jesse Garon there too — but it’s only a marker. His body was never moved.
Ninety years on, Elvis’s twin still lies in an unnamed grave in a small Mississippi cemetery, about 200 miles from the brother who spent his entire life talking to him.