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|3/14/2012 @ 10:48AM |14,427 views Whitney Houston National Enquirer Death Photo: Who Took It, Sold It?8 comments, 0 called-out + Comment now + Comment now Image via WikipediaIn her interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night, Whitney Houston‘s sister in law Pat said she didn’t care who took the picture of her best friend lying in an open coffin and sold it to the National Enquirer. But the photo has upset a lot of people. Who took it? Who sold it to the Enquirer? Forget that the Enquirer did something grievously of no taste. We know what they are. But who could have done this?Sources at the Whigham Funeral Home in New Jersey say they know, and they have an employee who saw the person take the picture. The person they’re pointing the finger at is Raffles van Exel, the hanger on I told you about in this column a couple of weeks ago. Van Exel, who has aliases of Raffles Benson and Raffles Dawson, was at the two private viewings of Whitney’s casket held at the Whigham Funeral Home. The first viewing was on the Friday night before the memorial service. The second one was on Sunday morning before the burial.The people at Whigham noticed van Exel right away. Even though he’s not a member of the Houston family, he traveled with them on the private plane from Los Angeles to New Jersey. He was the only non family member who accompanied Whitney’s sister in law/manager and newly appointed executor Pat Houston in her car to Whitney’s memorial and funeral and to the viewings. According to one source, he even had his own bodyguard with him, which was more than a little unusual. A source from Whigham’s says when the picture appeared on the cover of the Enquirer, they told the Houstons of their suspicions. “They didn’t do anything ab0ut it,” says a source. “They’re protecting him. How come they haven’t gotten him out of their circle?”The Whighams people are not happy about the Raffles connection. While conducting another funeral in another part of town, of the funeral directors says she was spat upon by a stranger. The funeral home is concerned that fans think they allowed the National Enquirer picture to be taken. They did not. “The Houston family invited everyone into that room. We had no role in that. We were told their security would handle everything. They didn’t give us responsibility for that.” About 35 people came to the first viewing. The Wighams didn’t know everyone. But they know none of their people were involved. Only one of their employees says they witnessed Raffles van Exel take the picture of Whitney in her coffin.The burial, by the way, did not include $500,000 worth of jewelry. “It was costume jewelry,” says the funeral director. “Please…”Calls and emails to van Exel have gone unreturned. His voice mail box is full. He answered one of my emails, asking what I wanted, and then didn’t respond again. A second email was replied to, with a blank message. But it’s not the first time van Exel has gone underground.The famous R&B singer George Benson (“Give Me the Night,” “Turn Your Love Around”) has his own story about Raffles. Around 2005, he says, his lawyer had to send van Exel a cease and desist letter warning him not use the name Benson or describe himself as Benson’s son. George Benson has four living sons, and three deceased. Benson says that around 2004-2005 van Exel had ingratiated himself into Benson’s mansion in Engelwood, New Jersey.“He was there for a year on or off,” Benson told me. One day, Benson says, van Exel called him and told him to come home; he thought there’d been a robbery. When Benson returned to the house, he discovered $25,000 in cash was missing. He’d taken out of the bank to pay for home repairs. By the time he made the discovery, van Exel had vanished. “We never saw him or heard from him again,” Benson recalls. Without tangible proof, he couldn’t press charges with the local police. van Exel, as I reported in my original story, has sometimes been sued under the name Raffles Benson.van Exel recently recorded a video explaining the way he gets around Hollywood,which was posted on YouTube. Here it is, in all its glory:
Why would Raffles have wormed his way into Whitney's life before her "death", seeing as we hear she was in deep financial trouble and was going down-hill with drug use, etc. Even in the party the night before, we see him right with her. Did he know something was going down ahead of time? This video of Raffles showing HOW he does his sneaky getting into the lives of the celebs, totally reminds me of the RFL video of HOW they made the coroner video of MJ jumping out alive. Why would the family be protecting him, and be okay with him putting the pic in the Enquirer? Unless...this is part of the plan.My mom, dad, mother-in-law, aunt's funerals were all about 5 days after death, with viewing a day or so before. Already at 5 days with the usual embalming, the skin is starting to look blotchy, plasticy, and eyes and other areas look off.In Whitney's pic, she looks fresh, beautiful as if sleeping. She died on Feb. 11th, viewing and funeral on the 18th, and viewing and burial on the 19th. 7-8 days later. I smell a rat. IMO photo-shop just like MJ's famous ambu pic sold to the same magazine.In the Oprah interview with Bobbi, though she talks of the pain, never once do you see one tear rolling down her face. When my mother suddenly died when I was 21, for a whole year tears were never far away and easily triggered, especially if someone opened me up to my feelings as Oprah did. Just how can Bobbi hold it together so well?
What's up with this Raffles? He's absolutely Dutch, his real name is Raffles Dawson, not Raffles Van Exel. He was born in Paramaribo, Suriname and grew up in Amsterdam-Bijlmermeer. He went to school with one of our Dutch performers, who became famous at a very young age. This guy says Raffles wanted to be friends with him, just because he was famous. He even said that Raffles was evil, devilish. His mother explained that it became pretty dangerous even and that Raffles started to stalk Danny. Here is the (Dutch) video, but I can't subtitle it because I can't get the video off of the page in a way I can pull it into Sony Vegas. If anyone has an idea?You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login(/actueel/rtlboulevard/entertainment/articleview/)/components/actueel/rtlboulevard/2012/03_maart/entertainment/danny_de_munk_raffles_op_school.xml
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login5/17/2012 12:40 AM PDT BY TMZ STAFFEXCLUSIVEOne of Whitney Houston's close friends -- a mysterious man who's been widely accused of supplying the singer with coke before her death -- is declaring war on media outlets that ran with the drug story ... and now, he's on a crusade to clear his name.The friend -- an enigmatic celebrity sidekick named Raffles van Exel -- tells us, he is "neither the architect nor the culprit of the sudden demise of Whitney Houston."Raffles was with Whitney in the hours before she died at the Beverly Hilton hotel in February -- and there were widespread reports strongly insinuating he was the singer's secret cocaine supplier.There were other reports suggesting Van Exel was also the one who snapped the infamous picture of Whitney's body in a coffin ... and sold it to a tabloid newspaper.But for the first time ever, Van Exel is adamantly denying all the reports -- and has begun taking aggressive legal steps to save his reputation.Van Exel has started firing off cease and desist letters to media outlets reporting any nefarious connection between him and Whitney's death -- demanding full retractions asap ... or else.Van Exel -- who describes himself as a "private consultant to the stars" -- has also been linked to Michael Jackson around the time of the singer's 2005 molestation trial, as well as jazz legend George Benson.No one really knows who he is or what he does.
