Amburn says in his book that Jeremy Powers, a reporter who investigated rumors surrounding the crash, concluded in 1989 that the pilot had not been shot and that drugs and alcohol played no part in the accident. There is also confusion about who was sitting where in the plane when it took off. Richardson sat behind the pilot and Valens next to him, behind Holly. He later writes that a crash investigator stated that Richardson was up front and Holly was seated behind the pilot, citing the CAB report. Adding more confusion, in the 1987 movie La Bamba, Holly was up front, Valens sat behind the pilot, with Richardson presumably behind Holly.
Autopsies is another area where one can get multiple answers.
Some published reports say autopsies were performed on all four. Others say only on the pilot. Officials in the Clerk of Court's office in Mason City, Iowa, where the death certificates are on file, said last week that no autopsies were performed. Still another area of conflict deals with whether or not the coroner investigating the crash site took money from the dead stars. He extracted the same amount from each of their bodies.