Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening.
Speaker 3: Mike Gaddo was an up and coming young lawmaker when
Speaker 3: his father was brutally murdered. The act sucked them into
Speaker 3: the world of noir, wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.
Speaker 3: This true crime story reads like a thriller, offering insight
Speaker 3: into the world of politics and the cd underbelly of
Speaker 3: crime investigation in modern Los Angeles. Gaddo shares his experiences
Speaker 3: with incredible candor and raw emotion, detailing every clue and
Speaker 3: how he came to learn every tragic detail of his
Speaker 3: father's murder. With the case still unsolved, see if you
Speaker 3: can piece together the clues to solve this mystery. The
Speaker 3: book they are featuring this evening is Noir by Necessity.
Speaker 3: How my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places
Speaker 3: with my special guests attorney and former member of the
Speaker 3: California State Assembly representing Los Angeles, and author Mike Gaddo.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for
Speaker 3: this interview. Mike Gaddo. It is wonderfully with you, Dan,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Right in a world where much
Speaker 3: attention is paid to whether criminals are getting the right treatment,
Speaker 3: victims' families continue to be overlooked. Stories focus on the
Speaker 3: guilts of the possible perpetrator or the finite details of
Speaker 3: the moment a murder happened, and ignore the fallout born
Speaker 3: by the departed, living loved ones instead. How is this
Speaker 3: book laid out for readers and what do you hope
Speaker 3: readers will gain as a result.
Speaker 2: Great question. So I laid out my book in such
Speaker 2: a way that the reader learns the well the facts
Speaker 2: of the crime, plus the clues that came in afterwards,
Speaker 2: plus the false starts and the heartache and the false
Speaker 2: leads and the false hope. I laid it out chronologically
Speaker 2: so that the reader could be taken on the journey
Speaker 2: that I went through and that my family went through
Speaker 2: and my father was killed. I try to make it
Speaker 2: so that and that goes to the purpose of the book.
Speaker 2: The purpose of this book was to give people a
Speaker 2: little window into what it's like to be the family
Speaker 2: of a murder victim. You know, someone said to me
Speaker 2: very early on that you join lots of groups in life.
Speaker 2: You know, some people join a church or synagogue, people
Speaker 2: join a car club, people join a knitting club, or
Speaker 2: a poker a poker game. But this fraternity or sorority
Speaker 2: of families of murder victims is a group that nobody
Speaker 2: ever chooses to join. And when you're thrust into it,
Speaker 2: you know you you definitely understand what other families go through.
Speaker 2: But the purpose of my book was to give a
Speaker 2: little window into what that's like so that people could
Speaker 2: make more informed decisions when they vote, when they analyze
Speaker 2: crimes themselves, and as they encounter people who have gone
Speaker 2: through this in their lives.
Speaker 3: Tell us about your professional life in politics and your
Speaker 3: personal life. In a year you call a very good
Speaker 3: year two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Well so in twenty twelve, I remember being the happiest
Speaker 2: that I have ever been in my life. I had
Speaker 2: just gotten through some very very tough elections to the
Speaker 2: California Legislature, but they were behind me. I was at
Speaker 2: that point an incumbent. I was confident in my role.
Speaker 2: I think the voters had shown that they wanted to
Speaker 2: re elect me several times. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: I had the biggest joys that anybody could ask for,
Speaker 2: at least from my perspective, and that is, you know,
Speaker 2: I was starting to have kids. I had two children
Speaker 2: at the time, and my second child, my daughter, Evangelina
Speaker 2: or Evie, had just been born in October of twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: and I just remember thinking, Gosh, what a lucky guy
Speaker 2: I am. I was doing what I love. I was
Speaker 2: trying to effectuate good policy for the people of California.
Speaker 2: And I had a wonderful family, you know, two terrific
Speaker 2: daughters at the time, and you know, I had I
Speaker 2: had two you know, elderly parents that I was reasonably
Speaker 2: close with, and you know, I mean it was not
Speaker 2: easy to be to spend tons of time with him
Speaker 2: because of my travel schedule, but I felt very very
Speaker 2: close with them as well. And I just remember thinking, Gosh,
Speaker 2: what a lucky person I am.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about your father and your
Speaker 3: mother and about the divorce, and but yet you stayed.
Speaker 3: They stayed very close, and you stayed very close to
Speaker 3: both of them as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my mom and my dad after they got divorce.
Speaker 2: They got divorced after twenty something years of marriage, and
Speaker 2: they ended up living two blocks away from each other
Speaker 2: in the same neighborhood. My mom and my dad is
Speaker 2: sort of a study of contrast. My father was his
Speaker 2: background was art, and he was very much the you know,
Speaker 2: his mind worked like an artist. He was not always
Speaker 2: that organized or you know, that that rigid in his things.
Speaker 2: And then you know, on the other hand, my mom,
Speaker 2: she had gone to law school late in life, in
Speaker 2: her forties with three kids. She went to night law
Speaker 2: school and became a lawyer, and that sort of reflected
Speaker 2: her personality as well. She's you know, very organized and
Speaker 2: very very much left brain. And so, you know, they
Speaker 2: were sort of the yin and the yang that produced me.
Speaker 2: I like to joke. Really they both were good parents
Speaker 2: in their way, and you know, I would see my
Speaker 2: mother at least once a week. You know, we would
Speaker 2: typically do do dinner on Saturdays or Sundays, and my
Speaker 2: father I would see as often as humanly possible. He
Speaker 2: had been an absolute force in my campaign. He had
Speaker 2: come into my campaign almost every night didn't see him
Speaker 2: as often as my mom when I was in office,
Speaker 2: but that just had to do with different scheduling things.
Speaker 2: And you know, he was very busy as in his
Speaker 2: retirement he had a burgeoning jewelry business, which you know,
Speaker 2: he made craft jewelry that was very artistic. That had
Speaker 2: sort of been his lifelong dream and he had put
Speaker 2: off that dream to work for us when we were kids,
Speaker 2: and so he was you know, he too was enjoying
Speaker 2: success at that at that time. It was like kind
Speaker 2: of like the starving artists who had put off his
Speaker 2: craft but was finally getting renowned. For me, that's just
Speaker 2: one of the other, like you know, sort of little
Speaker 2: shit aims that you know in him being taken off
Speaker 2: this earth too early is that he never got to
Speaker 2: see how successful he would be as an artist.
Speaker 3: How old was your father at this time and what
Speaker 3: was his health.
Speaker 2: Like, So my dad was seventy eight and he was
Speaker 2: about to turn seventy nine when he got killed. Some
Speaker 2: people might say, my gosh, almost eighty. You know, well,
Speaker 2: I hope he had a full life. And you know
Speaker 2: the implication is that, well, he did leave a full life,
Speaker 2: and gee, it's not so tragic. That he got killed
Speaker 2: when people say that, But what I tell people is
Speaker 2: my dad was just getting started. First of all, he
Speaker 2: loved grandkids more than anything else. And I was really,
Speaker 2: you know, as I said, I just starting to have kids, really,
Speaker 2: and he had interacted a lot with my oldest, but
Speaker 2: had just really met my youngest at the time. Secondly,
Speaker 2: he was in the peak of health. This was a
Speaker 2: man who sprinted upstairs at age seventy eight. He would
Speaker 2: you know, deadlift fig big trees and other things, refrigerators
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. I mean, he was just a
Speaker 2: very very healthy guy. And he also had you know,
Speaker 2: very very good genes. He had cousins in Italy who
Speaker 2: had been among the oldest living people, and there was
Speaker 2: I think a woman from his dad's hometown who lived
Speaker 2: till one hundred and eleven, something like that, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fourteen, and so, you know, we just thought that
Speaker 2: he would be with us for many, many, many more
Speaker 2: years to come, and that he would be a presence
Speaker 2: in his grandchildren's lives.
Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, you were chairman of the Appropriations Committee,
Speaker 3: but you spent week days in your Sacramento home. So
Speaker 3: tell us about November eleventh, twenty thirteen and some of
Speaker 3: the things that you were doing on that day important things.
Speaker 2: Well, so I had a different approach to the capitol.
Speaker 2: I'd say maybe twenty or thirty percent of the lawmakers
Speaker 2: I know follow my approach, but the Geordy, you know,
Speaker 2: seventy percent follow the other approach. A lot of lawmakers
Speaker 2: I had seen would they would keep their families back
Speaker 2: in the district and then they would go up to
Speaker 2: the capital for you know, five days a week, and
Speaker 2: they would see their families on the weekend between events
Speaker 2: if they were lucky. And so the ratio was, you know,
Speaker 2: five out of seven days or four and a half
Speaker 2: out of seven days, you would not be with your family.
Speaker 2: So I did the opposite. I was grateful that my
Speaker 2: wife was a stay at home on and our children
Speaker 2: were young, they weren't in school yet, so I had
Speaker 2: them come with me essentially to the capital. We maintained
Speaker 2: two different residences, and I would fly back home rather
Speaker 2: than my family. So so usually you know, five four
Speaker 2: or five days a week, I was at our Sacramento place,
Speaker 2: and then you know, two three days a week I
Speaker 2: would be I would be back in the district, back home.
Speaker 2: Now of course, the weekend before my father was killed
Speaker 2: was Veterans Day, and that's a day that means a
Speaker 2: lot to me, it meant a lot to the five
Speaker 2: hundred thousand people in my district. There's a strong tradition
Speaker 2: of service in in my old district. And of course
Speaker 2: my father himself was a veteran, needed four years in
Speaker 2: the army, and so you know, Veterans Day, November eleventh,
Speaker 2: I gave speeches, showed up at events, met with veterans.
Speaker 2: It was a very, very full day. And then I
Speaker 2: flew back to Sacramento, I want to say the afternoon
Speaker 2: or the evening of the eleventh. My staff had arranged
Speaker 2: for me to take new portraits. And that's because my
Speaker 2: official portraits. I had won a special election in the
Speaker 2: middle of April, and so my official portraits really weren't official.
Speaker 2: They were like snap shops, snapshots of a very tired
Speaker 2: guy who just won an election. And so I was
Speaker 2: finally going to pose for my official portraits, and I
Speaker 2: took them on the portico of the Capitol, I want
Speaker 2: to say, on the twelfth orth or thirteenth, and I
Speaker 2: had some other meetings that day in the Capitol. It
Speaker 2: was just a very very normal week for November for us,
Speaker 2: because November is typically one of the rare quiet seasons
Speaker 2: for the life of a lawmaker.
Speaker 3: You write that that November thirteenth, you had the portrait,
Speaker 3: but you worked in the morning and went home in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, and on your way home, you called your
Speaker 3: dad to see if he had a recommendation for a
Speaker 3: new plumber for your place in Los Angeles. He didn't answer,
Speaker 3: and you left the message. That night, your cell phone rang.
Speaker 3: It was your younger sister Mary Anne. Tell us about
Speaker 3: that phone call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we were getting ready to put our daughters
Speaker 2: to bed when my phone rang. And I, you know,
Speaker 2: my sister didn't typically call me, you know, at like
Speaker 2: seven forty five on a weeknight. She knew that was
Speaker 2: time when we were putting the kids to bed, and
Speaker 2: you know, and I also didn't usually pick up my phone,
Speaker 2: you know, I usually screamed my calls. But something told
Speaker 2: me to pick it up, and I picked it up,
Speaker 2: and my sister was, you know, she was frantic, and
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know if you know, hysterical, I
Speaker 2: guess would be the right word. And she was talking
Speaker 2: very fast, and she said, you know, Michael Mike. Well,
Speaker 2: I went over to dad's house, you know, and buh
Speaker 2: and and I saw him and I think he's dead.
Speaker 2: And you know, my first reaction was no, you know,
Speaker 2: get out. You know, my dad had no heart problems.
Speaker 2: We talked about his health and I was kind of
Speaker 2: like yelling at her, like he's not dead, like you know,
Speaker 2: call paramedic. And I just remember her saying like, Michael, Michael,
Speaker 2: I touched him and he's cold. And I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: you know you still got a call paramedic, call the police,
Speaker 2: you know, just whatever. And I called the police myself.
Speaker 2: I called some friends of mine. I don't I don't
Speaker 2: remember who told me, but you know, sometime in the
Speaker 2: next hour or so, it was either the police or
Speaker 2: the paramedics got in the line and told me that
Speaker 2: my father was dead. And they said that the likely
Speaker 2: cause of death was a gunshot wound. And you know,
Speaker 2: your your first reaction is disbelief.
Speaker 3: You say that when you arrived home, the TV news
Speaker 3: vans were pulled up to your home. What did you
Speaker 3: and your wife do as a result.
Speaker 2: Well, so we the situation was very much chaotic that night.
Speaker 2: We uh, you know, it's already eight or nine o'clock,
Speaker 2: and you know, we put the kids to bed, and
Speaker 2: then I set up sort of a situation room, and
Speaker 2: we realized what we had missed the last flight back
Speaker 2: to LA that night. So the next day we had
Speaker 2: to drive back to LA and that's also easier with
Speaker 2: with young kids. It's many ways easier than flying because
Speaker 2: you can stop and like that. So we got in
Speaker 2: the car the next day and we drove back to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and the TV vans had been on site
Speaker 2: for for you know, for I think twenty four hours
Speaker 2: at that point or something close to it. And you know,
Speaker 2: we we couldn't even really get into my home because
Speaker 2: that there was such a phalanx of TV vans around
Speaker 2: my own home. So we met my sisters at a hotel.
Speaker 2: But at some point, you know, we went over to
Speaker 2: the to my father's house, to my child at home
Speaker 2: to help the police, you know, analyze the crime scene.
Speaker 2: They had been there for for you know, for twenty
Speaker 2: four hours. They had gotten everything they wanted but they
Speaker 2: wanted asked his questions about if anything was out of
Speaker 2: place and such, and of course when I pulled up,
Speaker 2: the media mobbed me, and you know, it was not easy.
Speaker 2: It's hard as a public figure when there is something
Speaker 2: that affects you personally, it's hard to keep your composure.
Speaker 2: And those interviews at night were very hard for me
Speaker 2: to keep composure. You have three sisters and just two
Speaker 2: just too young.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, what happened next regarding your sisters and some
Speaker 3: information imparted.
Speaker 2: Well, my sisters had been they had done a real
Speaker 2: estate investment together, modest real state investment a few years back.
Speaker 2: I'm not I remember all the details at Frankly, I
Speaker 2: tried to stay out of all those details, but they
Speaker 2: had some kind of squabble about how the thing was managed,
Speaker 2: and so things were already tense with them with respect
Speaker 2: to money. But we found out, you know, shortly after
Speaker 2: my dad's death that his person and all, you know
Speaker 2: what I call the civil or the civil part of
Speaker 2: his case, not the criminal case, but the civil part
Speaker 2: of his case was a mess. He had not updated
Speaker 2: his estate plan for I want to say fourteen years
Speaker 2: or something crazy like that. Maybe it was less than that,
Speaker 2: but it was in any event, his personal affairs were
Speaker 2: not in order, and his estate was very unclear. And
Speaker 2: lack of clarity and estate planning often causes disputes between
Speaker 2: the family, and unfortunately mine was no different. There were
Speaker 2: immediately some disputes and some bad feelings. That was something
Speaker 2: that I you know, that's a secondary or tertiary consideration
Speaker 2: in my dad's case. But I think the way that
Speaker 2: I sum it up is that, you know, you're trying
Speaker 2: to manage his criminal case and the investigation and try
Speaker 2: to find justice and try to find closure, and then
Speaker 2: you have this other piece, which is the fact that
Speaker 2: his affairs weren't in order and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of acrimony between the family.
Speaker 3: Right that both separately the sister said that very disparaging
Speaker 3: things about each other's boyfriends, things that were troubling in
Speaker 3: their implications. Can you explain that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they I think it's fair to say
Speaker 2: that my sisters at the time did not approve of
Speaker 2: each other's boyfriends, or that the boyfriends didn't get along,
Speaker 2: you know. So, yeah, they both were not pleasant to
Speaker 2: talk to you when it came to some of that stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just a shame because you know, I'm
Speaker 2: aware that lots of family squabble after a loved one dies,
Speaker 2: but again, in this case, you know, I think it
Speaker 2: detracts and distracts from the main goal here, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, reassuring the living and working for justice in
Speaker 2: the criminal case.
Speaker 3: You didn't want to talk to the media, but you
Speaker 3: finally were cajoled into making some sort of stuff. Tell
Speaker 3: us about how hard that statement was.
Speaker 2: It was not easy making those statements as I As
Speaker 2: I mentioned, I did realize very early on, though, that
Speaker 2: the media has such a tremendous role when it comes
Speaker 2: to families of murder victims. And it's a role that
Speaker 2: I appreciate very, very greatly, and frankly, it's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why I'm talking with you today. Dan. I
Speaker 2: am so grateful for anybody, whether they are you know, national,
Speaker 2: My father's case has been featured on Dateline, NBC, right,
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to them. I'm grateful for the local television stations,
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Times, you know, the state wide newspapers.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful for all the true crime podcasts and everybody
Speaker 2: who keeps the stories out there. And so I realized
Speaker 2: very early on that, you know, my family was going
Speaker 2: to need the media. They were a valued partner because
Speaker 2: we had to disseminate information, whether it was a sketch
Speaker 2: of somebody who might have been a suspect, or whether
Speaker 2: it was you know, a call for you know, awareness
Speaker 2: that the killers still out there, or you know, just
Speaker 2: anything like that. The media was going to be a
Speaker 2: valued partner. So I was lucky to have good relationships.
Speaker 2: There are ones that I still enjoy, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people who I think cared a lot about my
Speaker 2: dad's case in my family.
Speaker 3: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 3: these messages. Now, this is a dramatic and vivid scene.
Speaker 3: You had to tour the crime scene, and then you
Speaker 3: say it was necessary, you had to help the police.
Speaker 3: Tell us about that viewing of the crime scene.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's very morbid and difficult to
Speaker 2: go into your childhood house and realize that you will
Speaker 2: never look at it the same because a murder occurred there. Secondly,
Speaker 2: it's hard because you know, you're trying to provide insight
Speaker 2: and everything like that to the police. The crime scene was,
Speaker 2: you know, reflected that my father was a collector. His
Speaker 2: house had a lot of things in it. They weren't
Speaker 2: always at organized, But at the same time, there were
Speaker 2: things in the crime scene that immediately stuck out to me.
Speaker 2: First of all, my father had a three story house
Speaker 2: filled with valuables. If anybody knew just a little something
Speaker 2: about art or you know, anything collectibles or whatever, even tools,
Speaker 2: they probably would have taken a lot more in his house. Now,
Speaker 2: there's obviously two possibilities for that. They could have been
Speaker 2: interrupted and not had you know, time, or they could
Speaker 2: have been after something very specific. But the things that
Speaker 2: stuck out in my father's bedroom where he was killed.
Speaker 2: He was killed in his third floor bedroom on the
Speaker 2: top of the house, was that somebody had broken into
Speaker 2: a wooden file cabinet. We don't know what was taken
Speaker 2: out of there. Somebody had also walked right past one
Speaker 2: of his own personal pieces of jewelry, rather large ring
Speaker 2: that was sitting on his desk. There were some electronic
Speaker 2: items that were not stolen, you know, iPads, things like that.
Speaker 2: So it just, you know, there were things of the
Speaker 2: crime scene that just didn't seem right to me.
Speaker 3: Tell us about the document concerning your father's will and
Speaker 3: amendments to that will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my dad was in the middle of redoing
Speaker 2: his estate plan when he got killed. He was updating it.
Speaker 2: I think to you know, to focus more on grandchildren
Speaker 2: rather than children. A lot of people do that, they
Speaker 2: sort of skip the generation that that's older and they
Speaker 2: just try to put things in the next generation. And
Speaker 2: it's a way to sort of you know anyway anyway.
Speaker 2: But he had on his desk where some papers he
Speaker 2: had fed he had had fed next to him to
Speaker 2: change beneficiary forms for certain accounts. And then also on
Speaker 2: his desk and on the floor were some handwritten notes
Speaker 2: he had made that he wanted to give to an
Speaker 2: estate attorney about how he was going to change his estate.
Speaker 3: Right away. What was the thoughts from detectives whether this
Speaker 3: crime could have possibly been associated with you and politically
Speaker 3: or politically motivated?
Speaker 2: Great question. So you know, I initially had concerns that
Speaker 2: this crime was targeted at me. You can't get elected
Speaker 2: in politics, and you can't rise to the most powerful
Speaker 2: levels without making some enemies and breaking some eggs. And
Speaker 2: I had a lot of people who, well not a
Speaker 2: lot of people, but I had my share of people
Speaker 2: who you know, protested me or followed me around. There
Speaker 2: was one group of people that was upset at a
Speaker 2: position I had taken, who followed me around and held
Speaker 2: press conferences where they splashed fake blood for example. You know,
Speaker 2: I that just such an extreme gesture at the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, people have to remember to twenty thirteen. Politics
Speaker 2: was ugly, but it wasn't as ugly as it is now.
Speaker 2: And so that was, you know, that was extreme behavior,
Speaker 2: and so I had concerns that it might be politically
Speaker 2: connected or some kind of message. The police were very
Speaker 2: blunt and very you know, brutally direct about that. They
Speaker 2: basically said, Mike, your La residence is not too far away.
Speaker 2: You're a public guy. Everybody knows where you live, where
Speaker 2: your office is, and you know, even your Sacramento residences
Speaker 2: in the white pages. If someone wanted to kill you,
Speaker 2: they would have just killed you. And I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, all right, gee, thank you for making
Speaker 2: me feel so great. Right. It was definitely very very blunt,
Speaker 2: but you know, I think we quickly put that to bed,
Speaker 2: although there were times in the investigation where somebody would
Speaker 2: give a tip that said, gee, this was politically connected.
Speaker 2: The next theory that came out was that the Russian
Speaker 2: mafia had something to do with it, and that came
Speaker 2: from a neighbor who got a flyer where my dad.
Speaker 2: My dad had this very arcane collection of paintings that
Speaker 2: are made in were made in Russia and the Eastern
Speaker 2: Orthodox countries. They originated in the Byzantine Lands, Greece, etc.
Speaker 2: There had been a flyer that had gone around at
Speaker 2: an antiquarian society that basically said, Joe Gotto is going
Speaker 2: to speak on this date and he's going to bring
Speaker 2: some of his collection of these rare and unique paintings. Now,
Speaker 2: her imagination went wild, and I don't think she realized,
Speaker 2: you know, these were not van Goes or Monais. These
Speaker 2: were you know, they were worth you know, five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars versus fifty million dollars. Right and on top of that,
Speaker 2: the police dismissed that right away too, even though it
Speaker 2: had gotten out in the media, because you know, who
Speaker 2: ever killed my dad walked right by several of these
Speaker 2: paintings hanging on the wall. So it's like the fog
Speaker 2: of war, right the first couple hours or days after
Speaker 2: something like this, you know, you have all these false
Speaker 2: impressions and false leads.
Speaker 3: You write that the first real clues. A couple of
Speaker 3: days after your father's murder, some leads began filtering in
Speaker 3: and a local mother sent something November twelfth. She said
Speaker 3: she was driving home from karate with her son when
Speaker 3: she encountered a young man brazenly breaking into cars around
Speaker 3: six forty pm. She summoned a neighbor and they both
Speaker 3: confronted this, and he just apparently walked back towards And
Speaker 3: you can explain this. These community stairs tell us about
Speaker 3: these community stairs, and what discovery of those community stairs
Speaker 3: would indicate.
Speaker 2: Well, So this theory was the one that dominated my
Speaker 2: father's case for probably the first six or seven years.
Speaker 2: And I still encounter people who think this is the
Speaker 2: dominant theory. And it's because the police said it was
Speaker 2: the dominant theory. And as you'll see, I'm very, very upset.
Speaker 2: I would even use the word angry about this. So
Speaker 2: there was a guy breaking into cars right around the
Speaker 2: time that people come home from work and people come
Speaker 2: home from extracurriculars like karate, So that in and of
Speaker 2: itself kind of strange, but also at the same time
Speaker 2: not strange. I think if you went at any given
Speaker 2: time on any given subdivision in Los Angeles, somebody is
Speaker 2: breaking into a car, right and you know, to attribute
Speaker 2: so much to that, you know, perhaps is a mistake.
Speaker 2: In any event, this person was confronted by this woman
Speaker 2: and her neighbor, and you know, he said something to
Speaker 2: them like follow me and die, or you know, something
Speaker 2: like that. But he did turn and run away. Now,
Speaker 2: the neighborhood my dad lived in is shaped like a
Speaker 2: stadium bowl that's the easiest way to think about it,
Speaker 2: where there's a lake and the lake is the field.
Speaker 2: My dad's street is one of the aisles that connects
Speaker 2: the levels, and there's certain like levels like a stadium,
Speaker 2: and this happened at one of the higher levels of
Speaker 2: the stadium, you know, the cheap seats for lack of
Speaker 2: a better word. But he ran down these you know,
Speaker 2: in some neighborhoods they call him walk streets. There's these
Speaker 2: little you know, streets that you know, connect the levels.
Speaker 2: We call them community stairs. And he ran down these
Speaker 2: community stairs sort of in the direction of my dad's
Speaker 2: house or the field in my analogy. Now, they chased him.
Speaker 2: They got in their car and they chased him, but
Speaker 2: they had to drive around a hairpin curve to get
Speaker 2: to where he was by foot. And you know, at
Speaker 2: that moment, the young man, I want to say, the
Speaker 2: boy was six or seven or eight in the car.
Speaker 2: He believes he saw a gun, okay, and that's very
Speaker 2: important because then the police would say, you know, as
Speaker 2: one of the detectives said, well, this is you know,
Speaker 2: Oxham's razor. You know, if you got a horse running
Speaker 2: thro the neighborhood, I don't go looking for no unicorns. Right.
Speaker 2: But this is where the theory gets really strange. For
Speaker 2: this theory to work, Okay, my father would have had
Speaker 2: to be in the victim, not just of a murder,
Speaker 2: but some very very bad luck. The police's theory when
Speaker 2: I pressed them, was well, okay, so this guy might
Speaker 2: have been right handed. Right handed people tend to turn
Speaker 2: right when they're being chased. So then he headed toward
Speaker 2: your dad's street. Now, he was probably a neighborhood kid,
Speaker 2: and that's how he knew that the community stairs were there,
Speaker 2: because he was very confident when he went to them
Speaker 2: because they just looked like stairs at someone's house. But
Speaker 2: he knew that they were there. But then he starts
Speaker 2: running towards your dad's house. But then he maybe thinks
Speaker 2: your Dad's street is an alley because there's only three
Speaker 2: houses on it, so he runs down that to try
Speaker 2: to keep getting away, and at that exact moment, your
Speaker 2: dad had bought a printer, but he realized that he
Speaker 2: couldn't get it out of the doors of his car,
Speaker 2: so he had to open the hatchback, which required him
Speaker 2: to open his garage door to get it out. So
Speaker 2: he opened his garage door and he got the printer out,
Speaker 2: and then right as he's closing the garage door, there's
Speaker 2: a tour helicopter that's taking tourists to see the Hollywood Sign.
Speaker 2: And this guy thinks, oh, it's not a tour helicopter,
Speaker 2: it's a police helicopter. I got to get inside, and
Speaker 2: just thankfully for this guy's luck. Right at that time,
Speaker 2: your dad's garage door is coming down, and he quietly
Speaker 2: ducks in without your dad seeing him. And then your
Speaker 2: dad goes upstairs and sets up the printer and sends
Speaker 2: a few emails and messes around on his website. And
Speaker 2: the guy sits in your dad's garage for over an hour,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't take anything. He doesn't steal tools, he
Speaker 2: doesn't steal the valuables in the garage, he doesn't just
Speaker 2: press the button and walk out. Now that he's sure
Speaker 2: that the helicopter's not looking for him, he sits in
Speaker 2: your dad's garage for an hour, and mind you, there
Speaker 2: are three cars present. He doesn't know if the entire
Speaker 2: Ukrainian wrestling team lives there, you know he does. At
Speaker 2: some point he decides to walk into an inhabited house
Speaker 2: that he knows is inhabited, and he shoots your dad
Speaker 2: and then he watches him die. And this paranoid guy
Speaker 2: who ran away from this this other you know people,
Speaker 2: he sits there and calmly rifles through your dad's bedroom
Speaker 2: with a dying man there, somebody that he's not even
Speaker 2: sure necessarily is dead. I mean like that theory has
Speaker 2: always always not set well with me. And yet they
Speaker 2: press the people who saw him to give a sketch.
Speaker 2: The adults could not give a sketch. They did not
Speaker 2: see his face. The adults did not see a gun.
Speaker 2: They pressed the young man to give a sketch, and
Speaker 2: he gave a sketch. And the sketch looks like anybody.
Speaker 2: It looks like any young man who is you know,
Speaker 2: European or Hispanic descent. And for years I got up
Speaker 2: in front of the cameras and said, have you seen
Speaker 2: this sketch? Have you know blah blah blah, And yet
Speaker 2: the more I think about it, and the more I
Speaker 2: thought about it, the more I realized, there's just so
Speaker 2: much with this theory that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: You righte that because there had been some aspersions passed
Speaker 3: by your sisters on each other's boyfriends, police asked everyone
Speaker 3: in your family to provide a DNA sample and their
Speaker 3: phone records. Anything come up as a result of this.
Speaker 2: Obviously nothing has come from that. I also, you know,
Speaker 2: I also, you know, kind of questioned how you know
Speaker 2: valid that is not in my dad's case, but in
Speaker 2: any type of murder, because I would think that in
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent of cases where someone has
Speaker 2: you know, IQ approaching three digits, if they had something
Speaker 2: to do with it, you know, they're using burner phones,
Speaker 2: they're they're not personally, you know, necessarily doing the dirty deed,
Speaker 2: or they're going over with you know, they're they're going
Speaker 2: over with a friend or somebody that they hired. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I always just wondered, like, Okay, so you know,
Speaker 2: you you get these records, but I'm not necessarily sure
Speaker 2: that it's that valid of a thing.
Speaker 3: These days, police, when do you find out that police
Speaker 3: say that they had have DNA and also what of
Speaker 3: this about the jewelry missing from your father's place.
Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly when I found out that the
Speaker 2: police had DNA, but it was like the word got out,
Speaker 2: you know, several different ways, and the police have now
Speaker 2: you know, mentioned it at press conferences and things like that.
Speaker 2: The problem again with the phrase where we have DNA
Speaker 2: is whenever there's DNA at a crime scene, right unless
Speaker 2: it's like under the victim's fingernails or you know, if
Speaker 2: it's something like a sexual assault or something like that,
Speaker 2: the reality is you don't you can't be one hundred
Speaker 2: percent sure that it was a perpetrator. Now, the police
Speaker 2: think in this case that it is the perpetrators, but
Speaker 2: you know, they can't be sure. Secondly, they've explained to
Speaker 2: me that the DNA that they have is so minuscule
Speaker 2: that it's so fragmented. It's almost like when they find
Speaker 2: ancient DNA, like from a Neanderthal one hundred thousand years ago.
Speaker 2: It's that fragmented and so very very difficult to use.
Speaker 2: There was some jewelry taken from my father's third floor bedroom.
Speaker 2: They know that because I guess there were some little
Speaker 2: jewelry envelopes where he stored the pieces that were torn open,
Speaker 2: and they found him on his bed. I want to
Speaker 2: stress my dad was not making engagement rings. He was
Speaker 2: not making platinum and gold and selling his stuff for
Speaker 2: you know, ten fifteen thousand dollars. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: making craft jewelry with maybe you know, thirty dollars worth
Speaker 2: of silver or two hundred dollars worth of gold, and
Speaker 2: the melt value of his pieces was not great. So
Speaker 2: you know, whatever was stolen, you probably totaled a few
Speaker 2: thousand bucks.
Speaker 3: If that, you're right that this investigation of your father's
Speaker 3: murder became full time for you pretty well, and also
Speaker 3: that you created a document with questions you had for
Speaker 3: the investigators. Tell us a little bit about this document
Speaker 3: and its response from detectives.
Speaker 2: Well, I knew that I had to get organized because
Speaker 2: this was eating me up inside. Can't tell you how
Speaker 2: many sleepless nights I spent. I also look back at
Speaker 2: the time in my life and I say, you know,
Speaker 2: I probably wasn't a good son to my mother, probably
Speaker 2: wasn't the best husband to my wife, probably wasn't the
Speaker 2: most engaged father. Now, don't get me wrong, I still
Speaker 2: tried very hard to be present, and I was, and
Speaker 2: I also worked very hard at my job because I
Speaker 2: didn't want this to, you know, to affect me too much.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I do think, you know,
Speaker 2: it sort of became an obsession for me for many
Speaker 2: years because there were so many unanswered questions and so
Speaker 2: many things that didn't make sense. What I started to
Speaker 2: do is tabulate all the clues and all the evidence
Speaker 2: that we did have, and I wanted to see if
Speaker 2: it pointed to any one thing included for me. I
Speaker 2: actually interviewed the people who saw this car burglar, you know,
Speaker 2: I called them up myself and I just introduced myself
Speaker 2: and I said, would you mind if I asked you
Speaker 2: a few questions, and they were very helpful. The thing
Speaker 2: that stuck with me is that they, you know, the
Speaker 2: police's profile of this kid was like, well, he was
Speaker 2: a junkie looking for a hit, you know. And I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 2: if you've got a gun, you don't break into cars,
Speaker 2: because first of all, that turns a misdemeanor into a felony. Secondly,
Speaker 2: you just go stick somebody up. You don't need to
Speaker 2: kill my dad. Thirdly, the people who saw him, they said,
Speaker 2: oh no, he was dressed very well. He was wearing
Speaker 2: expensive clothes, you know, kind of like think like a
Speaker 2: tracksuit type thing. And they said he looked like an
Speaker 2: Eastern European hitman. And you know, so, you know, you
Speaker 2: just you wonder all these permutations. Was it a decoy,
Speaker 2: could it have been a second killer or somebody watching
Speaker 2: the perimeter? I don't know. I mean it, my dad's
Speaker 2: has so many mysteries in it.
Speaker 3: That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 3: You right, that you felt like a fool after this,
Speaker 3: when you realize that you had circulated end mass a
Speaker 3: poster with this sketch that police had said was a
Speaker 3: sketch of the perpetrator. How do you proceed from this
Speaker 3: point on and tell us about your decision to finally
Speaker 3: hire a private eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean I do feel sort of foolish,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's like I kept I kept holding
Speaker 2: these press conferences where I sort of begged the public
Speaker 2: to look at the sketch and come forward if they
Speaker 2: saw this guy. And you know, in retrospect, it's like
Speaker 2: the sketches like not great, and the police knew that,
Speaker 2: and I you know, and you know, it really just
Speaker 2: sort of describes anybody, and it describes nobody. Secondly, remember
Speaker 2: that there's so many things about the crime, saying and
Speaker 2: everything that just are very weird. I don't know how
Speaker 2: many of your listeners have fired a gun, but a
Speaker 2: gunshot is loud, it's jarring, it's jarring when it's at
Speaker 2: a range. That's why you wear ear protection. You imagine it,
Speaker 2: you know, inside an enclosed dwelling, you know. So, and
Speaker 2: this idea that somebody shot my father and sat there
Speaker 2: and just sort of watched him die very strange to me.
Speaker 2: You know, we've all seen movies where somebody's shot and
Speaker 2: it's not a not a kill shot, and the person
Speaker 2: wakes up and fights back, or wakes up in this
Speaker 2: case and dials nine one one or you know, all right,
Speaker 2: And it's like, it's just weird that somebody fired one
Speaker 2: shot not too right, and then would have had the
Speaker 2: calmness or the psychopathy to sit there and rifle through
Speaker 2: a room, but just one room, not two or three. Right.
Speaker 2: It's just so many things don't make sense. And then
Speaker 2: you go back to Okay, then it's more likely that
Speaker 2: my dad came home and surprise somebody versus the other
Speaker 2: way around, somebody coming into the house and surprising him.
Speaker 2: But then you get back to there is no forced
Speaker 2: entry my dad's house, There no signs of forced entry,
Speaker 2: And then you get back to, you know, my dad
Speaker 2: was not a vigilante. If he walked into his bedroom
Speaker 2: and saw that it was ransacked, I mean, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess maybe for five minutes he might like kind
Speaker 2: of look around and see, gee, as you know, what
Speaker 2: happened here. But I think most people would just pick
Speaker 2: up their cell phone and walk out and call nine
Speaker 2: one one. So it's just very weird. And then of
Speaker 2: course there's the thing of my dad being seated at
Speaker 2: his desk, right, so it's all so weird. There is
Speaker 2: so much about my dad's case that is weird. So look,
Speaker 2: at some point, I felt like the police kept telling
Speaker 2: me we're a busy, big city department. There are some
Speaker 2: good qualities and bad claus. Right. They assigned the most
Speaker 2: elite division to my dad's case, which was a nice
Speaker 2: touch and I'm grateful for that. But these were also
Speaker 2: the guys who like hand old like you know, if
Speaker 2: a celebrity was burglarized, or like you know, if a
Speaker 2: if there was like a high profile assassination attempt in
Speaker 2: LA And so, you know, there was many times where
Speaker 2: I called him and they'd just be like, well, we
Speaker 2: can't do that, we're busy, okay. So at some point
Speaker 2: I hired a private detective. One of the most important
Speaker 2: things he found is he talked with one of my
Speaker 2: dad's neighbors who lived essentially two houses away, and she
Speaker 2: said she had heard a gunshot that night. And she
Speaker 2: said that the time she heard the gunshot did not
Speaker 2: comport with the police's timeline. And I called her myself
Speaker 2: and I pressed her, how do you know How can
Speaker 2: you be sure what time you heard it? Well, I
Speaker 2: took my son to a class every night at XYZ
Speaker 2: and I left the house at every time, and so
Speaker 2: I know exactly what time it was. Well, how can
Speaker 2: you be sure it was a gunshot? Well, let's put
Speaker 2: it this way. I was dressed in nice clothes and
Speaker 2: I hit the deck. And I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but I don't want. You know, you don't want to
Speaker 2: dive on your floor wearing nice clothes, but I did.
Speaker 2: I was so scared that I crawled around my floor.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, like things like that made me
Speaker 2: a little bit uncomfortable with the investigation. And also, you know, frankly,
Speaker 2: the approach of some of the detectives on my dad's case. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I just viewed it as one more piece
Speaker 2: of trying to get every possible bit of information to
Speaker 2: solve my father's case.
Speaker 3: You right. Also, a California Court of appeal had struck
Speaker 3: down California's eleven year old DNA collection law, which required
Speaker 3: samples to be taken from people arrested for a serious felony.
Speaker 3: Can you briefly tell us about this fight?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you talk about you talk about like
Speaker 2: like everything is going bad. It was a very tough
Speaker 2: year for me. So in the midst of my dad's case, Yeah,
Speaker 2: court had struck down Californa's DNA collection law. And I mean,
Speaker 2: just let me make it very playton or you know,
Speaker 2: clear for the listener. When you have DNA in a
Speaker 2: murder or a rape, it becomes a waiting game. It's like,
Speaker 2: let's hope that this person gets arrested again and that
Speaker 2: they swab and sample the DNA, and you know that
Speaker 2: you get a hit and then now, gee, here's the
Speaker 2: Court of Appeal saying we're going to stop swabbing people
Speaker 2: in the state of California. And I was like, my god,
Speaker 2: my dad's case will never be solved. But thankfully the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal. Thankfully the I
Speaker 2: was able to introduce legislation to protect DNA collection even
Speaker 2: if that had not happened. But gosh, what a rough
Speaker 2: period of my life that that happened. At that time.
Speaker 3: You write something very very interesting. I'll have to ask
Speaker 3: you about it. February one, twenty sixteen, the last Pheeli
Speaker 3: is Alleger, now defunct, reported that your older sister, Nicole,
Speaker 3: married her boyfriend a few hours before your father was
Speaker 3: murdered in a private ceremony with no family members present.
Speaker 3: What do you think the paper was alluding to with
Speaker 3: this story.
Speaker 2: What's hard to say, right I I talked about later
Speaker 2: in the book too, how I talked to another journalist,
Speaker 2: a former La Times reporter, who said, you know, you
Speaker 2: don't have to assume the worst. You could You could
Speaker 2: very easily just assume that, you know, it's possible that
Speaker 2: you know, people in the circle knew about the wedding
Speaker 2: and they assumed that your father would be at the wedding.
Speaker 2: They did not know that there had been you know,
Speaker 2: some breach or some you know, or that the wedding
Speaker 2: was private or quiet or secret or whatever, and so
Speaker 2: they had planned on, you know, robbing his house while
Speaker 2: he was at the wedding. Who wouldn't think that a
Speaker 2: dad would, would you know, not be at his daughter's wedding.
Speaker 2: You know, I thought about that. That's absolutely a possibility.
Speaker 2: But my approach in the case has always been standard.
Speaker 2: I have told the police I would not be a
Speaker 2: good father to I'm sorry, I would not be a
Speaker 2: good son to my father, and I would not be
Speaker 2: honoring his legacy, and I would not be looking for
Speaker 2: justice if I didn't encourage you to to, you know,
Speaker 2: explore all possible theories and all possible leads. That is
Speaker 2: your job. That is my job, and I don't care
Speaker 2: if I'm a public figure. I don't care how painful
Speaker 2: it might be to think about. You need to explore
Speaker 2: all leads, and that's consistently been my message with respect
Speaker 2: to everything for my dad's case.
Speaker 3: You write that since your father's test, you immersed yourself
Speaker 3: in the world of genetic genealogy and then offered up
Speaker 3: try to immerse yourself and be able to be very
Speaker 3: educated and be able to explain it to these detectives.
Speaker 3: What was their response with these with this kind of initiative.
Speaker 2: The detectives on the case for the longest part of
Speaker 2: my dad's case, and you know, some of them have
Speaker 2: had some very let's say loud and very acrimonious partings
Speaker 2: with with the LAPD that involved lawsuits. So I know
Speaker 2: it's not just me who feels this way, but you know,
Speaker 2: they were sometimes very difficult, They said some strange things,
Speaker 2: They didn't have a great bedside manner. They you know,
Speaker 2: really had bad timing on certain things. But it's also like,
Speaker 2: you know, you would think if you're investigating murders for
Speaker 2: ten or twenty years, I know that that's not your thing,
Speaker 2: and I know the sciences you know, above your pay grade,
Speaker 2: but that you would learn a little bit about some
Speaker 2: of the latest techniques and be able to discuss them.
Speaker 2: They sort of treated me like a nuisance, like I'd
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I got a call from one of
Speaker 2: the I mean, my dad's case was in the public eye,
Speaker 2: and I was in the public eye, and I had
Speaker 2: access to very well connected people. And I still do
Speaker 2: and I'd get calls from like the foremost genealogists in
Speaker 2: the country, and she would say, Hey, there's been a
Speaker 2: new advance and this lab can do it, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And I'd call them and I'd say have you thought
Speaker 2: about this? And they'd be like huh. And I'd say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, with this type of science, and they'd say huh,
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I mean, look, I'm
Speaker 2: not a full time podcaster, but I keep abreast of
Speaker 2: what different types of microphone technology there is, right And
Speaker 2: it just you would think that they would, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, just have a different attitude for it.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately they did not.
Speaker 3: You write that your criticism of these detectives, you didn't
Speaker 3: reach out to anyone, but these detectives were dropped from
Speaker 3: the case, and you write that you were very optimistic
Speaker 3: when a new team two new detectives were assigned, and
Speaker 3: then they contacted you tell us about this optimism.
Speaker 2: Well, the new team on my dad's case is fantastic.
Speaker 2: They seem like they're genuinely caring people. One of the
Speaker 2: detectives has told me that he really wants to solve
Speaker 2: my dad's case. Before he retires and I like that attitude.
Speaker 2: I like hearing it, you know, even if it wasn't true,
Speaker 2: It's like it's a nice thing to hear, right. And
Speaker 2: also they have reached out for outside help, which is
Speaker 2: also nice because you know, big agencies tend to be
Speaker 2: very parochial and they don't feel like they need outside help.
Speaker 2: And you know, I feel like once a year I
Speaker 2: read a story about some you know, old detective in
Speaker 2: West Virginia who, you know, there's an unsolved case that
Speaker 2: is always stuck in his cry and you know he'l
Speaker 2: he'll reach out for help from you know, a genealogist
Speaker 2: and this agency and that agency, and then they'll solve
Speaker 2: a case. And so you know, the LPD has has
Speaker 2: reached out for some outside help, which is and you know,
Speaker 2: when you're in this situation that my family is in,
Speaker 2: you just want to think that the agency is doing
Speaker 2: everything again, even if they're not. It's like, lie to me,
Speaker 2: tell me that you're doing everything. And so that's where
Speaker 2: I think we are now. I do think we are
Speaker 2: doing everything possible.
Speaker 3: One of those detectives of Louis Romero, you said you
Speaker 3: learned something new from him, and very significant what was.
Speaker 2: That, Well, that was you know, I had always wondered
Speaker 2: whether my dad had fought back. I think some people
Speaker 2: had wondered whether my dad had even been shot with
Speaker 2: his own gun. Now, I don't know if my dad
Speaker 2: had a gun. I don't think he did. He certainly
Speaker 2: would not have had one in a place that was reachable.
Speaker 2: You know, at the time, I had a nephew that
Speaker 2: was very close with my dad. Well, I mean he's
Speaker 2: still he's still, he's still there, But I mean he
Speaker 2: was young. He was a you know, a late adolescent,
Speaker 2: and my dad would not have kept a gun like
Speaker 2: within reaching distance with an adolescent coming over to his house.
Speaker 2: So I really don't think that. I don't think that
Speaker 2: this was my dadd's gun. But what I learned from
Speaker 2: Detective Romero is that my father did have some gun
Speaker 2: shot residue on his you know, his hands or his fingers,
Speaker 2: or his sleeve or his forearms or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and that indicates one of two or three things my
Speaker 2: dad handled a gun could mean it was his, but
Speaker 2: what's more likely in this case is that he wrestled
Speaker 2: with the person or tried to wrestle the gun away
Speaker 2: from the person who who took his life. It could,
Speaker 2: I suppose, mean that he was just that close and
Speaker 2: he held up his hands or something. But you know,
Speaker 2: it tells me a couple of things. It tells me
Speaker 2: that if the most likely thing is true that he
Speaker 2: wrestled with the person, that it could have been somebody
Speaker 2: he knew, or it could have been somebody who was weak,
Speaker 2: or it could have been somebody who is elderly. Now,
Speaker 2: of course that's reading tea leaves, but there's so much
Speaker 2: in my dad's case that is reading tea leaves.
Speaker 3: At the end of this book, you talk about the
Speaker 3: plight of other victims. Late twenty twenty one, you attended
Speaker 3: a memorial to bring aware to crime victims, and you
Speaker 3: said you had met other people at these meetings, and
Speaker 3: you've gone to attended other meetings, but this one really
Speaker 3: stood out because of a woman you met. What did
Speaker 3: this woman have to say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have met a lot of crime victims
Speaker 2: over the years. I speak at memorials and rallies and
Speaker 2: political events, but this one, I don't know. She just
Speaker 2: really struck a chord with me because her pain was
Speaker 2: so real and I felt like we were kindred spirits.
Speaker 2: Her son her son had been killed and he died
Speaker 2: in her arms, and she was so broken up over
Speaker 2: it as you can imagine. I mean, her pain was
Speaker 2: so raw, you know. And she said that in her
Speaker 2: neighborhood everybody knew who had killed her son somehow, but
Speaker 2: the cops had not made an arrest. And I just
Speaker 2: learned this. You know, it seems like it happens time
Speaker 2: and time again, where you know, there's a murder that
Speaker 2: happens and everybody sort of knows who did it, but
Speaker 2: you know, there might not be evidence or something. There
Speaker 2: might not be DNA, or you know, somebody's cell phone
Speaker 2: didn't ping a satellite at the right moment. But you know,
Speaker 2: if police just talked with people, and that includes talking
Speaker 2: with people who might have something to hide, you know,
Speaker 2: like how we're crime solved before the advent of DNA,
Speaker 2: Well they were solved by police talking with people. And
Speaker 2: if there's one thing I learned is that there is
Speaker 2: such a profound value to that. Anyway, this woman was
Speaker 2: having a really hard time. We have stayed in touch,
Speaker 2: and I've done everything I came on to get her
Speaker 2: back on our feet.
Speaker 3: Before I let you go, tell us the continuing state
Speaker 3: of things on your father's case.
Speaker 2: Well, we have some good things and some tough things.
Speaker 2: The tough thing, of course, is that, look, it's going
Speaker 2: to be twelve years next month and the case is
Speaker 2: not solved, and that means, you know, that could mean
Speaker 2: one of three or four things. It could mean that
Speaker 2: the killer was brilliant, didn't leave any tracks, and you know,
Speaker 2: and that is what it is. It could mean that
Speaker 2: it was a hired hitman and the person flew back
Speaker 2: to use Bekistan, right or wherever they came from. I mean,
Speaker 2: theory that's on the menu, right. It could mean that
Speaker 2: my father's killer is dead and that's why he or
Speaker 2: she or the killers have not reoffended. It could mean
Speaker 2: that we have the wrong evidence, that the evidence we
Speaker 2: think is relevant is really not relevant. At the same time,
Speaker 2: the police do believe that my father's crime will be
Speaker 2: solved someday. They have said to me, they really do
Speaker 2: believe that, and I hope they're right. We do have
Speaker 2: some you know, unknown prints and you know, some physical evidence,
Speaker 2: and there's the fragmented DNA and all that, and so
Speaker 2: I hope there will be advances in technology. There always are,
Speaker 2: and that someday will get closure. The tough thing, right is,
Speaker 2: you know, the question is how long you know, if
Speaker 2: my father was alive now, he'd be in his nineties.
Speaker 2: Many of his friends have passed away, is you know
Speaker 2: some of his cousins and stuff that he's very close with.
Speaker 2: Our oldest one is ninety six. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: justice component, and you want people to have justice at
Speaker 2: some point. You know, justice delayed can sometimes be justice denied.
Speaker 2: So you know, we have hope. We have hope, and
Speaker 2: but the level of activity and things like that is
Speaker 2: nowhere near where it was a few years ago. But
Speaker 2: as you can tell, this is still something that I
Speaker 2: think about very, very frequently, and it's something that I'm
Speaker 2: not going to let go of until we get some
Speaker 2: degree of justice from my dad.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you so much. You're sharing your very personal
Speaker 3: journey throughout this incredible ordeal of your father's death. I
Speaker 3: want to thank you so much for coming on and
Speaker 3: talking about your new book, Noir by Necessity, How my
Speaker 3: father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. For those
Speaker 3: that might want to find out more about this book.
Speaker 3: To have a website or do any social media.
Speaker 2: I do my website is easy. It's Mike Gatto dot com.
Speaker 2: If you remember that it's ga Tto. I'm easy to find.
Speaker 2: I'm also on Twitter or x at Mike Gatto. That's
Speaker 2: where I'm more frequent. But the book is look, the
Speaker 2: book is like anything else, right. It's at some bookstores,
Speaker 2: but it's easiest to get on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. So, Dan,
Speaker 2: I really really appreciate you for what you do to
Speaker 2: bring attention to these cases, and thank you very much
Speaker 2: for having me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on
Speaker 3: and talking about this incredible book, Noir by Necessity, how
Speaker 3: my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. It's
Speaker 3: been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for this interview,
Speaker 3: Mike Gatto, and have yourself a good night you too.
Speaker 3: Thank you