Episode 5: The Case File is Released. The Gary Murphy Assassination
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Release Date: 10/01/2024
Episode 5: The Case File is Released. The Gary Murphy Assassination
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Spencer private eye, the host, wins a public records battle on the case that he has fought for five years. After several attorneys turned him down to represent him vs. San Francisco Police, the police legal division voluntarily released the case file on the 1998 uncharged murder case. The file does not hold back. It names the killers involved in the conspiracy and details how prosecutors at least twice declined to charge anyone connected to the broad daylight shooting of the 41-year-old biker. The case file confirms his initial theory: his former client hired the killers as she was...
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Episode 4: Fighting the SF DA and Police for Records, Gary Murphy Assassination
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Host Mike Spencer private eye escalates his records battle with the DA and Police Department by the San Francisco Sunshine Records Ordinance Task Force. He addresses the Task Force committee, who will decide whether the full task force will hear his arguments for obtaining records in the June 1998 murder for hire of ex con Gary Murphy, gunned down in a halfway house he managed near Ocean Beach. Spencer has obtained some records that suggest his ex client was behind the murder, hiring two former San Quentin state prison inmates to kill Murphy to obtain custody of his then six year old daughter,...
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Episode 3: Combative Grandma, Gary Murphy Assassination
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Host Mike Spencer private eye shines the light on the prime suspect in the broad daylight slaying of Gary Murphy, the grandmother who fought Murphy for custody of his then 6-year-old daughter. This is the 25th anniversary of the June 12, 1998, killing when a gunman chased Murphy through a halfway house that he managed near Ocean Beach in San Francisco, shooting him twice in the back. The hitman ran to an awaring getaway car. The grandmother is Spencer's former client. Spencer digs deeper into grandma's hair-trigger temper and family background. He learns that her family at one point ran...
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Episode 2, Gary Murphy Assassination, An Intriguing Police Memo and a Search Warrant
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Host and private investigator Mike Spencer talks about developments in one of his old cases, the 1998 murder of biker Gary Vincent Murphy. The case has never been charged though a police memo details how close detectives came to making arrests. Was Spencer's former client behind the day time murder for hire at a halfway house in the Outer Sunset District?
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The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold Case
Former reporter turned private investigator Mike Spencer looks for answers in a case he first investigated in 1998. Did the victim's day time killing have something to do with his criminal past as a biker or was it somehow related to his child custody case that Spencer was investigating? A.C. Thompson, investigative reporter for ProPublica, and the victim's daughter are interviewed.
info_outlineSpencer private eye, the host, wins a public records battle on the case that he has fought for five years. After several attorneys turned him down to represent him vs. San Francisco Police, the police legal division voluntarily released the case file on the 1998 uncharged murder case. The file does not hold back. It names the killers involved in the conspiracy and details how prosecutors at least twice declined to charge anyone connected to the broad daylight shooting of the 41-year-old biker.
The case file confirms his initial theory: his former client hired the killers as she was losing a custody battle to Murphy for her then 6-year-old granddaughter.
Did sloppiness of the orgininal detectives doom a prosecution? Possibly. Spencer finds the file to be unorganized despite containing some strong evidence in the forms of ballistics and from witnesses. The case file details that the Murphy suspects were also tied to a notorious home invasion and sexual assault of a pregnant mother that occurred a week after Murphy's murder.
Another detective took up the case in 2012 and within two months had prepared an arrest affidavit for suspects. The case bounces around among prosecutors but ultimately the District Attorney opted not to charge despite considerable corroboration of details in the conspiracy.