October 20, 2025 • 50 mins
Mike Gatto was an up-and-coming young lawmaker when his father was brutally murdered.
The act sucked him into the world of noir: wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.
This true crime story reads like a thriller, offering insight into the world of politics and the seedy underbelly of crime investigation in modern Los Angeles.
Gatto shares his experiences with incredible candor and raw emotion, detailing every clue, and how he came to learn every tragic detail of his father's murder. With the case still unsolved, see if you can piece together the clues to solve this mystery. NOIR BY NECESSITY: How My Father's Unsolved Murder Took Me to Dark Places—Mike Gatto
The act sucked him into the world of noir: wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.
This true crime story reads like a thriller, offering insight into the world of politics and the seedy underbelly of crime investigation in modern Los Angeles.
Gatto shares his experiences with incredible candor and raw emotion, detailing every clue, and how he came to learn every tragic detail of his father's murder. With the case still unsolved, see if you can piece together the clues to solve this mystery. NOIR BY NECESSITY: How My Father's Unsolved Murder Took Me to Dark Places—Mike Gatto
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
killers in true crime history and the authors that have
written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
(00:30):
journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Good Evening.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mike Gaddo was an up and coming young lawmaker when
his father was brutally murdered. The act sucked them into
the world of noir, wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.
This true crime story reads like a thriller, offering insight
(01:01):
into the world of politics and the cd underbelly of
crime investigation in modern Los Angeles. Gaddo shares his experiences
with incredible candor and raw emotion, detailing every clue and
how he came to learn every tragic detail of his
father's murder. With the case still unsolved, see if you
(01:24):
can piece together the clues to solve this mystery. The
book they are featuring this evening is Noir by Necessity.
How my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places
with my special guests attorney and former member of the
California State Assembly representing Los Angeles, and author Mike Gaddo.
(01:50):
Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for
this interview. Mike Gaddo. It is wonderfully with you, Dan,
Thank you so much. Right in a world where much
attention is paid to whether criminals are getting the right treatment,
victims' families continue to be overlooked. Stories focus on the
guilts of the possible perpetrator or the finite details of
(02:14):
the moment a murder happened, and ignore the fallout born
by the departed, living loved ones instead. How is this
book laid out for readers and what do you hope
readers will gain as a result.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Great question. So I laid out my book in such
a way that the reader learns the well the facts
of the crime, plus the clues that came in afterwards,
plus the false starts and the heartache and the false
leads and the false hope. I laid it out chronologically
(02:48):
so that the reader could be taken on the journey
that I went through and that my family went through
and my father was killed. I try to make it
so that and that goes to the purpose of the book.
The purpose of this book was to give people a
little window into what it's like to be the family
of a murder victim. You know, someone said to me
(03:08):
very early on that you join lots of groups in life.
You know, some people join a church or synagogue, people
join a car club, people join a knitting club, or
a poker a poker game. But this fraternity or sorority
of families of murder victims is a group that nobody
ever chooses to join. And when you're thrust into it,
you know you you definitely understand what other families go through.
(03:33):
But the purpose of my book was to give a
little window into what that's like so that people could
make more informed decisions when they vote, when they analyze
crimes themselves, and as they encounter people who have gone
through this in their lives.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Tell us about your professional life in politics and your
personal life. In a year you call a very good
year two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well so in twenty twelve, I remember being the happiest
that I have ever been in my life. I had
just gotten through some very very tough elections to the
California Legislature, but they were behind me. I was at
that point an incumbent. I was confident in my role.
I think the voters had shown that they wanted to
re elect me several times. And on top of that,
(04:21):
I had the biggest joys that anybody could ask for,
at least from my perspective, and that is, you know,
I was starting to have kids. I had two children
at the time, and my second child, my daughter, Evangelina
or Evie, had just been born in October of twenty twelve,
and I just remember thinking, Gosh, what a lucky guy
I am. I was doing what I love. I was
(04:44):
trying to effectuate good policy for the people of California.
And I had a wonderful family, you know, two terrific
daughters at the time, and you know, I had I
had two you know, elderly parents that I was reasonably
close with, and you know, I mean it was not
easy to be to spend tons of time with him
because of my travel schedule, but I felt very very
(05:05):
close with them as well. And I just remember thinking, Gosh,
what a lucky person I am.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Tell us a little bit about your father and your
mother and about the divorce, and but yet you stayed.
They stayed very close, and you stayed very close to
both of them as well.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so my mom and my dad after they got divorce.
They got divorced after twenty something years of marriage, and
they ended up living two blocks away from each other
in the same neighborhood. My mom and my dad is
sort of a study of contrast. My father was his
background was art, and he was very much the you know,
his mind worked like an artist. He was not always
(05:42):
that organized or you know, that that rigid in his things.
And then you know, on the other hand, my mom,
she had gone to law school late in life, in
her forties with three kids. She went to night law
school and became a lawyer, and that sort of reflected
her personality as well. She's you know, very organized and
very very much left brain. And so, you know, they
were sort of the yin and the yang that produced me.
(06:02):
I like to joke. Really they both were good parents
in their way, and you know, I would see my
mother at least once a week. You know, we would
typically do do dinner on Saturdays or Sundays, and my
father I would see as often as humanly possible. He
had been an absolute force in my campaign. He had
(06:25):
come into my campaign almost every night didn't see him
as often as my mom when I was in office,
but that just had to do with different scheduling things.
And you know, he was very busy as in his
retirement he had a burgeoning jewelry business, which you know,
he made craft jewelry that was very artistic. That had
sort of been his lifelong dream and he had put
(06:45):
off that dream to work for us when we were kids,
and so he was you know, he too was enjoying
success at that at that time. It was like kind
of like the starving artists who had put off his
craft but was finally getting renowned. For me, that's just
one of the other, like you know, sort of little
shit aims that you know in him being taken off
this earth too early is that he never got to
see how successful he would be as an artist.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
How old was your father at this time and what
was his health.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Like, So my dad was seventy eight and he was
about to turn seventy nine when he got killed. Some
people might say, my gosh, almost eighty. You know, well,
I hope he had a full life. And you know
the implication is that, well, he did leave a full life,
and gee, it's not so tragic. That he got killed
when people say that, But what I tell people is
(07:35):
my dad was just getting started. First of all, he
loved grandkids more than anything else. And I was really,
you know, as I said, I just starting to have kids, really,
and he had interacted a lot with my oldest, but
had just really met my youngest at the time. Secondly,
he was in the peak of health. This was a
man who sprinted upstairs at age seventy eight. He would
(07:58):
you know, deadlift fig big trees and other things, refrigerators
and stuff like that. I mean, he was just a
very very healthy guy. And he also had you know,
very very good genes. He had cousins in Italy who
had been among the oldest living people, and there was
I think a woman from his dad's hometown who lived
(08:18):
till one hundred and eleven, something like that, one hundred
and fourteen, and so, you know, we just thought that
he would be with us for many, many, many more
years to come, and that he would be a presence
in his grandchildren's lives.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
In twenty thirteen, you were chairman of the Appropriations Committee,
but you spent week days in your Sacramento home. So
tell us about November eleventh, twenty thirteen and some of
the things that you were doing on that day important things.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, so I had a different approach to the capitol.
I'd say maybe twenty or thirty percent of the lawmakers
I know follow my approach, but the Geordy, you know,
seventy percent follow the other approach. A lot of lawmakers
I had seen would they would keep their families back
in the district and then they would go up to
(09:11):
the capital for you know, five days a week, and
they would see their families on the weekend between events
if they were lucky. And so the ratio was, you know,
five out of seven days or four and a half
out of seven days, you would not be with your family.
So I did the opposite. I was grateful that my
wife was a stay at home on and our children
(09:33):
were young, they weren't in school yet, so I had
them come with me essentially to the capital. We maintained
two different residences, and I would fly back home rather
than my family. So so usually you know, five four
or five days a week, I was at our Sacramento place,
and then you know, two three days a week I
would be I would be back in the district, back home.
(09:54):
Now of course, the weekend before my father was killed
was Veterans Day, and that's a day that means a
lot to me, it meant a lot to the five
hundred thousand people in my district. There's a strong tradition
of service in in my old district. And of course
my father himself was a veteran, needed four years in
the army, and so you know, Veterans Day, November eleventh,
I gave speeches, showed up at events, met with veterans.
(10:15):
It was a very, very full day. And then I
flew back to Sacramento, I want to say the afternoon
or the evening of the eleventh. My staff had arranged
for me to take new portraits. And that's because my
official portraits. I had won a special election in the
middle of April, and so my official portraits really weren't official.
They were like snap shops, snapshots of a very tired
(10:37):
guy who just won an election. And so I was
finally going to pose for my official portraits, and I
took them on the portico of the Capitol, I want
to say, on the twelfth orth or thirteenth, and I
had some other meetings that day in the Capitol. It
was just a very very normal week for November for us,
because November is typically one of the rare quiet seasons
(10:57):
for the life of a lawmaker.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You write that that November thirteenth, you had the portrait,
but you worked in the morning and went home in
the afternoon, and on your way home, you called your
dad to see if he had a recommendation for a
new plumber for your place in Los Angeles. He didn't answer,
and you left the message. That night, your cell phone rang.
(11:20):
It was your younger sister Mary Anne. Tell us about
that phone call.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, so we were getting ready to put our daughters
to bed when my phone rang. And I, you know,
my sister didn't typically call me, you know, at like
seven forty five on a weeknight. She knew that was
time when we were putting the kids to bed, and
you know, and I also didn't usually pick up my phone,
you know, I usually screamed my calls. But something told
(11:47):
me to pick it up, and I picked it up,
and my sister was, you know, she was frantic, and
you know, I don't know if you know, hysterical, I
guess would be the right word. And she was talking
very fast, and she said, you know, Michael Mike. Well,
I went over to dad's house, you know, and buh
and and I saw him and I think he's dead.
And you know, my first reaction was no, you know,
(12:07):
get out. You know, my dad had no heart problems.
We talked about his health and I was kind of
like yelling at her, like he's not dead, like you know,
call paramedic. And I just remember her saying like, Michael, Michael,
I touched him and he's cold. And I was like, well, okay,
you know you still got a call paramedic, call the police,
you know, just whatever. And I called the police myself.
(12:29):
I called some friends of mine. I don't I don't
remember who told me, but you know, sometime in the
next hour or so, it was either the police or
the paramedics got in the line and told me that
my father was dead. And they said that the likely
cause of death was a gunshot wound. And you know,
your your first reaction is disbelief.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You say that when you arrived home, the TV news
vans were pulled up to your home. What did you
and your wife do as a result.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, so we the situation was very much chaotic that night.
We uh, you know, it's already eight or nine o'clock,
and you know, we put the kids to bed, and
then I set up sort of a situation room, and
we realized what we had missed the last flight back
to LA that night. So the next day we had
to drive back to LA and that's also easier with
(13:21):
with young kids. It's many ways easier than flying because
you can stop and like that. So we got in
the car the next day and we drove back to
Los Angeles and the TV vans had been on site
for for you know, for I think twenty four hours
at that point or something close to it. And you know,
we we couldn't even really get into my home because
that there was such a phalanx of TV vans around
(13:44):
my own home. So we met my sisters at a hotel.
But at some point, you know, we went over to
the to my father's house, to my child at home
to help the police, you know, analyze the crime scene.
They had been there for for you know, for twenty
four hours. They had gotten everything they wanted but they
wanted asked his questions about if anything was out of
place and such, and of course when I pulled up,
(14:04):
the media mobbed me, and you know, it was not easy.
It's hard as a public figure when there is something
that affects you personally, it's hard to keep your composure.
And those interviews at night were very hard for me
to keep composure. You have three sisters and just two
(14:26):
just too young.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, what happened next regarding your sisters and some
information imparted.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, my sisters had been they had done a real
estate investment together, modest real state investment a few years back.
I'm not I remember all the details at Frankly, I
tried to stay out of all those details, but they
had some kind of squabble about how the thing was managed,
and so things were already tense with them with respect
to money. But we found out, you know, shortly after
(14:57):
my dad's death that his person and all, you know
what I call the civil or the civil part of
his case, not the criminal case, but the civil part
of his case was a mess. He had not updated
his estate plan for I want to say fourteen years
or something crazy like that. Maybe it was less than that,
but it was in any event, his personal affairs were
(15:18):
not in order, and his estate was very unclear. And
lack of clarity and estate planning often causes disputes between
the family, and unfortunately mine was no different. There were
immediately some disputes and some bad feelings. That was something
that I you know, that's a secondary or tertiary consideration
(15:39):
in my dad's case. But I think the way that
I sum it up is that, you know, you're trying
to manage his criminal case and the investigation and try
to find justice and try to find closure, and then
you have this other piece, which is the fact that
his affairs weren't in order and there was a lot
of acrimony between the family.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Right that both separately the sister said that very disparaging
things about each other's boyfriends, things that were troubling in
their implications. Can you explain that?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, I mean they I think it's fair to say
that my sisters at the time did not approve of
each other's boyfriends, or that the boyfriends didn't get along,
you know. So, yeah, they both were not pleasant to
talk to you when it came to some of that stuff.
(16:33):
You know, it's just a shame because you know, I'm
aware that lots of family squabble after a loved one dies,
but again, in this case, you know, I think it
detracts and distracts from the main goal here, which is,
you know, reassuring the living and working for justice in
the criminal case.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
You didn't want to talk to the media, but you
finally were cajoled into making some sort of stuff. Tell
us about how hard that statement was.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It was not easy making those statements as I As
I mentioned, I did realize very early on, though, that
the media has such a tremendous role when it comes
to families of murder victims. And it's a role that
I appreciate very, very greatly, and frankly, it's one of
the reasons why I'm talking with you today. Dan. I
am so grateful for anybody, whether they are you know, national,
(17:30):
My father's case has been featured on Dateline, NBC, right,
I'm grateful to them. I'm grateful for the local television stations,
the Los Angeles Times, you know, the state wide newspapers.
I'm grateful for all the true crime podcasts and everybody
who keeps the stories out there. And so I realized
very early on that, you know, my family was going
to need the media. They were a valued partner because
(17:52):
we had to disseminate information, whether it was a sketch
of somebody who might have been a suspect, or whether
it was you know, a call for you know, awareness
that the killers still out there, or you know, just
anything like that. The media was going to be a
valued partner. So I was lucky to have good relationships.
There are ones that I still enjoy, and a lot
of people who I think cared a lot about my
(18:13):
dad's case in my family.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
these messages. Now, this is a dramatic and vivid scene.
You had to tour the crime scene, and then you
say it was necessary, you had to help the police.
Tell us about that viewing of the crime scene.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well, first of all, it's very morbid and difficult to
go into your childhood house and realize that you will
never look at it the same because a murder occurred there. Secondly,
it's hard because you know, you're trying to provide insight
and everything like that to the police. The crime scene was,
you know, reflected that my father was a collector. His
(18:58):
house had a lot of things in it. They weren't
always at organized, But at the same time, there were
things in the crime scene that immediately stuck out to me.
First of all, my father had a three story house
filled with valuables. If anybody knew just a little something
about art or you know, anything collectibles or whatever, even tools,
they probably would have taken a lot more in his house. Now,
(19:19):
there's obviously two possibilities for that. They could have been
interrupted and not had you know, time, or they could
have been after something very specific. But the things that
stuck out in my father's bedroom where he was killed.
He was killed in his third floor bedroom on the
top of the house, was that somebody had broken into
a wooden file cabinet. We don't know what was taken
out of there. Somebody had also walked right past one
(19:42):
of his own personal pieces of jewelry, rather large ring
that was sitting on his desk. There were some electronic
items that were not stolen, you know, iPads, things like that.
So it just, you know, there were things of the
crime scene that just didn't seem right to me.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Tell us about the document concerning your father's will and
amendments to that will.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so my dad was in the middle of redoing
his estate plan when he got killed. He was updating it.
I think to you know, to focus more on grandchildren
rather than children. A lot of people do that, they
sort of skip the generation that that's older and they
just try to put things in the next generation. And
it's a way to sort of you know anyway anyway.
(20:29):
But he had on his desk where some papers he
had fed he had had fed next to him to
change beneficiary forms for certain accounts. And then also on
his desk and on the floor were some handwritten notes
he had made that he wanted to give to an
estate attorney about how he was going to change his estate.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Right away. What was the thoughts from detectives whether this
crime could have possibly been associated with you and politically
or politically motivated?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Great question. So you know, I initially had concerns that
this crime was targeted at me. You can't get elected
in politics, and you can't rise to the most powerful
levels without making some enemies and breaking some eggs. And
I had a lot of people who, well not a
lot of people, but I had my share of people
(21:24):
who you know, protested me or followed me around. There
was one group of people that was upset at a
position I had taken, who followed me around and held
press conferences where they splashed fake blood for example. You know,
I that just such an extreme gesture at the time.
I mean, people have to remember to twenty thirteen. Politics
was ugly, but it wasn't as ugly as it is now.
(21:46):
And so that was, you know, that was extreme behavior,
and so I had concerns that it might be politically
connected or some kind of message. The police were very
blunt and very you know, brutally direct about that. They
basically said, Mike, your La residence is not too far away.
You're a public guy. Everybody knows where you live, where
your office is, and you know, even your Sacramento residences
(22:08):
in the white pages. If someone wanted to kill you,
they would have just killed you. And I was like,
all right, well, all right, gee, thank you for making
me feel so great. Right. It was definitely very very blunt,
but you know, I think we quickly put that to bed,
although there were times in the investigation where somebody would
give a tip that said, gee, this was politically connected.
(22:29):
The next theory that came out was that the Russian
mafia had something to do with it, and that came
from a neighbor who got a flyer where my dad.
My dad had this very arcane collection of paintings that
are made in were made in Russia and the Eastern
Orthodox countries. They originated in the Byzantine Lands, Greece, etc.
There had been a flyer that had gone around at
(22:50):
an antiquarian society that basically said, Joe Gotto is going
to speak on this date and he's going to bring
some of his collection of these rare and unique paintings. Now,
her imagination went wild, and I don't think she realized,
you know, these were not van Goes or Monais. These
were you know, they were worth you know, five thousand
dollars versus fifty million dollars. Right and on top of that,
the police dismissed that right away too, even though it
(23:11):
had gotten out in the media, because you know, who
ever killed my dad walked right by several of these
paintings hanging on the wall. So it's like the fog
of war, right the first couple hours or days after
something like this, you know, you have all these false
impressions and false leads.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You write that the first real clues. A couple of
days after your father's murder, some leads began filtering in
and a local mother sent something November twelfth. She said
she was driving home from karate with her son when
she encountered a young man brazenly breaking into cars around
(23:52):
six forty pm. She summoned a neighbor and they both
confronted this, and he just apparently walked back towards And
you can explain this. These community stairs tell us about
these community stairs, and what discovery of those community stairs
(24:14):
would indicate.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Well, So this theory was the one that dominated my
father's case for probably the first six or seven years.
And I still encounter people who think this is the
dominant theory. And it's because the police said it was
the dominant theory. And as you'll see, I'm very, very upset.
I would even use the word angry about this. So
there was a guy breaking into cars right around the
(24:39):
time that people come home from work and people come
home from extracurriculars like karate, So that in and of
itself kind of strange, but also at the same time
not strange. I think if you went at any given
time on any given subdivision in Los Angeles, somebody is
breaking into a car, right and you know, to attribute
(24:59):
so much to that, you know, perhaps is a mistake.
In any event, this person was confronted by this woman
and her neighbor, and you know, he said something to
them like follow me and die, or you know, something
like that. But he did turn and run away. Now,
the neighborhood my dad lived in is shaped like a
(25:19):
stadium bowl that's the easiest way to think about it,
where there's a lake and the lake is the field.
My dad's street is one of the aisles that connects
the levels, and there's certain like levels like a stadium,
and this happened at one of the higher levels of
the stadium, you know, the cheap seats for lack of
a better word. But he ran down these you know,
in some neighborhoods they call him walk streets. There's these
(25:40):
little you know, streets that you know, connect the levels.
We call them community stairs. And he ran down these
community stairs sort of in the direction of my dad's
house or the field in my analogy. Now, they chased him.
They got in their car and they chased him, but
they had to drive around a hairpin curve to get
to where he was by foot. And you know, at
(26:01):
that moment, the young man, I want to say, the
boy was six or seven or eight in the car.
He believes he saw a gun, okay, and that's very
important because then the police would say, you know, as
one of the detectives said, well, this is you know,
Oxham's razor. You know, if you got a horse running
thro the neighborhood, I don't go looking for no unicorns. Right.
But this is where the theory gets really strange. For
(26:25):
this theory to work, Okay, my father would have had
to be in the victim, not just of a murder,
but some very very bad luck. The police's theory when
I pressed them, was well, okay, so this guy might
have been right handed. Right handed people tend to turn
right when they're being chased. So then he headed toward
your dad's street. Now, he was probably a neighborhood kid,
and that's how he knew that the community stairs were there,
because he was very confident when he went to them
(26:47):
because they just looked like stairs at someone's house. But
he knew that they were there. But then he starts
running towards your dad's house. But then he maybe thinks
your Dad's street is an alley because there's only three
houses on it, so he runs down that to try
to keep getting away, and at that exact moment, your
dad had bought a printer, but he realized that he
couldn't get it out of the doors of his car,
so he had to open the hatchback, which required him
to open his garage door to get it out. So
(27:08):
he opened his garage door and he got the printer out,
and then right as he's closing the garage door, there's
a tour helicopter that's taking tourists to see the Hollywood Sign.
And this guy thinks, oh, it's not a tour helicopter,
it's a police helicopter. I got to get inside, and
just thankfully for this guy's luck. Right at that time,
your dad's garage door is coming down, and he quietly
ducks in without your dad seeing him. And then your
(27:29):
dad goes upstairs and sets up the printer and sends
a few emails and messes around on his website. And
the guy sits in your dad's garage for over an hour,
and he doesn't take anything. He doesn't steal tools, he
doesn't steal the valuables in the garage, he doesn't just
press the button and walk out. Now that he's sure
(27:50):
that the helicopter's not looking for him, he sits in
your dad's garage for an hour, and mind you, there
are three cars present. He doesn't know if the entire
Ukrainian wrestling team lives there, you know he does. At
some point he decides to walk into an inhabited house
that he knows is inhabited, and he shoots your dad
and then he watches him die. And this paranoid guy
(28:11):
who ran away from this this other you know people,
he sits there and calmly rifles through your dad's bedroom
with a dying man there, somebody that he's not even
sure necessarily is dead. I mean like that theory has
always always not set well with me. And yet they
(28:32):
press the people who saw him to give a sketch.
The adults could not give a sketch. They did not
see his face. The adults did not see a gun.
They pressed the young man to give a sketch, and
he gave a sketch. And the sketch looks like anybody.
It looks like any young man who is you know,
European or Hispanic descent. And for years I got up
(28:54):
in front of the cameras and said, have you seen
this sketch? Have you know blah blah blah, And yet
the more I think about it, and the more I
thought about it, the more I realized, there's just so
much with this theory that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
You righte that because there had been some aspersions passed
by your sisters on each other's boyfriends, police asked everyone
in your family to provide a DNA sample and their
phone records. Anything come up as a result of this.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Obviously nothing has come from that. I also, you know,
I also, you know, kind of questioned how you know
valid that is not in my dad's case, but in
any type of murder, because I would think that in
ninety nine point nine percent of cases where someone has
you know, IQ approaching three digits, if they had something
(29:48):
to do with it, you know, they're using burner phones,
they're they're not personally, you know, necessarily doing the dirty deed,
or they're going over with you know, they're they're going
over with a friend or somebody that they hired. So,
you know, I always just wondered, like, Okay, so you know,
you you get these records, but I'm not necessarily sure
(30:10):
that it's that valid of a thing.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
These days, police, when do you find out that police
say that they had have DNA and also what of
this about the jewelry missing from your father's place.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I don't remember exactly when I found out that the
police had DNA, but it was like the word got out,
you know, several different ways, and the police have now
you know, mentioned it at press conferences and things like that.
The problem again with the phrase where we have DNA
is whenever there's DNA at a crime scene, right unless
it's like under the victim's fingernails or you know, if
(30:48):
it's something like a sexual assault or something like that,
the reality is you don't you can't be one hundred
percent sure that it was a perpetrator. Now, the police
think in this case that it is the perpetrators, but
you know, they can't be sure. Secondly, they've explained to
me that the DNA that they have is so minuscule
that it's so fragmented. It's almost like when they find
(31:11):
ancient DNA, like from a Neanderthal one hundred thousand years ago.
It's that fragmented and so very very difficult to use.
There was some jewelry taken from my father's third floor bedroom.
They know that because I guess there were some little
jewelry envelopes where he stored the pieces that were torn open,
and they found him on his bed. I want to
stress my dad was not making engagement rings. He was
(31:33):
not making platinum and gold and selling his stuff for
you know, ten fifteen thousand dollars. I mean, he was
making craft jewelry with maybe you know, thirty dollars worth
of silver or two hundred dollars worth of gold, and
the melt value of his pieces was not great. So
you know, whatever was stolen, you probably totaled a few
(31:53):
thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
If that, you're right that this investigation of your father's
murder became full time for you pretty well, and also
that you created a document with questions you had for
the investigators. Tell us a little bit about this document
and its response from detectives.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well, I knew that I had to get organized because
this was eating me up inside. Can't tell you how
many sleepless nights I spent. I also look back at
the time in my life and I say, you know,
I probably wasn't a good son to my mother, probably
wasn't the best husband to my wife, probably wasn't the
most engaged father. Now, don't get me wrong, I still
tried very hard to be present, and I was, and
(32:38):
I also worked very hard at my job because I
didn't want this to, you know, to affect me too much.
But at the same time, I do think, you know,
it sort of became an obsession for me for many
years because there were so many unanswered questions and so
many things that didn't make sense. What I started to
do is tabulate all the clues and all the evidence
that we did have, and I wanted to see if
(32:59):
it pointed to any one thing included for me. I
actually interviewed the people who saw this car burglar, you know,
I called them up myself and I just introduced myself
and I said, would you mind if I asked you
a few questions, and they were very helpful. The thing
that stuck with me is that they, you know, the
police's profile of this kid was like, well, he was
a junkie looking for a hit, you know. And I'm thinking, well,
(33:23):
if you've got a gun, you don't break into cars,
because first of all, that turns a misdemeanor into a felony. Secondly,
you just go stick somebody up. You don't need to
kill my dad. Thirdly, the people who saw him, they said,
oh no, he was dressed very well. He was wearing
expensive clothes, you know, kind of like think like a
tracksuit type thing. And they said he looked like an
(33:45):
Eastern European hitman. And you know, so, you know, you
just you wonder all these permutations. Was it a decoy,
could it have been a second killer or somebody watching
the perimeter? I don't know. I mean it, my dad's
has so many mysteries in it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
You right, that you felt like a fool after this,
when you realize that you had circulated end mass a
poster with this sketch that police had said was a
sketch of the perpetrator. How do you proceed from this
(34:27):
point on and tell us about your decision to finally
hire a private eye.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, so, I mean I do feel sort of foolish,
because you know, it's like I kept I kept holding
these press conferences where I sort of begged the public
to look at the sketch and come forward if they
saw this guy. And you know, in retrospect, it's like
the sketches like not great, and the police knew that,
and I you know, and you know, it really just
sort of describes anybody, and it describes nobody. Secondly, remember
(34:55):
that there's so many things about the crime, saying and
everything that just are very weird. I don't know how
many of your listeners have fired a gun, but a
gunshot is loud, it's jarring, it's jarring when it's at
a range. That's why you wear ear protection. You imagine it,
you know, inside an enclosed dwelling, you know. So, and
(35:18):
this idea that somebody shot my father and sat there
and just sort of watched him die very strange to me.
You know, we've all seen movies where somebody's shot and
it's not a not a kill shot, and the person
wakes up and fights back, or wakes up in this
case and dials nine one one or you know, all right,
And it's like, it's just weird that somebody fired one
(35:41):
shot not too right, and then would have had the
calmness or the psychopathy to sit there and rifle through
a room, but just one room, not two or three. Right.
It's just so many things don't make sense. And then
you go back to Okay, then it's more likely that
my dad came home and surprise somebody versus the other
(36:02):
way around, somebody coming into the house and surprising him.
But then you get back to there is no forced
entry my dad's house, There no signs of forced entry,
And then you get back to, you know, my dad
was not a vigilante. If he walked into his bedroom
and saw that it was ransacked, I mean, I don't know. Yeah,
I guess maybe for five minutes he might like kind
of look around and see, gee, as you know, what
(36:22):
happened here. But I think most people would just pick
up their cell phone and walk out and call nine
one one. So it's just very weird. And then of
course there's the thing of my dad being seated at
his desk, right, so it's all so weird. There is
so much about my dad's case that is weird. So look,
(36:44):
at some point, I felt like the police kept telling
me we're a busy, big city department. There are some
good qualities and bad claus. Right. They assigned the most
elite division to my dad's case, which was a nice
touch and I'm grateful for that. But these were also
the guys who like hand old like you know, if
a celebrity was burglarized, or like you know, if a
(37:08):
if there was like a high profile assassination attempt in
LA And so, you know, there was many times where
I called him and they'd just be like, well, we
can't do that, we're busy, okay. So at some point
I hired a private detective. One of the most important
things he found is he talked with one of my
dad's neighbors who lived essentially two houses away, and she
said she had heard a gunshot that night. And she
(37:29):
said that the time she heard the gunshot did not
comport with the police's timeline. And I called her myself
and I pressed her, how do you know How can
you be sure what time you heard it? Well, I
took my son to a class every night at XYZ
and I left the house at every time, and so
I know exactly what time it was. Well, how can
you be sure it was a gunshot? Well, let's put
it this way. I was dressed in nice clothes and
(37:50):
I hit the deck. And I don't know about you,
but I don't want. You know, you don't want to
dive on your floor wearing nice clothes, but I did.
I was so scared that I crawled around my floor.
And so, you know, like things like that made me
a little bit uncomfortable with the investigation. And also, you know, frankly,
the approach of some of the detectives on my dad's case. So,
you know, I just viewed it as one more piece
(38:12):
of trying to get every possible bit of information to
solve my father's case.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
You right. Also, a California Court of appeal had struck
down California's eleven year old DNA collection law, which required
samples to be taken from people arrested for a serious felony.
Can you briefly tell us about this fight?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, you know, you talk about you talk about like
like everything is going bad. It was a very tough
year for me. So in the midst of my dad's case, Yeah,
court had struck down Californa's DNA collection law. And I mean,
just let me make it very playton or you know,
clear for the listener. When you have DNA in a
murder or a rape, it becomes a waiting game. It's like,
(38:59):
let's hope that this person gets arrested again and that
they swab and sample the DNA, and you know that
you get a hit and then now, gee, here's the
Court of Appeal saying we're going to stop swabbing people
in the state of California. And I was like, my god,
my dad's case will never be solved. But thankfully the
Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal. Thankfully the I
(39:22):
was able to introduce legislation to protect DNA collection even
if that had not happened. But gosh, what a rough
period of my life that that happened. At that time.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
You write something very very interesting. I'll have to ask
you about it. February one, twenty sixteen, the last Pheeli
is Alleger, now defunct, reported that your older sister, Nicole,
married her boyfriend a few hours before your father was
murdered in a private ceremony with no family members present.
(39:54):
What do you think the paper was alluding to with
this story.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
What's hard to say, right I I talked about later
in the book too, how I talked to another journalist,
a former La Times reporter, who said, you know, you
don't have to assume the worst. You could You could
very easily just assume that, you know, it's possible that
you know, people in the circle knew about the wedding
(40:21):
and they assumed that your father would be at the wedding.
They did not know that there had been you know,
some breach or some you know, or that the wedding
was private or quiet or secret or whatever, and so
they had planned on, you know, robbing his house while
he was at the wedding. Who wouldn't think that a
dad would, would you know, not be at his daughter's wedding.
You know, I thought about that. That's absolutely a possibility.
(40:44):
But my approach in the case has always been standard.
I have told the police I would not be a
good father to I'm sorry, I would not be a
good son to my father, and I would not be
honoring his legacy, and I would not be looking for
justice if I didn't encourage you to to, you know,
explore all possible theories and all possible leads. That is
(41:06):
your job. That is my job, and I don't care
if I'm a public figure. I don't care how painful
it might be to think about. You need to explore
all leads, and that's consistently been my message with respect
to everything for my dad's case.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
You write that since your father's test, you immersed yourself
in the world of genetic genealogy and then offered up
try to immerse yourself and be able to be very
educated and be able to explain it to these detectives.
What was their response with these with this kind of initiative.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
The detectives on the case for the longest part of
my dad's case, and you know, some of them have
had some very let's say loud and very acrimonious partings
with with the LAPD that involved lawsuits. So I know
it's not just me who feels this way, but you know,
they were sometimes very difficult, They said some strange things,
They didn't have a great bedside manner. They you know,
(42:00):
really had bad timing on certain things. But it's also like,
you know, you would think if you're investigating murders for
ten or twenty years, I know that that's not your thing,
and I know the sciences you know, above your pay grade,
but that you would learn a little bit about some
of the latest techniques and be able to discuss them.
They sort of treated me like a nuisance, like I'd
be like, hey, I got a call from one of
(42:21):
the I mean, my dad's case was in the public eye,
and I was in the public eye, and I had
access to very well connected people. And I still do
and I'd get calls from like the foremost genealogists in
the country, and she would say, Hey, there's been a
new advance and this lab can do it, blah blah blah.
And I'd call them and I'd say have you thought
about this? And they'd be like huh. And I'd say, well,
you know, with this type of science, and they'd say huh,
And I was like, you know, I mean, look, I'm
(42:44):
not a full time podcaster, but I keep abreast of
what different types of microphone technology there is, right And
it just you would think that they would, you know,
I don't know, just have a different attitude for it.
But unfortunately they did not.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You write that your criticism of these detectives, you didn't
reach out to anyone, but these detectives were dropped from
the case, and you write that you were very optimistic
when a new team two new detectives were assigned, and
then they contacted you tell us about this optimism.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, the new team on my dad's case is fantastic.
They seem like they're genuinely caring people. One of the
detectives has told me that he really wants to solve
my dad's case. Before he retires and I like that attitude.
I like hearing it, you know, even if it wasn't true,
It's like it's a nice thing to hear, right. And
also they have reached out for outside help, which is
also nice because you know, big agencies tend to be
(43:39):
very parochial and they don't feel like they need outside help.
And you know, I feel like once a year I
read a story about some you know, old detective in
West Virginia who, you know, there's an unsolved case that
is always stuck in his cry and you know he'l
he'll reach out for help from you know, a genealogist
and this agency and that agency, and then they'll solve
a case. And so you know, the LPD has has
reached out for some outside help, which is and you know,
(44:02):
when you're in this situation that my family is in,
you just want to think that the agency is doing
everything again, even if they're not. It's like, lie to me,
tell me that you're doing everything. And so that's where
I think we are now. I do think we are
doing everything possible.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
One of those detectives of Louis Romero, you said you
learned something new from him, and very significant what was.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
That, Well, that was you know, I had always wondered
whether my dad had fought back. I think some people
had wondered whether my dad had even been shot with
his own gun. Now, I don't know if my dad
had a gun. I don't think he did. He certainly
would not have had one in a place that was reachable.
You know, at the time, I had a nephew that
was very close with my dad. Well, I mean he's
(44:45):
still he's still, he's still there, But I mean he
was young. He was a you know, a late adolescent,
and my dad would not have kept a gun like
within reaching distance with an adolescent coming over to his house.
So I really don't think that. I don't think that
this was my dadd's gun. But what I learned from
Detective Romero is that my father did have some gun
shot residue on his you know, his hands or his fingers,
(45:09):
or his sleeve or his forearms or whatever it is,
and that indicates one of two or three things my
dad handled a gun could mean it was his, but
what's more likely in this case is that he wrestled
with the person or tried to wrestle the gun away
from the person who who took his life. It could,
I suppose, mean that he was just that close and
(45:31):
he held up his hands or something. But you know,
it tells me a couple of things. It tells me
that if the most likely thing is true that he
wrestled with the person, that it could have been somebody
he knew, or it could have been somebody who was weak,
or it could have been somebody who is elderly. Now,
of course that's reading tea leaves, but there's so much
in my dad's case that is reading tea leaves.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
At the end of this book, you talk about the
plight of other victims. Late twenty twenty one, you attended
a memorial to bring aware to crime victims, and you
said you had met other people at these meetings, and
you've gone to attended other meetings, but this one really
stood out because of a woman you met. What did
(46:12):
this woman have to say?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, so I have met a lot of crime victims
over the years. I speak at memorials and rallies and
political events, but this one, I don't know. She just
really struck a chord with me because her pain was
so real and I felt like we were kindred spirits.
Her son her son had been killed and he died
(46:41):
in her arms, and she was so broken up over
it as you can imagine. I mean, her pain was
so raw, you know. And she said that in her
neighborhood everybody knew who had killed her son somehow, but
(47:01):
the cops had not made an arrest. And I just
learned this. You know, it seems like it happens time
and time again, where you know, there's a murder that
happens and everybody sort of knows who did it, but
you know, there might not be evidence or something. There
might not be DNA, or you know, somebody's cell phone
didn't ping a satellite at the right moment. But you know,
(47:21):
if police just talked with people, and that includes talking
with people who might have something to hide, you know,
like how we're crime solved before the advent of DNA,
Well they were solved by police talking with people. And
if there's one thing I learned is that there is
such a profound value to that. Anyway, this woman was
having a really hard time. We have stayed in touch,
(47:42):
and I've done everything I came on to get her
back on our feet.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Before I let you go, tell us the continuing state
of things on your father's case.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well, we have some good things and some tough things.
The tough thing, of course, is that, look, it's going
to be twelve years next month and the case is
not solved, and that means, you know, that could mean
one of three or four things. It could mean that
the killer was brilliant, didn't leave any tracks, and you know,
and that is what it is. It could mean that
(48:15):
it was a hired hitman and the person flew back
to use Bekistan, right or wherever they came from. I mean,
theory that's on the menu, right. It could mean that
my father's killer is dead and that's why he or
she or the killers have not reoffended. It could mean
that we have the wrong evidence, that the evidence we
think is relevant is really not relevant. At the same time,
(48:39):
the police do believe that my father's crime will be
solved someday. They have said to me, they really do
believe that, and I hope they're right. We do have
some you know, unknown prints and you know, some physical evidence,
and there's the fragmented DNA and all that, and so
I hope there will be advances in technology. There always are,
and that someday will get closure. The tough thing, right is,
(49:04):
you know, the question is how long you know, if
my father was alive now, he'd be in his nineties.
Many of his friends have passed away, is you know
some of his cousins and stuff that he's very close with.
Our oldest one is ninety six. You know, there's a
justice component, and you want people to have justice at
some point. You know, justice delayed can sometimes be justice denied.
(49:25):
So you know, we have hope. We have hope, and
but the level of activity and things like that is
nowhere near where it was a few years ago. But
as you can tell, this is still something that I
think about very, very frequently, and it's something that I'm
not going to let go of until we get some
degree of justice from my dad.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Absolutely, thank you so much. You're sharing your very personal
journey throughout this incredible ordeal of your father's death. I
want to thank you so much for coming on and
talking about your new book, Noir by Necessity, How my
father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. For those
that might want to find out more about this book.
(50:05):
To have a website or do any social media.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I do my website is easy. It's Mike Gatto dot com.
If you remember that it's ga Tto. I'm easy to find.
I'm also on Twitter or x at Mike Gatto. That's
where I'm more frequent. But the book is look, the
book is like anything else, right. It's at some bookstores,
but it's easiest to get on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. So, Dan,
I really really appreciate you for what you do to
(50:31):
bring attention to these cases, and thank you very much
for having me today.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on
and talking about this incredible book, Noir by Necessity, how
my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. It's
been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for this interview,
Mike Gatto, and have yourself a good night you too.
Thank you
You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
killers in true crime history and the authors that have
written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
(00:30):
journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Good Evening.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Mike Gaddo was an up and coming young lawmaker when
his father was brutally murdered. The act sucked them into
the world of noir, wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.
This true crime story reads like a thriller, offering insight
(01:01):
into the world of politics and the cd underbelly of
crime investigation in modern Los Angeles. Gaddo shares his experiences
with incredible candor and raw emotion, detailing every clue and
how he came to learn every tragic detail of his
father's murder. With the case still unsolved, see if you
(01:24):
can piece together the clues to solve this mystery. The
book they are featuring this evening is Noir by Necessity.
How my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places
with my special guests attorney and former member of the
California State Assembly representing Los Angeles, and author Mike Gaddo.
(01:50):
Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for
this interview. Mike Gaddo. It is wonderfully with you, Dan,
Thank you so much. Right in a world where much
attention is paid to whether criminals are getting the right treatment,
victims' families continue to be overlooked. Stories focus on the
guilts of the possible perpetrator or the finite details of
(02:14):
the moment a murder happened, and ignore the fallout born
by the departed, living loved ones instead. How is this
book laid out for readers and what do you hope
readers will gain as a result.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Great question. So I laid out my book in such
a way that the reader learns the well the facts
of the crime, plus the clues that came in afterwards,
plus the false starts and the heartache and the false
leads and the false hope. I laid it out chronologically
(02:48):
so that the reader could be taken on the journey
that I went through and that my family went through
and my father was killed. I try to make it
so that and that goes to the purpose of the book.
The purpose of this book was to give people a
little window into what it's like to be the family
of a murder victim. You know, someone said to me
(03:08):
very early on that you join lots of groups in life.
You know, some people join a church or synagogue, people
join a car club, people join a knitting club, or
a poker a poker game. But this fraternity or sorority
of families of murder victims is a group that nobody
ever chooses to join. And when you're thrust into it,
you know you you definitely understand what other families go through.
(03:33):
But the purpose of my book was to give a
little window into what that's like so that people could
make more informed decisions when they vote, when they analyze
crimes themselves, and as they encounter people who have gone
through this in their lives.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Tell us about your professional life in politics and your
personal life. In a year you call a very good
year two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well so in twenty twelve, I remember being the happiest
that I have ever been in my life. I had
just gotten through some very very tough elections to the
California Legislature, but they were behind me. I was at
that point an incumbent. I was confident in my role.
I think the voters had shown that they wanted to
re elect me several times. And on top of that,
(04:21):
I had the biggest joys that anybody could ask for,
at least from my perspective, and that is, you know,
I was starting to have kids. I had two children
at the time, and my second child, my daughter, Evangelina
or Evie, had just been born in October of twenty twelve,
and I just remember thinking, Gosh, what a lucky guy
I am. I was doing what I love. I was
(04:44):
trying to effectuate good policy for the people of California.
And I had a wonderful family, you know, two terrific
daughters at the time, and you know, I had I
had two you know, elderly parents that I was reasonably
close with, and you know, I mean it was not
easy to be to spend tons of time with him
because of my travel schedule, but I felt very very
(05:05):
close with them as well. And I just remember thinking, Gosh,
what a lucky person I am.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Tell us a little bit about your father and your
mother and about the divorce, and but yet you stayed.
They stayed very close, and you stayed very close to
both of them as well.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so my mom and my dad after they got divorce.
They got divorced after twenty something years of marriage, and
they ended up living two blocks away from each other
in the same neighborhood. My mom and my dad is
sort of a study of contrast. My father was his
background was art, and he was very much the you know,
his mind worked like an artist. He was not always
(05:42):
that organized or you know, that that rigid in his things.
And then you know, on the other hand, my mom,
she had gone to law school late in life, in
her forties with three kids. She went to night law
school and became a lawyer, and that sort of reflected
her personality as well. She's you know, very organized and
very very much left brain. And so, you know, they
were sort of the yin and the yang that produced me.
(06:02):
I like to joke. Really they both were good parents
in their way, and you know, I would see my
mother at least once a week. You know, we would
typically do do dinner on Saturdays or Sundays, and my
father I would see as often as humanly possible. He
had been an absolute force in my campaign. He had
(06:25):
come into my campaign almost every night didn't see him
as often as my mom when I was in office,
but that just had to do with different scheduling things.
And you know, he was very busy as in his
retirement he had a burgeoning jewelry business, which you know,
he made craft jewelry that was very artistic. That had
sort of been his lifelong dream and he had put
(06:45):
off that dream to work for us when we were kids,
and so he was you know, he too was enjoying
success at that at that time. It was like kind
of like the starving artists who had put off his
craft but was finally getting renowned. For me, that's just
one of the other, like you know, sort of little
shit aims that you know in him being taken off
this earth too early is that he never got to
see how successful he would be as an artist.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
How old was your father at this time and what
was his health.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Like, So my dad was seventy eight and he was
about to turn seventy nine when he got killed. Some
people might say, my gosh, almost eighty. You know, well,
I hope he had a full life. And you know
the implication is that, well, he did leave a full life,
and gee, it's not so tragic. That he got killed
when people say that, But what I tell people is
(07:35):
my dad was just getting started. First of all, he
loved grandkids more than anything else. And I was really,
you know, as I said, I just starting to have kids, really,
and he had interacted a lot with my oldest, but
had just really met my youngest at the time. Secondly,
he was in the peak of health. This was a
man who sprinted upstairs at age seventy eight. He would
(07:58):
you know, deadlift fig big trees and other things, refrigerators
and stuff like that. I mean, he was just a
very very healthy guy. And he also had you know,
very very good genes. He had cousins in Italy who
had been among the oldest living people, and there was
I think a woman from his dad's hometown who lived
(08:18):
till one hundred and eleven, something like that, one hundred
and fourteen, and so, you know, we just thought that
he would be with us for many, many, many more
years to come, and that he would be a presence
in his grandchildren's lives.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
In twenty thirteen, you were chairman of the Appropriations Committee,
but you spent week days in your Sacramento home. So
tell us about November eleventh, twenty thirteen and some of
the things that you were doing on that day important things.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, so I had a different approach to the capitol.
I'd say maybe twenty or thirty percent of the lawmakers
I know follow my approach, but the Geordy, you know,
seventy percent follow the other approach. A lot of lawmakers
I had seen would they would keep their families back
in the district and then they would go up to
(09:11):
the capital for you know, five days a week, and
they would see their families on the weekend between events
if they were lucky. And so the ratio was, you know,
five out of seven days or four and a half
out of seven days, you would not be with your family.
So I did the opposite. I was grateful that my
wife was a stay at home on and our children
(09:33):
were young, they weren't in school yet, so I had
them come with me essentially to the capital. We maintained
two different residences, and I would fly back home rather
than my family. So so usually you know, five four
or five days a week, I was at our Sacramento place,
and then you know, two three days a week I
would be I would be back in the district, back home.
(09:54):
Now of course, the weekend before my father was killed
was Veterans Day, and that's a day that means a
lot to me, it meant a lot to the five
hundred thousand people in my district. There's a strong tradition
of service in in my old district. And of course
my father himself was a veteran, needed four years in
the army, and so you know, Veterans Day, November eleventh,
I gave speeches, showed up at events, met with veterans.
(10:15):
It was a very, very full day. And then I
flew back to Sacramento, I want to say the afternoon
or the evening of the eleventh. My staff had arranged
for me to take new portraits. And that's because my
official portraits. I had won a special election in the
middle of April, and so my official portraits really weren't official.
They were like snap shops, snapshots of a very tired
(10:37):
guy who just won an election. And so I was
finally going to pose for my official portraits, and I
took them on the portico of the Capitol, I want
to say, on the twelfth orth or thirteenth, and I
had some other meetings that day in the Capitol. It
was just a very very normal week for November for us,
because November is typically one of the rare quiet seasons
(10:57):
for the life of a lawmaker.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You write that that November thirteenth, you had the portrait,
but you worked in the morning and went home in
the afternoon, and on your way home, you called your
dad to see if he had a recommendation for a
new plumber for your place in Los Angeles. He didn't answer,
and you left the message. That night, your cell phone rang.
(11:20):
It was your younger sister Mary Anne. Tell us about
that phone call.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, so we were getting ready to put our daughters
to bed when my phone rang. And I, you know,
my sister didn't typically call me, you know, at like
seven forty five on a weeknight. She knew that was
time when we were putting the kids to bed, and
you know, and I also didn't usually pick up my phone,
you know, I usually screamed my calls. But something told
(11:47):
me to pick it up, and I picked it up,
and my sister was, you know, she was frantic, and
you know, I don't know if you know, hysterical, I
guess would be the right word. And she was talking
very fast, and she said, you know, Michael Mike. Well,
I went over to dad's house, you know, and buh
and and I saw him and I think he's dead.
And you know, my first reaction was no, you know,
(12:07):
get out. You know, my dad had no heart problems.
We talked about his health and I was kind of
like yelling at her, like he's not dead, like you know,
call paramedic. And I just remember her saying like, Michael, Michael,
I touched him and he's cold. And I was like, well, okay,
you know you still got a call paramedic, call the police,
you know, just whatever. And I called the police myself.
(12:29):
I called some friends of mine. I don't I don't
remember who told me, but you know, sometime in the
next hour or so, it was either the police or
the paramedics got in the line and told me that
my father was dead. And they said that the likely
cause of death was a gunshot wound. And you know,
your your first reaction is disbelief.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You say that when you arrived home, the TV news
vans were pulled up to your home. What did you
and your wife do as a result.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, so we the situation was very much chaotic that night.
We uh, you know, it's already eight or nine o'clock,
and you know, we put the kids to bed, and
then I set up sort of a situation room, and
we realized what we had missed the last flight back
to LA that night. So the next day we had
to drive back to LA and that's also easier with
(13:21):
with young kids. It's many ways easier than flying because
you can stop and like that. So we got in
the car the next day and we drove back to
Los Angeles and the TV vans had been on site
for for you know, for I think twenty four hours
at that point or something close to it. And you know,
we we couldn't even really get into my home because
that there was such a phalanx of TV vans around
(13:44):
my own home. So we met my sisters at a hotel.
But at some point, you know, we went over to
the to my father's house, to my child at home
to help the police, you know, analyze the crime scene.
They had been there for for you know, for twenty
four hours. They had gotten everything they wanted but they
wanted asked his questions about if anything was out of
place and such, and of course when I pulled up,
(14:04):
the media mobbed me, and you know, it was not easy.
It's hard as a public figure when there is something
that affects you personally, it's hard to keep your composure.
And those interviews at night were very hard for me
to keep composure. You have three sisters and just two
(14:26):
just too young.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, what happened next regarding your sisters and some
information imparted.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, my sisters had been they had done a real
estate investment together, modest real state investment a few years back.
I'm not I remember all the details at Frankly, I
tried to stay out of all those details, but they
had some kind of squabble about how the thing was managed,
and so things were already tense with them with respect
to money. But we found out, you know, shortly after
(14:57):
my dad's death that his person and all, you know
what I call the civil or the civil part of
his case, not the criminal case, but the civil part
of his case was a mess. He had not updated
his estate plan for I want to say fourteen years
or something crazy like that. Maybe it was less than that,
but it was in any event, his personal affairs were
(15:18):
not in order, and his estate was very unclear. And
lack of clarity and estate planning often causes disputes between
the family, and unfortunately mine was no different. There were
immediately some disputes and some bad feelings. That was something
that I you know, that's a secondary or tertiary consideration
(15:39):
in my dad's case. But I think the way that
I sum it up is that, you know, you're trying
to manage his criminal case and the investigation and try
to find justice and try to find closure, and then
you have this other piece, which is the fact that
his affairs weren't in order and there was a lot
of acrimony between the family.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Right that both separately the sister said that very disparaging
things about each other's boyfriends, things that were troubling in
their implications. Can you explain that?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, I mean they I think it's fair to say
that my sisters at the time did not approve of
each other's boyfriends, or that the boyfriends didn't get along,
you know. So, yeah, they both were not pleasant to
talk to you when it came to some of that stuff.
(16:33):
You know, it's just a shame because you know, I'm
aware that lots of family squabble after a loved one dies,
but again, in this case, you know, I think it
detracts and distracts from the main goal here, which is,
you know, reassuring the living and working for justice in
the criminal case.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
You didn't want to talk to the media, but you
finally were cajoled into making some sort of stuff. Tell
us about how hard that statement was.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It was not easy making those statements as I As
I mentioned, I did realize very early on, though, that
the media has such a tremendous role when it comes
to families of murder victims. And it's a role that
I appreciate very, very greatly, and frankly, it's one of
the reasons why I'm talking with you today. Dan. I
am so grateful for anybody, whether they are you know, national,
(17:30):
My father's case has been featured on Dateline, NBC, right,
I'm grateful to them. I'm grateful for the local television stations,
the Los Angeles Times, you know, the state wide newspapers.
I'm grateful for all the true crime podcasts and everybody
who keeps the stories out there. And so I realized
very early on that, you know, my family was going
to need the media. They were a valued partner because
(17:52):
we had to disseminate information, whether it was a sketch
of somebody who might have been a suspect, or whether
it was you know, a call for you know, awareness
that the killers still out there, or you know, just
anything like that. The media was going to be a
valued partner. So I was lucky to have good relationships.
There are ones that I still enjoy, and a lot
of people who I think cared a lot about my
(18:13):
dad's case in my family.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
these messages. Now, this is a dramatic and vivid scene.
You had to tour the crime scene, and then you
say it was necessary, you had to help the police.
Tell us about that viewing of the crime scene.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well, first of all, it's very morbid and difficult to
go into your childhood house and realize that you will
never look at it the same because a murder occurred there. Secondly,
it's hard because you know, you're trying to provide insight
and everything like that to the police. The crime scene was,
you know, reflected that my father was a collector. His
(18:58):
house had a lot of things in it. They weren't
always at organized, But at the same time, there were
things in the crime scene that immediately stuck out to me.
First of all, my father had a three story house
filled with valuables. If anybody knew just a little something
about art or you know, anything collectibles or whatever, even tools,
they probably would have taken a lot more in his house. Now,
(19:19):
there's obviously two possibilities for that. They could have been
interrupted and not had you know, time, or they could
have been after something very specific. But the things that
stuck out in my father's bedroom where he was killed.
He was killed in his third floor bedroom on the
top of the house, was that somebody had broken into
a wooden file cabinet. We don't know what was taken
out of there. Somebody had also walked right past one
(19:42):
of his own personal pieces of jewelry, rather large ring
that was sitting on his desk. There were some electronic
items that were not stolen, you know, iPads, things like that.
So it just, you know, there were things of the
crime scene that just didn't seem right to me.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Tell us about the document concerning your father's will and
amendments to that will.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so my dad was in the middle of redoing
his estate plan when he got killed. He was updating it.
I think to you know, to focus more on grandchildren
rather than children. A lot of people do that, they
sort of skip the generation that that's older and they
just try to put things in the next generation. And
it's a way to sort of you know anyway anyway.
(20:29):
But he had on his desk where some papers he
had fed he had had fed next to him to
change beneficiary forms for certain accounts. And then also on
his desk and on the floor were some handwritten notes
he had made that he wanted to give to an
estate attorney about how he was going to change his estate.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Right away. What was the thoughts from detectives whether this
crime could have possibly been associated with you and politically
or politically motivated?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Great question. So you know, I initially had concerns that
this crime was targeted at me. You can't get elected
in politics, and you can't rise to the most powerful
levels without making some enemies and breaking some eggs. And
I had a lot of people who, well not a
lot of people, but I had my share of people
(21:24):
who you know, protested me or followed me around. There
was one group of people that was upset at a
position I had taken, who followed me around and held
press conferences where they splashed fake blood for example. You know,
I that just such an extreme gesture at the time.
I mean, people have to remember to twenty thirteen. Politics
was ugly, but it wasn't as ugly as it is now.
(21:46):
And so that was, you know, that was extreme behavior,
and so I had concerns that it might be politically
connected or some kind of message. The police were very
blunt and very you know, brutally direct about that. They
basically said, Mike, your La residence is not too far away.
You're a public guy. Everybody knows where you live, where
your office is, and you know, even your Sacramento residences
(22:08):
in the white pages. If someone wanted to kill you,
they would have just killed you. And I was like,
all right, well, all right, gee, thank you for making
me feel so great. Right. It was definitely very very blunt,
but you know, I think we quickly put that to bed,
although there were times in the investigation where somebody would
give a tip that said, gee, this was politically connected.
(22:29):
The next theory that came out was that the Russian
mafia had something to do with it, and that came
from a neighbor who got a flyer where my dad.
My dad had this very arcane collection of paintings that
are made in were made in Russia and the Eastern
Orthodox countries. They originated in the Byzantine Lands, Greece, etc.
There had been a flyer that had gone around at
(22:50):
an antiquarian society that basically said, Joe Gotto is going
to speak on this date and he's going to bring
some of his collection of these rare and unique paintings. Now,
her imagination went wild, and I don't think she realized,
you know, these were not van Goes or Monais. These
were you know, they were worth you know, five thousand
dollars versus fifty million dollars. Right and on top of that,
the police dismissed that right away too, even though it
(23:11):
had gotten out in the media, because you know, who
ever killed my dad walked right by several of these
paintings hanging on the wall. So it's like the fog
of war, right the first couple hours or days after
something like this, you know, you have all these false
impressions and false leads.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You write that the first real clues. A couple of
days after your father's murder, some leads began filtering in
and a local mother sent something November twelfth. She said
she was driving home from karate with her son when
she encountered a young man brazenly breaking into cars around
(23:52):
six forty pm. She summoned a neighbor and they both
confronted this, and he just apparently walked back towards And
you can explain this. These community stairs tell us about
these community stairs, and what discovery of those community stairs
(24:14):
would indicate.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Well, So this theory was the one that dominated my
father's case for probably the first six or seven years.
And I still encounter people who think this is the
dominant theory. And it's because the police said it was
the dominant theory. And as you'll see, I'm very, very upset.
I would even use the word angry about this. So
there was a guy breaking into cars right around the
(24:39):
time that people come home from work and people come
home from extracurriculars like karate, So that in and of
itself kind of strange, but also at the same time
not strange. I think if you went at any given
time on any given subdivision in Los Angeles, somebody is
breaking into a car, right and you know, to attribute
(24:59):
so much to that, you know, perhaps is a mistake.
In any event, this person was confronted by this woman
and her neighbor, and you know, he said something to
them like follow me and die, or you know, something
like that. But he did turn and run away. Now,
the neighborhood my dad lived in is shaped like a
(25:19):
stadium bowl that's the easiest way to think about it,
where there's a lake and the lake is the field.
My dad's street is one of the aisles that connects
the levels, and there's certain like levels like a stadium,
and this happened at one of the higher levels of
the stadium, you know, the cheap seats for lack of
a better word. But he ran down these you know,
in some neighborhoods they call him walk streets. There's these
(25:40):
little you know, streets that you know, connect the levels.
We call them community stairs. And he ran down these
community stairs sort of in the direction of my dad's
house or the field in my analogy. Now, they chased him.
They got in their car and they chased him, but
they had to drive around a hairpin curve to get
to where he was by foot. And you know, at
(26:01):
that moment, the young man, I want to say, the
boy was six or seven or eight in the car.
He believes he saw a gun, okay, and that's very
important because then the police would say, you know, as
one of the detectives said, well, this is you know,
Oxham's razor. You know, if you got a horse running
thro the neighborhood, I don't go looking for no unicorns. Right.
But this is where the theory gets really strange. For
(26:25):
this theory to work, Okay, my father would have had
to be in the victim, not just of a murder,
but some very very bad luck. The police's theory when
I pressed them, was well, okay, so this guy might
have been right handed. Right handed people tend to turn
right when they're being chased. So then he headed toward
your dad's street. Now, he was probably a neighborhood kid,
and that's how he knew that the community stairs were there,
because he was very confident when he went to them
(26:47):
because they just looked like stairs at someone's house. But
he knew that they were there. But then he starts
running towards your dad's house. But then he maybe thinks
your Dad's street is an alley because there's only three
houses on it, so he runs down that to try
to keep getting away, and at that exact moment, your
dad had bought a printer, but he realized that he
couldn't get it out of the doors of his car,
so he had to open the hatchback, which required him
to open his garage door to get it out. So
(27:08):
he opened his garage door and he got the printer out,
and then right as he's closing the garage door, there's
a tour helicopter that's taking tourists to see the Hollywood Sign.
And this guy thinks, oh, it's not a tour helicopter,
it's a police helicopter. I got to get inside, and
just thankfully for this guy's luck. Right at that time,
your dad's garage door is coming down, and he quietly
ducks in without your dad seeing him. And then your
(27:29):
dad goes upstairs and sets up the printer and sends
a few emails and messes around on his website. And
the guy sits in your dad's garage for over an hour,
and he doesn't take anything. He doesn't steal tools, he
doesn't steal the valuables in the garage, he doesn't just
press the button and walk out. Now that he's sure
(27:50):
that the helicopter's not looking for him, he sits in
your dad's garage for an hour, and mind you, there
are three cars present. He doesn't know if the entire
Ukrainian wrestling team lives there, you know he does. At
some point he decides to walk into an inhabited house
that he knows is inhabited, and he shoots your dad
and then he watches him die. And this paranoid guy
(28:11):
who ran away from this this other you know people,
he sits there and calmly rifles through your dad's bedroom
with a dying man there, somebody that he's not even
sure necessarily is dead. I mean like that theory has
always always not set well with me. And yet they
(28:32):
press the people who saw him to give a sketch.
The adults could not give a sketch. They did not
see his face. The adults did not see a gun.
They pressed the young man to give a sketch, and
he gave a sketch. And the sketch looks like anybody.
It looks like any young man who is you know,
European or Hispanic descent. And for years I got up
(28:54):
in front of the cameras and said, have you seen
this sketch? Have you know blah blah blah, And yet
the more I think about it, and the more I
thought about it, the more I realized, there's just so
much with this theory that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
You righte that because there had been some aspersions passed
by your sisters on each other's boyfriends, police asked everyone
in your family to provide a DNA sample and their
phone records. Anything come up as a result of this.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Obviously nothing has come from that. I also, you know,
I also, you know, kind of questioned how you know
valid that is not in my dad's case, but in
any type of murder, because I would think that in
ninety nine point nine percent of cases where someone has
you know, IQ approaching three digits, if they had something
(29:48):
to do with it, you know, they're using burner phones,
they're they're not personally, you know, necessarily doing the dirty deed,
or they're going over with you know, they're they're going
over with a friend or somebody that they hired. So,
you know, I always just wondered, like, Okay, so you know,
you you get these records, but I'm not necessarily sure
(30:10):
that it's that valid of a thing.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
These days, police, when do you find out that police
say that they had have DNA and also what of
this about the jewelry missing from your father's place.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I don't remember exactly when I found out that the
police had DNA, but it was like the word got out,
you know, several different ways, and the police have now
you know, mentioned it at press conferences and things like that.
The problem again with the phrase where we have DNA
is whenever there's DNA at a crime scene, right unless
it's like under the victim's fingernails or you know, if
(30:48):
it's something like a sexual assault or something like that,
the reality is you don't you can't be one hundred
percent sure that it was a perpetrator. Now, the police
think in this case that it is the perpetrators, but
you know, they can't be sure. Secondly, they've explained to
me that the DNA that they have is so minuscule
that it's so fragmented. It's almost like when they find
(31:11):
ancient DNA, like from a Neanderthal one hundred thousand years ago.
It's that fragmented and so very very difficult to use.
There was some jewelry taken from my father's third floor bedroom.
They know that because I guess there were some little
jewelry envelopes where he stored the pieces that were torn open,
and they found him on his bed. I want to
stress my dad was not making engagement rings. He was
(31:33):
not making platinum and gold and selling his stuff for
you know, ten fifteen thousand dollars. I mean, he was
making craft jewelry with maybe you know, thirty dollars worth
of silver or two hundred dollars worth of gold, and
the melt value of his pieces was not great. So
you know, whatever was stolen, you probably totaled a few
(31:53):
thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
If that, you're right that this investigation of your father's
murder became full time for you pretty well, and also
that you created a document with questions you had for
the investigators. Tell us a little bit about this document
and its response from detectives.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well, I knew that I had to get organized because
this was eating me up inside. Can't tell you how
many sleepless nights I spent. I also look back at
the time in my life and I say, you know,
I probably wasn't a good son to my mother, probably
wasn't the best husband to my wife, probably wasn't the
most engaged father. Now, don't get me wrong, I still
tried very hard to be present, and I was, and
(32:38):
I also worked very hard at my job because I
didn't want this to, you know, to affect me too much.
But at the same time, I do think, you know,
it sort of became an obsession for me for many
years because there were so many unanswered questions and so
many things that didn't make sense. What I started to
do is tabulate all the clues and all the evidence
that we did have, and I wanted to see if
(32:59):
it pointed to any one thing included for me. I
actually interviewed the people who saw this car burglar, you know,
I called them up myself and I just introduced myself
and I said, would you mind if I asked you
a few questions, and they were very helpful. The thing
that stuck with me is that they, you know, the
police's profile of this kid was like, well, he was
a junkie looking for a hit, you know. And I'm thinking, well,
(33:23):
if you've got a gun, you don't break into cars,
because first of all, that turns a misdemeanor into a felony. Secondly,
you just go stick somebody up. You don't need to
kill my dad. Thirdly, the people who saw him, they said,
oh no, he was dressed very well. He was wearing
expensive clothes, you know, kind of like think like a
tracksuit type thing. And they said he looked like an
(33:45):
Eastern European hitman. And you know, so, you know, you
just you wonder all these permutations. Was it a decoy,
could it have been a second killer or somebody watching
the perimeter? I don't know. I mean it, my dad's
has so many mysteries in it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
You right, that you felt like a fool after this,
when you realize that you had circulated end mass a
poster with this sketch that police had said was a
sketch of the perpetrator. How do you proceed from this
(34:27):
point on and tell us about your decision to finally
hire a private eye.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, so, I mean I do feel sort of foolish,
because you know, it's like I kept I kept holding
these press conferences where I sort of begged the public
to look at the sketch and come forward if they
saw this guy. And you know, in retrospect, it's like
the sketches like not great, and the police knew that,
and I you know, and you know, it really just
sort of describes anybody, and it describes nobody. Secondly, remember
(34:55):
that there's so many things about the crime, saying and
everything that just are very weird. I don't know how
many of your listeners have fired a gun, but a
gunshot is loud, it's jarring, it's jarring when it's at
a range. That's why you wear ear protection. You imagine it,
you know, inside an enclosed dwelling, you know. So, and
(35:18):
this idea that somebody shot my father and sat there
and just sort of watched him die very strange to me.
You know, we've all seen movies where somebody's shot and
it's not a not a kill shot, and the person
wakes up and fights back, or wakes up in this
case and dials nine one one or you know, all right,
And it's like, it's just weird that somebody fired one
(35:41):
shot not too right, and then would have had the
calmness or the psychopathy to sit there and rifle through
a room, but just one room, not two or three. Right.
It's just so many things don't make sense. And then
you go back to Okay, then it's more likely that
my dad came home and surprise somebody versus the other
(36:02):
way around, somebody coming into the house and surprising him.
But then you get back to there is no forced
entry my dad's house, There no signs of forced entry,
And then you get back to, you know, my dad
was not a vigilante. If he walked into his bedroom
and saw that it was ransacked, I mean, I don't know. Yeah,
I guess maybe for five minutes he might like kind
of look around and see, gee, as you know, what
(36:22):
happened here. But I think most people would just pick
up their cell phone and walk out and call nine
one one. So it's just very weird. And then of
course there's the thing of my dad being seated at
his desk, right, so it's all so weird. There is
so much about my dad's case that is weird. So look,
(36:44):
at some point, I felt like the police kept telling
me we're a busy, big city department. There are some
good qualities and bad claus. Right. They assigned the most
elite division to my dad's case, which was a nice
touch and I'm grateful for that. But these were also
the guys who like hand old like you know, if
a celebrity was burglarized, or like you know, if a
(37:08):
if there was like a high profile assassination attempt in
LA And so, you know, there was many times where
I called him and they'd just be like, well, we
can't do that, we're busy, okay. So at some point
I hired a private detective. One of the most important
things he found is he talked with one of my
dad's neighbors who lived essentially two houses away, and she
said she had heard a gunshot that night. And she
(37:29):
said that the time she heard the gunshot did not
comport with the police's timeline. And I called her myself
and I pressed her, how do you know How can
you be sure what time you heard it? Well, I
took my son to a class every night at XYZ
and I left the house at every time, and so
I know exactly what time it was. Well, how can
you be sure it was a gunshot? Well, let's put
it this way. I was dressed in nice clothes and
(37:50):
I hit the deck. And I don't know about you,
but I don't want. You know, you don't want to
dive on your floor wearing nice clothes, but I did.
I was so scared that I crawled around my floor.
And so, you know, like things like that made me
a little bit uncomfortable with the investigation. And also, you know, frankly,
the approach of some of the detectives on my dad's case. So,
you know, I just viewed it as one more piece
(38:12):
of trying to get every possible bit of information to
solve my father's case.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
You right. Also, a California Court of appeal had struck
down California's eleven year old DNA collection law, which required
samples to be taken from people arrested for a serious felony.
Can you briefly tell us about this fight?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, you know, you talk about you talk about like
like everything is going bad. It was a very tough
year for me. So in the midst of my dad's case, Yeah,
court had struck down Californa's DNA collection law. And I mean,
just let me make it very playton or you know,
clear for the listener. When you have DNA in a
murder or a rape, it becomes a waiting game. It's like,
(38:59):
let's hope that this person gets arrested again and that
they swab and sample the DNA, and you know that
you get a hit and then now, gee, here's the
Court of Appeal saying we're going to stop swabbing people
in the state of California. And I was like, my god,
my dad's case will never be solved. But thankfully the
Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal. Thankfully the I
(39:22):
was able to introduce legislation to protect DNA collection even
if that had not happened. But gosh, what a rough
period of my life that that happened. At that time.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
You write something very very interesting. I'll have to ask
you about it. February one, twenty sixteen, the last Pheeli
is Alleger, now defunct, reported that your older sister, Nicole,
married her boyfriend a few hours before your father was
murdered in a private ceremony with no family members present.
(39:54):
What do you think the paper was alluding to with
this story.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
What's hard to say, right I I talked about later
in the book too, how I talked to another journalist,
a former La Times reporter, who said, you know, you
don't have to assume the worst. You could You could
very easily just assume that, you know, it's possible that
you know, people in the circle knew about the wedding
(40:21):
and they assumed that your father would be at the wedding.
They did not know that there had been you know,
some breach or some you know, or that the wedding
was private or quiet or secret or whatever, and so
they had planned on, you know, robbing his house while
he was at the wedding. Who wouldn't think that a
dad would, would you know, not be at his daughter's wedding.
You know, I thought about that. That's absolutely a possibility.
(40:44):
But my approach in the case has always been standard.
I have told the police I would not be a
good father to I'm sorry, I would not be a
good son to my father, and I would not be
honoring his legacy, and I would not be looking for
justice if I didn't encourage you to to, you know,
explore all possible theories and all possible leads. That is
(41:06):
your job. That is my job, and I don't care
if I'm a public figure. I don't care how painful
it might be to think about. You need to explore
all leads, and that's consistently been my message with respect
to everything for my dad's case.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
You write that since your father's test, you immersed yourself
in the world of genetic genealogy and then offered up
try to immerse yourself and be able to be very
educated and be able to explain it to these detectives.
What was their response with these with this kind of initiative.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
The detectives on the case for the longest part of
my dad's case, and you know, some of them have
had some very let's say loud and very acrimonious partings
with with the LAPD that involved lawsuits. So I know
it's not just me who feels this way, but you know,
they were sometimes very difficult, They said some strange things,
They didn't have a great bedside manner. They you know,
(42:00):
really had bad timing on certain things. But it's also like,
you know, you would think if you're investigating murders for
ten or twenty years, I know that that's not your thing,
and I know the sciences you know, above your pay grade,
but that you would learn a little bit about some
of the latest techniques and be able to discuss them.
They sort of treated me like a nuisance, like I'd
be like, hey, I got a call from one of
(42:21):
the I mean, my dad's case was in the public eye,
and I was in the public eye, and I had
access to very well connected people. And I still do
and I'd get calls from like the foremost genealogists in
the country, and she would say, Hey, there's been a
new advance and this lab can do it, blah blah blah.
And I'd call them and I'd say have you thought
about this? And they'd be like huh. And I'd say, well,
you know, with this type of science, and they'd say huh,
And I was like, you know, I mean, look, I'm
(42:44):
not a full time podcaster, but I keep abreast of
what different types of microphone technology there is, right And
it just you would think that they would, you know,
I don't know, just have a different attitude for it.
But unfortunately they did not.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You write that your criticism of these detectives, you didn't
reach out to anyone, but these detectives were dropped from
the case, and you write that you were very optimistic
when a new team two new detectives were assigned, and
then they contacted you tell us about this optimism.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, the new team on my dad's case is fantastic.
They seem like they're genuinely caring people. One of the
detectives has told me that he really wants to solve
my dad's case. Before he retires and I like that attitude.
I like hearing it, you know, even if it wasn't true,
It's like it's a nice thing to hear, right. And
also they have reached out for outside help, which is
also nice because you know, big agencies tend to be
(43:39):
very parochial and they don't feel like they need outside help.
And you know, I feel like once a year I
read a story about some you know, old detective in
West Virginia who, you know, there's an unsolved case that
is always stuck in his cry and you know he'l
he'll reach out for help from you know, a genealogist
and this agency and that agency, and then they'll solve
a case. And so you know, the LPD has has
reached out for some outside help, which is and you know,
(44:02):
when you're in this situation that my family is in,
you just want to think that the agency is doing
everything again, even if they're not. It's like, lie to me,
tell me that you're doing everything. And so that's where
I think we are now. I do think we are
doing everything possible.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
One of those detectives of Louis Romero, you said you
learned something new from him, and very significant what was.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
That, Well, that was you know, I had always wondered
whether my dad had fought back. I think some people
had wondered whether my dad had even been shot with
his own gun. Now, I don't know if my dad
had a gun. I don't think he did. He certainly
would not have had one in a place that was reachable.
You know, at the time, I had a nephew that
was very close with my dad. Well, I mean he's
(44:45):
still he's still, he's still there, But I mean he
was young. He was a you know, a late adolescent,
and my dad would not have kept a gun like
within reaching distance with an adolescent coming over to his house.
So I really don't think that. I don't think that
this was my dadd's gun. But what I learned from
Detective Romero is that my father did have some gun
shot residue on his you know, his hands or his fingers,
(45:09):
or his sleeve or his forearms or whatever it is,
and that indicates one of two or three things my
dad handled a gun could mean it was his, but
what's more likely in this case is that he wrestled
with the person or tried to wrestle the gun away
from the person who who took his life. It could,
I suppose, mean that he was just that close and
(45:31):
he held up his hands or something. But you know,
it tells me a couple of things. It tells me
that if the most likely thing is true that he
wrestled with the person, that it could have been somebody
he knew, or it could have been somebody who was weak,
or it could have been somebody who is elderly. Now,
of course that's reading tea leaves, but there's so much
in my dad's case that is reading tea leaves.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
At the end of this book, you talk about the
plight of other victims. Late twenty twenty one, you attended
a memorial to bring aware to crime victims, and you
said you had met other people at these meetings, and
you've gone to attended other meetings, but this one really
stood out because of a woman you met. What did
(46:12):
this woman have to say?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, so I have met a lot of crime victims
over the years. I speak at memorials and rallies and
political events, but this one, I don't know. She just
really struck a chord with me because her pain was
so real and I felt like we were kindred spirits.
Her son her son had been killed and he died
(46:41):
in her arms, and she was so broken up over
it as you can imagine. I mean, her pain was
so raw, you know. And she said that in her
neighborhood everybody knew who had killed her son somehow, but
(47:01):
the cops had not made an arrest. And I just
learned this. You know, it seems like it happens time
and time again, where you know, there's a murder that
happens and everybody sort of knows who did it, but
you know, there might not be evidence or something. There
might not be DNA, or you know, somebody's cell phone
didn't ping a satellite at the right moment. But you know,
(47:21):
if police just talked with people, and that includes talking
with people who might have something to hide, you know,
like how we're crime solved before the advent of DNA,
Well they were solved by police talking with people. And
if there's one thing I learned is that there is
such a profound value to that. Anyway, this woman was
having a really hard time. We have stayed in touch,
(47:42):
and I've done everything I came on to get her
back on our feet.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Before I let you go, tell us the continuing state
of things on your father's case.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well, we have some good things and some tough things.
The tough thing, of course, is that, look, it's going
to be twelve years next month and the case is
not solved, and that means, you know, that could mean
one of three or four things. It could mean that
the killer was brilliant, didn't leave any tracks, and you know,
and that is what it is. It could mean that
(48:15):
it was a hired hitman and the person flew back
to use Bekistan, right or wherever they came from. I mean,
theory that's on the menu, right. It could mean that
my father's killer is dead and that's why he or
she or the killers have not reoffended. It could mean
that we have the wrong evidence, that the evidence we
think is relevant is really not relevant. At the same time,
(48:39):
the police do believe that my father's crime will be
solved someday. They have said to me, they really do
believe that, and I hope they're right. We do have
some you know, unknown prints and you know, some physical evidence,
and there's the fragmented DNA and all that, and so
I hope there will be advances in technology. There always are,
and that someday will get closure. The tough thing, right is,
(49:04):
you know, the question is how long you know, if
my father was alive now, he'd be in his nineties.
Many of his friends have passed away, is you know
some of his cousins and stuff that he's very close with.
Our oldest one is ninety six. You know, there's a
justice component, and you want people to have justice at
some point. You know, justice delayed can sometimes be justice denied.
(49:25):
So you know, we have hope. We have hope, and
but the level of activity and things like that is
nowhere near where it was a few years ago. But
as you can tell, this is still something that I
think about very, very frequently, and it's something that I'm
not going to let go of until we get some
degree of justice from my dad.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Absolutely, thank you so much. You're sharing your very personal
journey throughout this incredible ordeal of your father's death. I
want to thank you so much for coming on and
talking about your new book, Noir by Necessity, How my
father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. For those
that might want to find out more about this book.
(50:05):
To have a website or do any social media.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I do my website is easy. It's Mike Gatto dot com.
If you remember that it's ga Tto. I'm easy to find.
I'm also on Twitter or x at Mike Gatto. That's
where I'm more frequent. But the book is look, the
book is like anything else, right. It's at some bookstores,
but it's easiest to get on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. So, Dan,
I really really appreciate you for what you do to
(50:31):
bring attention to these cases, and thank you very much
for having me today.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on
and talking about this incredible book, Noir by Necessity, how
my father's unsolved murder took me to dark places. It's
been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for this interview,
Mike Gatto, and have yourself a good night you too.
Thank you
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