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The Gary Murphy Assassination, A San Francisco Cold CaseAuthor: Mike Spencer
Former reporter turned private investigator Mike Spencer looks at a case of his from 1998. A gunman killed Murphy one morning at a halfway house in a quiet neighborhood near the ocean. Murphy, a biker and three time convicted felon, tried to escape by running through a window. He died at the scene. Spencer had Murphy under surveillance in a child custody case three months before the death. Did Murphy's criminal past catch up to him or was it the private eye's former client, Grandma, who orchestrated the hit? A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and Murphy's daughter join Spencer to discuss the case. Spencer fights San Francisco Police in a public records battle to win not only the case file to the crime but the witness and suspect audio interviews from the time. Language: en Genres: True Crime Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Gary Murphy Case: San Francisco Cold Case — Ep 7: Snitch Tapes & Suspects
Episode 7
Thursday, 1 January, 2026
In this San Francisco investigative podcast episode, I dive into the snitch tapes and the suspet lineup,and discuss implications for the Gary Murphy case. The tapes are part of the case file from the June 12, 1998 murder of the ex-con biker. It's a rare true crime murder podcast. Police seemed to have overwhelming evidence against Murphy's enemy in a child custody case, the grandmother of Murphy's then 6-year-old daughter. Murphy had been winning in family law court against grandma at the time of his death. An informant arrested in a notrorious Piedmont home invasion rape told police that the grandmother had hired the hitman and the getaway driver through grandma's then boyfriend. The tapes in the San Francisco murder investigation reveal the desperation of the informant to try to get out of custody before giving police a more detailed statement. The two San Francisco detectives grilled the informant, the gunman, the driver, and grandma's boyfriend but they could not get a confesstion out of the suspects. Police would later lose the phone records and no one was ever arrested or charged with Murphy's murder.
