 |
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 |
Listen Now...
Ep. 7: The Snitch and The Suspects tapes, The Gary Murphy Assassination
Episode 7
Thursday, 1 January, 2026
Host/private eye Mike Spencer airs parts of the tapes from the case file. These interviews have never been heard by the public. Spencer won the tapes in 2025 after a five-year battle with the San Francisco Police Department. The tapes are part of the case file from the June 12, 1998 murder of the ex-con biker. 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 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.
