Crimes of the Times

In 1984, soul legend Marvin Gaye was in the grip of a cocaine habit and living with his father, a hard-drinking Pentecostal preacher with whom he had a lifetime of bad blood. One day, Gaye gave his father a gun and told him it was to protect the house. Some would see an elaborate plan to orchestrate suicide by his father’s hand.

When retired art teacher Joseph Gatto was shot to death inside his Silver Lake home in 2013, the LAPD theorized that a fleeing car burglar might be the killer. The victim’s son, a prominent California legislator, found that story increasingly hard to believe.

Iva Toguri was a Los Angeles native who became trapped in Japan during World War II. When she returned home, the U.S. government put her on trial as a traitor for her wartime broadcasts. Her name became synonymous with a myth, her conviction fueled by lies and political pressure.

Aimee Semple McPherson built a religious empire in Los Angeles and became one of the most influential evangelists in America. When she vanished from a California beach and reappeared weeks later with an unbelievable story, the scandal that followed threatened to destroy everything she had built.

On today’s episode, we discuss one of the pivotal events of the 1960s: the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a promising presidential candidate at the time of his murder. Though the gunman was caught at the scene, confessed at trial, and even bragged about the shooting, his motives have largely been forgotten. In that collective amnesia, conspiracy theories have flourished.