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.

This San Francisco investigative podcast reviews SF Police interviews Vol. 1 and what they reveal about the Gary Murphy case.

Host/Private Eye Mike Spencer's five-year battle to obtain records in the case pays off when police release audio of witness and suspect interviews to him. It's the first time the public has ever heard these tapes. It's clear that as early as a day after the June 12, 1998, shooting death of biker and ex-con Murphy, police had the name of the prime suspect. Witnesses referred to her as Grandma, the woman Murphy had battled for custody of this then 6-year-old daughter.

The San Francisco true crime episode contains interviews of Murphy's brother and sister, who flew out to San Francisco for his wake. It quickly went from a San Francisco unsolved mystery to a San Francisco police murder investigation. A close friend of Murphy's tells detectives that while Murphy got in fights and used to sell drugs, he does not believe Murf's criminal past played a part in the murder. The friend also lays out how the grandmother was mad at Murphy because her daughter, the mother of Murphy's child, had died from an accidental drug overdose.

Towards the end, detectives interview grandma. She blames Murphy's lifestyle for his demise and brags about her knowledge of the criminal justice system. However, as the case file reveals, we know that grandma soon fled back to her native Canada with Murphy's daughter.

In this San Francisco investigative podcast, true crime podcast host Spencer reviews his win of a public records battle that he has fought for five years. After several attorneys turned him down to represent him vs. San Francisco Police, the police legal division voluntarily released the case file on the 1998 uncharged murder case. The file does not hold back. It names the killers involved in the conspiracy and details how prosecutors at least twice declined to charge anyone connected to the broad daylight shooting of the 41-year-old biker. It's not su much a San Francisco cold case as a case of police neglect.

The case file confirms his initial theory: his former client hired the killers as she was losing a custody battle to Murphy for her then 6-year-old granddaughter.

Did sloppiness of the orgininal detectives doom a prosecution? Possibly. Spencer finds the file to be unorganized despite containing some strong evidence in the forms of ballistics and from witnesses. The case file details that the Murphy suspects were also tied to a notorious home invasion and sexual assault of a pregnant mother that occurred a week after Murphy's murder.

Another detective took up the case in 2012 and within two months had prepared an arrest affidavit for suspects. The case bounces around among prosecutors but ultimately the District Attorney opted not to charge despite considerable corroboration of details in the conspiracy.