On Sunday afternoon,
April 1st, 1984,
Marvin Gaye tried
to play referee
in a petty argument between
his mother and father
over a missing
insurance document.
His efforts cost him his life.
Today, we're going to take a
look at the murder of Marvin
Gaye, but before
we get started, be
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OK.
Let's go back to 1984.
To understand
Marvin Gaye's death,
we have to go all the way
back to the formative years
of his relationship
with his father,
Marvin Gaye Sr. Marvin Sr.
was a minister and a healer
with a Pentecostal church, which
was known as the House of God.
House of God advocates
a strict code of conduct
among its followers.
Using those religious bylaws,
Marvin Sr. ruled his household
with a heavy hand.
Sr. was also a conflicted
and complicated man.
He couldn't hold down
a job for very long.
He was a raging alcoholic,
and he was a crossdresser.
He also abused
his four children,
often in the name of religion,
and he dealt his harshest
punishments on Marvin Jr.
According to Marvin's sister
Jeanne, from the age
of seven until well
into his teenage years,
Gaye's life consisted
of brutal whippings.
Marvin Jr. said that
living with his father,
"Was like living with a king,
an all cruel, changeable, cruel,
and all powerful king."
If it wasn't for
his mother, Marvin
would have ended his own life.
Similarly, Gaye's
mother, Alberta,
admitted that her
husband despised her son.
"My husband never wanted
Marvin, and he never liked him.
He used to say he didn't
think he was really his child.
But for some reason, he didn't
love Marvin, and what's worse,
he didn't want me to
love Marvin either."
Oddly enough, Gaye
developed his love
for singing and performing
from his father.
Around the age of
five, Marvin Sr.
coached him in piano
lessons, which Gaye quickly
learned by ear.
Gaye sang in his
father's church choir,
and it was one of
the few stable times
in the father and
son's relationship.
Flash forward to 1984,
Gaye was 44 years old,
and he was experiencing
a career comeback
after five years
of shaky output.
His first post-Motown
album, Midnight Love,
was at the top of
the charts, and he
was enjoying the biggest
hit of his career
with "Sexual Healing," which
spent 10 weeks at number one
on the Hot Black Singles chart.
"Sexual Healing" eventually
became the biggest R&B hit
of the 1980s.
Gaye wrapped up his
four-month tour,
a tour that was a disaster
from its opening on April
18th in San Diego, California.
When it began, Gaye was
relatively healthy and happy,
and relatively drug free.
But by a few weeks
into the tour,
he was going in
heavy on cocaine.
As the tour moved from
the West Coast of America
to the East Coast and
back, Gaye's behavior
started to get
increasingly erratic.
Due to his nonstop
drug use, Gaye
was becoming increasingly
paranoid throughout the tour.
He hired a small army
of personal bodyguards,
and he'd wear a bulletproof
vest up until the point
when he walked onstage.
Somewhere in the
middle of the tour,
Gaye became positive
that a hitman
had been hired to take him out.
Later in the tour,
he worried that he
was being secretly poisoned.
During a stop in Boston
while at a press conference,
reporters sat stunned
as Gaye revealed
that he had hired famed attorney
F. Lee Bailey to determine how,
why, and by whom he had been
poisoned during the tour.
He added that a mystical
potion concocted
by activist and comedian Dick
Gregory had saved his life.
After the tour, Gaye
retreated to the large house
he bought his parents at 2101
South Gramercy Place in Los
Angeles to recuperate.
For the next nine
months after the tour,
the house was home
to nonstop madness.
Marvin Sr., Alberta,
and Marvin Jr.
slept in three adjoining
second story bedrooms.
The couple hadn't
slept in the same room
together for over 10 years.
Marvin's brother Frankie
and his wife Irene
lived in a detached guest house.
Most of the time, Marvin Sr.
was hold up in his room swigging
vodka while his son shut
himself away in his bedroom.
Martin's mother saw his
condition and his addiction.
His mother said Marvin
would say, "Mother, this
is the last time.
I promise."
But when he was out, he
would make a phone call,
and someone would show up
to deliver another batch.
When Gaye was in the
mood, he'd call for women.
Sometimes groupies would
visit him in his room,
and sometimes even his ex-wives
Anna and Janice would come by.
With his paranoia
at an all-time high,
Gaye had an elaborate, expensive
security and surveillance
system installed in
his parent's home.
While he may have been living
a fast and paranoid life, what
caused the death of Marvin
Gaye was an insurance document.
On Saturday, March 31st,
1984, Gaye's parents
engaged in several
petty arguments.
The main cause of tension was
a misplaced insurance policy
document.
For the remainder of the day
and well into the evening,
Gaye's father would storm
around the Gramercy house
and yell at his mother
about the missing
document he insisted she lost.
Eventually, Gaye had had
enough and told his father
to leave his mother alone.
Marvin Sr. backed
off, but continued
to yell nonsensically
throughout the house
until he went to sleep.
Marvin Sr. went to bed
angry, and he woke up angry
the next morning on
Sunday, April 1st.
Sometime around 12:30 PM,
he yelled up the stairs
at his wife who was
in Gaye's bedroom.
Gaye exited his room,
leaned over the railing that
overlooked the first
floor of their home,
and yelled back at
his father that if he
wanted to speak to his wife
about the missing paperwork
then he should
come up the stairs
and ask her properly
to her face.
According to Alberta,
Marvin Sr. immediately
charged upstairs
into Gaye's bedroom
where she was sitting
on the bed by her son.
As Marvin Sr. barreled
into Gaye's room,
he once more began yelling at
Alberta over the lost insurance
document.
Gaye Jr. jumped out of
his bed and demanded
that his father leave.
But Marvin Sr. held his ground.
That's when Gaye reportedly
pushed his 70-year-old father
out of the room and
into the hallway,
knocking him down
in the process.
Gaye then repeatedly kicked
and punched his father
while he was on the floor.
Eventually, Alberta separated
Gaye from his father.
Marvin Sr. then picked
himself up and calmly walked
to his bedroom at the opposite
side of the second floor
hallway.
Minutes later, Marvin Sr.
re-entered his son's bedroom.
He was holding a
.38 caliber handgun.
Gaye had given that
gun to his father
several months earlier
for self-protection.
Without saying a word,
he pulled the trigger.
Marvin Sr. shot his son
directly in the heart.
Marvin's mother, who was
standing about 8 feet away
from Marvin, said, "My
husband didn't say anything.
He just pointed the gun
at Marvin and shot."
The shot entered Gaye's
chest, then ricocheted
through his right lung, heart,
diaphragm, liver, stomach,
and left kidney before stopping
against his left flank.
As Gaye's body lay on the
floor slumped against his bed,
Marvin Sr. calmly
walked toward his son
and fired again,
this time penetrating
Gaye's left shoulder
just below the clavicle.
Once Marvin's brother Frankie
was made aware of the shots,
he ran inside the
Gramercy house.
His wife Irene called 911.
According to Frankie
in his 2003 book,
Marvin Gaye, My
Brother, Gaye, only
able to whisper as blood was
pouring out of both gunshot
wounds, told him, "I
got What I wanted.
I couldn't do it myself,
so I had him do it.
It's good.
I ran my race.
There's no more left in me."
When paramedics showed
up at the scene,
they demanded to see
the gun before they
would enter the house.
After scrambling around
Marvin Sr.'s bedroom,
Irene found it under a
pillow, carried it downstairs,
and tossed it on the front lawn.
By this time, nearly 20 minutes
had passed since Gaye was shot.
As he was rushed to
California Hospital Medical
Center 3 miles away, medics
tried to resuscitate Gaye,
but it was too late.
Marvin Gaye was
declared dead on arrival
at 1:01 PM, one day
before his 45th birthday.
Marvin Sr. was immediately
arrested and held
at the Los Angeles County
Jail on $100,000 bail.
Marvin Sr. gave the Los
Angeles Herald Examiner
an account that varied slightly
from the one his wife relayed.
"I pulled the trigger.
The first one didn't
seem to bother him.
He put his hand up to his face
like he'd been hit with a BB,
and then I fired again.
I was backing towards my room.
I was going to go in
there and lock the door.
This time I heard him say,
'Oh,' and I saw him going down.
I do know that I
did fire the gun.
I was just trying to
keep him back off me.
I want the world
to know it wasn't
presumptuous on my part."
Marvin Sr. appeared before Judge
Gordon Ringer on November 2nd,
1984 for sentencing.
Ringer was very stoic
about the proceedings
and said the following
about the case,
"This is one of those
terribly tragic cases in which
a young life was snuffed out,
but under the circumstances
it seems to be agreed
by everybody, including
the very able and experienced
investigating officers
in this case, that the young
man who died tragically
provoked this incident,
and it was all his fault."
When asked if he loved his son,
Sr. Reportedly stated softly,
"Let's say I didn't
dislike him."
Judge Ringer ordered a
six-year suspended sentence
and five years of probation.
So what do you think?
How big of a legend was Marvin
Gaye, and how much of a loss
was this for the music world?
Let us know in the
comments below.
And while you're at it, check
out some of these other music
stories from our Weird History.
