Bobby Fuller: Who Killed Bobby Fuller?

How did Bobby Fuller die? Ask four different people and you’ll get four different answers. Wikipedia will tell you that Bobby’s death was an “accident”. The LAPD will tell you Bobby committed suicide. YouTube will tell you a lot of things with big, dumb sensationalized thumbnails, but in the end, won’t really tell you anything at all. The rock ‘n’ roll history books––all but one anyway––will tell you that Bobby Fuller’s death is an unsolvable mystery. They’re wrong. Bobby Fuller’s death is completely solvable, and by the time you finish listening to this episode you’ll know exactly how Bobby Fuller died, who killed him, and why. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership https://disgracelandpod.com/membership. Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch https://cms.megaphone.fm/organizations/c83125d2-8508-11ed-bd28-ff0aff7ee233/podcasts/efca2ef8-85f9-11ed-8fe3-bb208936046f/episodes/d117e93e-5e36-11ef-8745-5373bae4c0ff/www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch! Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER https://mailchi.mp/doubleelvis/disgraceland-email-newsletter Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/disgracelandpod/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@disgracelandpod X https://twitter.com/disgracelandpod (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/491024204626127/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 2:17Jake Brennan?

  DisgraceLand is a production of Double Elvis.

• 2:30Jake Brennan?

  This is a story about one of the greatest pop music heavyweights that never was, about the next Phil Spector that never happened, the next Brian Wilson that didn't exist, the next Barry Gordy who we never got to see fully formed. This is a story about a so-called suicide, a hard-to-imagined accident, and a murder mystery. It's about undeniable talent, unrealized potential, and unimaginable violence. This is a story about one of rock and roll's greatest mysteries. Who killed Bobby Fuller? A man who made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.

• 3:14Jake Brennan?

  That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Down Mexico Away MK1." I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Hanky Panky" by Tommy James and the Shondells. And why would I play you that specific slice of Genovese cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number-one song in America on July 18, 1966, and that was the day Bobby Fuller's body was discovered in the parking lot next to his Los Angeles apartment. On this episode, undeniable talent, unrealized potential, unimaginable violence, and getting to the bottom of one of rock and roll's greatest mysteries.

• 3:59Jake Brennan?

  Who Killed Bobby Fuller? I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 4:31Jake Brennan?

  Who Killed Bobby Fuller? That's one question. Who was Bobby Fuller? That's another question entirely, and we'll get into that more fully in a moment. But the short answer is, he was the Southwest's next Phil Spector. He was George Harrison's favorite rock and roller. He was an inspiration to The Clash as Joe Strummer, and one of the most talented musicians to emerge from the 1960s, only to have his life snuffed out under the hot L.A. sun in a cold New York minute. So here's another question. How did Bobby Fuller die? This is a complicated one. Ask four different people, and you'll get four different answers. Wikipedia will tell you that Bobby's death was an accident.

• 5:14Jake Brennan?

  And the LAPD will tell you that Bobby committed suicide. YouTube will tell you a lot of things with big, dumb, sensationalized thumbnails, but in the end, won't really tell you anything at all. And the rock and roll history books, all but one anyway, will tell you that Bobby Fuller's death is an unsolvable mystery. They're wrong. Bobby Fuller's death is completely solvable. In fact, by the time you finish watching or listening to this episode, you'll know exactly how Bobby Fuller died, who killed him, and why.

• 5:50Jake Brennan?

  On July 18, 1966, Bobby Fuller was riding high on the success of his version of the Sonny Curtis song, "I Fought the Law." You've heard this song. Everyone has heard this song. Not only has Bobby's version been covered by The Clash, it's also been featured in countless films, on television, and referenced endlessly throughout pop culture since its release. Bobby's version, his second-recorded version, climbed to number nine on the Billboard charts back at the end of 1965. And by the summer of '66, the song had paved the way for Bobby Fuller to make a real run at The Beatles' chart dominance. But that wasn't going to happen.

• 6:32Jake Brennan?

  Because by July 18, 1966, 23-year-old Bobby Fuller was dead. His body was discovered by his mother in the parking lot adjacent to his Los Angeles apartment. What was left of Bobby Fuller lay prone on the front seat of his mom's 1962 Oldsmobile. Bobby had been badly beaten, and there were scratches and bruises all over his neck and arms. One of his eyelids was missing, and a finger was bent back and broken. Stranger than all of this, Bobby Fuller's body was covered in gasoline. In fact, the entire seat of the car had been doused with gas.

• 7:14Jake Brennan?

  And not only that, there was a gas can on the floor of the front seat and a hose. Despite this evidence, or perhaps because of this evidence, the LAPD detectives on the scene quickly made the assessment that Bobby Fuller had committed suicide, by, get this, by drinking gasoline. The police completely ignored the fact that his body was beaten. The police threw the gas can from the front seat of the car into a nearby trash can. The police did not dust for fingerprints, not the gas can, not the car, not anything. And that was it. Right there on the scene, LAPD decided Bobby Fuller killed himself. Just another depressed, dead kid, a rock and roller, likely on drugs.

• 7:59Jake Brennan?

  Case closed. What the hell just happened? Well, this is the story of what happened. This is the Bobby Fuller story.

• 8:14Jake Brennan?

  Bobby Fuller grew up in West Texas in the 1950s in the shadow of Buddy Holly. To Bobby Fuller, Buddy Holly, the rock star from Lubbock, Texas, was a god. But after Buddy Holly's plane went down in that Iowa cornfield, and they found Buddy's body scattered among the remains of fellow rock stars, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, there would be no resurrection. Yet there would be a continuation of Buddy Holly's Texas rock stardom. Bobby Fuller, from El Paso, saw himself as Buddy Holly's rightful heir. And for good reason. Bobby's talent was off the charts. He could sing, play guitar, play drums, write, arrange, and engineer.

• 8:58Jake Brennan?

  He was also a star attraction. He looked the part. Handsome enough for rock and roll, with endless charisma on stage. Bobby Fuller was a Southwest Pied Piper. As a teenager and a young adult in Texas, not only did Bobby Fuller write and perform his own songs, he recorded those songs in a studio he built and released them on wax on a record label he founded. Then he and his band would put on DIY shows in an underage club that he owned and operated. Bobby Fuller was everything. The singer, the songwriter, the studio, the label, and the promoter, all wrapped into one. But he was in Texas.

• 9:42Jake Brennan?

  And outside of Bobby Fuller, there really was no music industry to speak of in Texas. There were no real distributors or promoters, or the type of industry muscle needed to take Bobby Fuller to the next level. It was 1963. Bobby Fuller had regional hits, but he wasn't breaking through. Farther west, in California, Dick Dale's surf guitar had created a wave of excitement that the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was riding to pop music heights, that Bobby had never dreamed possible. Back east, Phil Spector was creating new sounds with girl groups that sounded like orchestral teenage riots. And up north, in Detroit, Barry Gordy was producing

• 10:26Jake Brennan?

  an entirely new American soundtrack in his Motown studio. Bobby Fuller knew that he had his own take on rock and roll, a Texas take, rooted in Buddy Holly but wholly his own. A new type of rock and roll souped up for the '60s. Switchblade serenades and rebel-rousing rave-ups, all swaggering with drag strip courage. Bobby Fuller, from Down by the Border, built for speed. But if Bobby wanted to take Texas to the charts to compete with the likes of Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and Barry Gordy, well, in order to put Texas on the pop music map, Bobby Fuller needed to leave Texas.

• 11:11Jake Brennan?

  In 1964, Bobby Fuller, along with two other members of his band, his younger brother Randy on bass and guitarist Jim Reese, moved to Los Angeles. The plan was to find a new drummer when they got there, and they did. His name was Dwayne Quirico. The Bobby Fuller Four, as the group would later be called, quickly nabbed a gig promoted by a young DJ at the time named Casey Kasem. From there, the band continued to gig around Southern California, and word spread quickly. There was a new group in town, headed up by a wild Texan who could play anything on his Fender Stratocaster, in the band Cooks. The bookings came quick, and soon, the Bobby Fuller Four was playing every night,

• 11:55Jake Brennan?

  not just for Casey Kasem, but at the Rendezvous, a massive beachside teen center, and at Le Cave Pigal, or "The Pig," as it was affectionately referred to by clientele, a nightclub in the basement of the Ambassador Hotel. This is where Phil Spector himself got wind of Bobby Fuller. Spector was in attendance every night, and he even sat in onstage with Bobby and his band on numerous occasions. It was official. By 1964 in Hollywood, Bobby Fuller was a sensation.

• 12:29Jake Brennan?

  But Bobby Fuller, the innocent young Texan, was a long way from El Paso. Out here by the ocean, he was now swimming with sharks. At the moment, he and his brother Randy were inside of a massive warehouse somewhere just south of Los Angeles. Bobby had been sent here by Bob Keen, the head of Delphi Records, the record label that Bobby and his band had just signed with. Delphi Records owned and controlled an imprint label called Mustang Records, which was the label that would eventually release Bobby's music. In lieu of cash, Bob Keen had sent Bobby down to this warehouse owned by his distributor,

• 13:12Jake Brennan?

  an intimidating old-school music businessman named Larry Noons. Noons had a reputation and a demeanor, and they both said the same thing: "Don't fuck with me." It was at this warehouse that Bobby Fuller and his brother Randy began to get an understanding of the world that they were entering when they signed their recording contract with Delphi Records. Delphi may have been owned by Bob Keen, but it was the owner of this warehouse, the label's distributor Larry Noons, who was running the show at Delphi Records. Larry Noons was big, dark complexion, more East Coast than West,

• 13:55Jake Brennan?

  and clearly in control of every room he walked into. Pick out any TV that you want. Bobby and Randy found one quickly, and then got the hell out of there, back to LA, and back to playing shows. Larry Noons was good for more than just television sets that may or may not have fallen off the backs of trucks. And within a few short months of the Bobby Fuller Four signing with Delphi Records, Noons had secured a gig for the group at one of the hottest clubs in town: PJs. And the Bobby Fuller Four did not disappoint.

• 14:37Jake Brennan?

  1965, Santa Monica Boulevard. Outside the nightclub, Klieg lights rocket up to the stars, beaming back and forth across the West Hollywood skyline, letting everyone know where they need to be. The center of the celebrity universe that night: PJs. You can tell by the steady stream of Jaguars and Rolls Royces that make the scene out front. Inside PJs, the band is swinging. The Bobby Fuller Four are in full glory, rocking the crowd on the dance floor with an energy only hinted at over the airwaves. Live and in person in 1965,

• 15:19Jake Brennan?

  rock and roll when in the hands of a master like Bobby Fuller is still a revelation. At the bar, blonde starlets Linda Evans and Sharon Tate compete for Steve McQueen's attention. A young Sally Field looks on in awe. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton argue at a nearby table. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward do not. George Harrison sits alone, studying Bobby Fuller's every move onstage. He also studies the moves of a young go-go dancer named Mia Farrow, who is busy making eyes with Frank Sinatra. Frank's friend, handsome Johnny Roselli from the Chicago outfit, is in the house. Johnny likes to call girls that hang out at PJs.

• 16:03Jake Brennan?

  He's now at a back table with some of "the boys," as Frank calls them. They're in town a lot these days, and when they are, they're easy to find here at PJs. PJs isn't just a mob hangout. It's partially mob-owned. And it's operated by Paul Raffles, a man married into the mafia, a close, personal friend of Larry Noons, the man who, for the time being anyway, controls the record label that now controls Bobby Fuller's career.

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• 18:02Jake Brennan?

  In 1965, Bobby Fuller wrote and released his first national hit, "The Glorious Let Her Dance." It's hard for me to explain the beauty of this song. It's pure rock and roll innocence, and if you're not paying attention, you might miss the innovative nature of this tune. The bassline, played by Bobby's brother Randy, is relentless. The song's feel is such that, even to this day, 60-plus years after it was created, it's hard for me to hear it and not move around. The song is a masterful rock and roll tune, and when it hits your ears, it's easy to understand why those who knew Bobby Fuller back then saw him as a potential rival to other pop music heavyweights

• 18:47Jake Brennan?

  like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. "Let Her Dance" went to 133 on the Billboard charts, but had Delphi Records not screwed up the single's release, it could have been a much bigger hit. Larry Noons, Delphi's distributor, did his best to overcome the botched release of "Let Her Dance." He showed up at Delphi while Bobby and his bandmates were present, and announced that local radio station KRLA was going to start playing "Let Her Dance" in heavy rotation. And when they did, Bobby smelled a rat immediately. Bobby Fuller was smart enough to know that Larry Noons was relying on a tried-and-true but illegal trick to guarantee airplay:

• 19:32Jake Brennan?

  payola, the act of paying DJs under the table to play music. A few years earlier, legendary rock and roll DJ Alan Freed had been federally indicted and publicly disgraced for his payola schemes, as were a number of other DJs throughout the United States. Payola may have helped "Let Her Dance" climb the charts on the West Coast, but it wasn't going to move records nationally. For that, Larry Noons needed an East Coast partner. And that partner was the devil that Bobby Fuller was about to make a deal with.

• 20:15Jake Brennan?

  Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records, sat at a table at the back of an empty Manhattan club and listened to Bobby Fuller express his disappointment with the other man sitting at the table, Bob Keen, president of Delphi Records. The sit-down had been arranged by Larry Nunes, Delphi's distributor and longtime friend and music industry associate of Morris Levy. Bobby was pissed that Delphi had botched the release of "Letter Dance." Bobby was pissed that half the shows they'd played on the tour out to the East Coast were bullshit. Bobby was pissed that despite "Letter Dance" charting, he'd yet to see a penny in royalties.

• 20:58Jake Brennan?

  Most of all, Bobby was pissed that Delphi wanted him to record material that he didn't write. Morris Levy's lips curled around his cigar into a half-smile. Was he amused? Bobby couldn't tell. Whatever he was, he promised Bobby that he'd sort out his problems for him. A talent like Bobby shouldn't have to worry about the business side of things. What Bobby knew about Morris Levy at that moment is a matter of debate. At the very least, Bobby knew that Morris Levy and Roulette Records financed, produced, and released hits. Joey Dee and the Starlighters, The Playmates, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Bowen. By the early 60s, they all had roulette singles

• 21:42Jake Brennan?

  at the top of either the Billboard Top 100 or R&B charts. And right at this moment in the spring of 1966, a new roulette artist, Tommy James, was about to hit number one on the Billboard chart with his recording of "Hanky Panky." What Bobby probably didn't know was that Morris Levy's Roulette Records was partially owned and operated by the Genovese crime family in New York City, and that Morris Levy had been in business with the mafia his entire career. He most certainly didn't know that Morris Levy never paid his artists royalties, and that Morris Levy made it a practice to legally wrestle control

• 22:26Jake Brennan?

  of his artists' master recordings so that he could then re-release those tunes as greatest hits albums, a concept some claim that Morris Levy invented, by the way, and funnel those air quotes "new products" to crooked distributors like Larry Nunes, to use a host of intimidation tactics and other scams to get those albums back into stores with prime retail positioning to sell over and over again. Owning an artist's master recordings, or "the masters," meant that Morris Levy could do whatever he wanted with the artist's music. It was a license to print money. And when that money came in,

• 23:09Jake Brennan?

  Morris Levy never paid a dime to artists. What were they gonna do? Complain? Morris Levy was backed by the Genovese crime family. If an artist complained they got hit so fucking hard by Levy's enforcer Nate McCullough that they never complained again. And if they were stupid enough to do so, well, the mafia had a way of making its point. Roulette's James Shepherd wanted his royalties from Levy, and he wouldn't stop telling everyone he came in contact with that Levy was a thief who didn't pay his artists. They found James Shepherd in his car by the Long Island Expressway, brutally beaten to death with a blunt object. Roulette singer Jimmy Rogers made similar claims. He was pulled over by crooked LAPD cops,

• 23:54Jake Brennan?

  beaten to within an inch of his life. Two concert promoters in business with Levy had a beef about ticket sales, and Nate McCullough, Levy's notorious enforcer, put an end to those complaints. Both promoters were shot in the head and found dead next to the concert venue.

• 24:13Jake Brennan?

  Bobby Fuller likely didn't know that the Genovese family had a nickname for Morris Levy: "The Octopus." Levy had his hands in everything: concerts, publishing, radio promotion, distribution. And he had just installed his own personal sales manager at Delphi Records to look after his newest investment: Bobby Fuller.

• 24:40Jake Brennan?

  As far as the music business went, Morris Levy controlled nearly the entire means of production. The one thing he couldn't do was write and record hits. For that, he needed artists like Bobby Fuller. Bobby, meanwhile, needed a real professional, someone he thought, like Morris Levy, who could guide his career and get him the type of radio play and distribution that he needed to break nationally.

• 25:09Jake Brennan?

  Morris Levy looked over his cigar at Bobby Fuller seated across from him. He'd help him, sure. But Morris wanted something in return. He wanted to own the master recording of "Letter Dance." In exchange, he'd pay Bobby $50,000 and 10K of it upfront. In addition, he'd sort out Bob Keen, the hapless owner of Delphi Records, and make sure there'd be no more fuck-ups. Bobby Fuller took Morris Levy's money. And before the end of the year, Bobby Fuller would be dead.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

• 25:57Speaker 00

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• 27:01Jake Brennan?

  Morris Levy had invested in a lot more than just Bobby Fuller. Or at least, the evidence suggests that by the time Levy and Bobby had made their agreement at that meeting in New York City, as witnessed by Bobby's brother Randy, Morris Levy had not only by then invested in Bobby Fuller by promising him $50,000 for the master recording of "Letter Dance," but Levy, the octopus, had also begun to heavily involve himself in the business affairs of Bobby's label, Delphi Records. Levy had installed his own sales manager at Delphi to keep an eye on his investment. Levy had hooked up Delphi's distributor, Larry Nunes, with his distributor on the East Coast.

• 27:47Jake Brennan?

  Levy had his own promotion on the East Coast to augment whatever payola schemes Larry Nunes was running out west. And now, to Bobby's great annoyance, Levy had set it up so that Bobby's next recording would be a song written by another songwriter that he, Morris Levy, owned the publishing for. What very few people knew in the early summer of 1966 was that Morris Levy had a million-dollar merger in the works with Delphi, a deal that would merge a new eight-track cassette manufacturing business of Levy's with Delphi's business. The merged company would be called Stereophy, and the problem was that the only business Delphi had to bring to the merger

• 28:32Jake Brennan?

  was the business of Bobby Fuller. In 1966, Delphi Records had no other stars and no other hitmakers. Bobby Fuller was all they had. Because Bobby was so important to Delphi, the merger was risky business for both parties. But neither worried, because Delphi had taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy on Bobby Fuller. If something were to happen to Bobby, then Delphi Records, or the business that controlled Delphi, which was now a business called Stereophy, a business run by Morris Levy, well, whoever controlled that business would collect the million-dollar payout.

• 29:16Jake Brennan?

  When it came to Delphi Records, Morris Levy now controlled the label's sales, its distribution, promotion, the manufacturing of the new eight-track cassette business, the master recording of their biggest hit, Bobby Fuller's "Letter Dance," and the future master in publishing of Bobby Fuller's next recording. The only thing Morris Levy didn't control was the artist himself, Bobby Fuller, an artist who, because he was the only artist making anything on Delphi happen, represented outsized importance to Morris Levy's investment in Delphi Records. But again, Delphi had a million-dollar insurance policy on their star artist.

• 30:01Jake Brennan?

  To further protect their investment, Larry Nunes instructed one of the call girls from PJs, a beautiful woman named Melody, to keep tabs on Bobby Fuller. Melody struck up a relationship with Bobby and reported back to Nunes, who in turn reported back to Morris Levy everything Bobby told her. And Bobby Fuller was not happy. He explained to Melody that nothing had changed since he made his deal with Levy. He still wasn't getting paid royalties from his big hit single, and the gigs that Delphi booked for him outside of LA still sucked. And now, incredibly, Delphi wanted Bobby to record material that he didn't write, material Morris Levy owned,

• 30:45Jake Brennan?

  material Bobby deemed substandard. But Bobby let Melody know he had other options.

• 30:58Jake Brennan?

  While the Bobby Fuller Four performed numerous shows in New York City in the spring of 1966, Atlantic Records president Ahmed Ertegun made it clear to Bobby that Atlantic wanted to sign him. Atlantic had a much better reputation regarding their treatment of artists than Delphi or Morris Levy's Roulette Records did. Atlantic had signed, nurtured, and shepherded the success of Bobby Darin, Ray Charles, and Ben E. King, among many others. Bobby would have to break his contract with Delphi, but in his mind, Delphi had already broken their contract with him by refusing to pay royalties for "Let Her Dance." Bobby would also have to renege on his deal with Morris Levy. He

• 31:41Jake Brennan?

  most certainly never received what was owed to him for selling the master recording of "Let Her Dance," but Bobby reasoned that that was only one song. With Atlantic, there would be other hits, and he'd be the one writing them. "Let Her Dance" was a small price to pay for his creative and financial freedom. The problem was that Bobby Fuller had already taken Morris Levy's money, and even though that deal only involved one song, to a man like Morris Levy, a Genovese-connected businessman, it meant that he and Bobby were bound together in business forever. And you didn't renege on a deal with a man like Morris Levy. Ask James Shepherd. Ask Jimmy Rogers. Ask those two promoters.

• 32:32Jake Brennan?

  In July of 1966, Bobby Fuller left Morris Levy and Ahmed Ertegun behind in New York City and headed west with his band. The Bobby Fuller Four's last tour dates consisted of a residency in San Francisco. Midway through the run, Bobby walked out on the poorly-promoted and scantily-attended gigs and headed back to LA more frustrated than ever with Delphi Records. The poor bookings were one thing. The unpaid royalties were another. Bobby had recently threatened Larry Nunes, telling him that he was planning on bringing in his own accountant to audit Delphi's books. And when this failed to result in royalty payments, Bobby made up his mind. He set a meeting with Larry Nunes's stooge, Bob Keen, for

• 33:17Jake Brennan?

  July 18 in Los Angeles. Bobby wanted the whole band there. Bobby was gonna tell them all. He was leaving Delphi Records for Atlantic as a solo artist.

• 33:34Jake Brennan?

  On the evening of July 17, 1966, Bobby Fuller sat back in his Los Angeles apartment and tried to calm his nerves with the sounds pumping in from his radio. But every hit he heard—Hungry by Mark Lindsay's Paul Revere and the Raiders, Dirty Water by The Standells, a band Bobby had shared the stage with numerous times at PJ's, Sweet Pea by Tommy Rowe, a song with a killer beat that Bobby could've pulled off in his sleep, and Hanky Panky by Morris Levy's newest Roulette sensation, Tommy James—these tunes, all of them, they only served to further frustrate young Bobby Fuller, because they all reminded Bobby of the success he wasn't having.

• 34:21Jake Brennan?

  The phone rang. Bobby answered it. Hello? Melody was on the other line. Melody was telling Bobby he should reconsider leaving Delphi, but Bobby wouldn't have any of it. He was as good as gone. Delphi was donezo. Atlantic was where it was at. Melody told him he was too upset, and he should come see her, and she'd make him feel better. Bobby Fuller hung up the phone sometime around 2:00 in the morning on July 18, grabbed the keys to his mother's Oldsmobile, and took off in the middle of the night.

• 34:59Jake Brennan?

  The next morning, guitarist Mike Ciccarelli and drummer Ty Grimes knocked on the door to apartment 317. Bobby Fuller's mother, Lorraine, who'd made the trip west to spend time with Bobby and Randy, answered. She hadn't seen or heard from Bobby all morning, and she'd been up since 7:00 AM. The last she heard from her son was sometime around 2:00 that evening, when he went out after receiving a phone call. Mike and Ty split. They'd catch up with Bobby later. Bobby wanted to meet with the musicians to discuss having them join his new band. First, Bobby had a business meeting to attend to that morning to break it off with the Bobby Fuller Four and the record label they were under contract with. After that, Bobby could get down to new business with Mike and Ty.

• 35:44Jake Brennan?

  The pair returned to the Fuller apartment a few hours later. Mrs. Fuller was now clearly distraught. She hadn't heard from Bobby all day, and Randy had informed her that Bobby didn't show for the business meeting at the Delphi offices that morning. Mike and Ty took off.

• 36:02Jake Brennan?

  Around 5:00 PM, they returned and pulled into the parking lot adjacent to Bobby's apartment complex, and there were no other cars in the lot. The two musicians headed up to Bobby's apartment, knocked, got no answer, and headed back down the stairs, out onto the street, and toward the lot with their car. That's when they saw her. Mrs. Fuller, Bobby's mother, hysterical, in the grasp with two thugs being escorted into the apartment building from the back of the complex. Mike and Ty ran toward the parking lot, where Lorraine Fuller was being whisked away. The lot now had a second car, Lorraine Fuller's blue Oldsmobile,

• 36:41Jake Brennan?

  Bobby's car. The driver's side door, it was open. Mike and Ty could see him lying right there on the front seat, his head on the seat's edge, nearly hanging out of the car. There he was, plain as day and dead as Dillinger, Bobby Fuller.

• 37:18Jake Brennan?

  23-year-old Bobby Fuller's death was ruled a suicide. Immediately, LAPD came to this determination on the spot, without conducting any investigation. Instead, police began circulating word to the assembling bystanders on the scene that Bobby Fuller was depressed and had killed himself.

• 37:41Jake Brennan?

  The only problem was that no one who knew Bobby Fuller thought that he was depressed. He was upset, but being upset is a lot different than being depressed. Bobby was upset with the state of his career in the hands of Delphi Records, but he was literally about to end his relationship with Delphi that morning in order to put his career in the hands of Ahmed Ertegun and Atlantic Records. For this, Bobby was hopeful, not depressed. Bobby's mother gave an unfortunate answer when the police asked her if Bobby had been depressed. She said he was "despondent," and this was all police needed to come to their suicide conclusion. Lorraine Fuller said that her son was despondent because

• 38:24Jake Brennan?

  the night prior, he'd been stewing over the big meeting coming up with Delphi.

• 38:34Jake Brennan?

  Dusk hit the death scene with the weight of a thousand broken teenage dreams. Bobby Fuller lay dead in the front seat of the Oldsmobile. Cops beat back bystanders. Newspapermen shouted questions loaded with predetermined answers. The headlines would write themselves, they thought. "Dead, deadbeat, deads himself in dead-end parking lot." Detectives cracked wise in response. "Would there be an investigation?" "Hell, no. LAPD didn't waste resources on dead delinquents." One reporter wanted to know what was up with the gas can that the cops had just pulled from the car with the dead kid in it. The cops stonewalled him and threw the can in

• 39:15Jake Brennan?

  a nearby trash bucket. Why weren't they fingerprinting the can? And why weren't they fingerprinting the car? And what was with that smell? The gas. The gas. The gas smell. It was overpowering, and it was everywhere. All over Bobby Fuller's dead body, all over Bobby Fuller's car, all over the front seat, the interior covering the outside of the car, pooling around the car on the hot cement. The cops were saying Bobby drank the gas, drank the gas, to kill himself. Who douses themselves completely with gas, their body,

• 39:57Jake Brennan?

  their car, inside and out, and then drinks gas to kill themselves? Nobody, that's who. And then, there was Bobby's body. They all saw it. Lorraine, Mike and Ty, and now Randy and Jim Reese, who had also arrived. They couldn't not see the shape that Bobby's body was in. Scratches, bruises, the broken index finger bent back and out of place, the missing eyelid, and the obvious rigor mortis. That was the thing, the rigor mortis. Rigor mortis takes three to six hours to set in. But here was Bobby's body in full rigor mortis after

• 40:37Jake Brennan?

  supposedly driving into the parking lot just moments ago in that small window of time between when Bobby's future bandmates, Mike and Ty, showed up and parked in an empty parking lot, and then went up to Bobby's apartment, knocked on the door, got no answer, returned to the parking lot moments later, and then, there was Bobby's car. How did it get there? The cops said Bobby drove himself to the lot and killed himself. But he was covered in gas, covered in scratches, his body badly bruised and broken, and in full rigor mortis. So he must've been dead. But dead men don't drive. And they don't

• 41:20Jake Brennan?

  drive without car keys, either. Bobby Fuller's keys were never found, because Bobby Fuller didn't drive himself into that lot and kill himself in that incredibly small window of time, because Bobby Fuller did not commit suicide. Bobby Fuller was murdered.

• 41:46Jake Brennan?

  Motive, means, opportunity. The three elements you need to prove a murder suspect is guilty. Let's look first at motive. Bobby Fuller was going to leave Delphi Records for Atlantic Records. And at the time Bobby Fuller was all Delphi had. There was literally no other value to the company other than Bobby Fuller. Delphi had invested everything into Bobby Fuller. And Morris Levy had just invested heavily into Delphi and into Bobby Fuller personally. And now Bobby was about to split for Atlantic. If that were to happen, Delphi would be done.

• 42:28Jake Brennan?

  And Morris Levy's investment would be worthless. And Morris Levy's investment in Bobby Fuller would be lost forever. However, Delphi Records had a million dollar insurance policy on Bobby Fuller. If something were to happen to Bobby, if he were to turn up dead, Delphi would collect a million dollars. Or to put it another way, whoever controlled Delphi would collect a million dollars. If Bobby Fuller wasn't going to be a part of Delphi Records, then Bobby Fuller was worth more dead than he was alive. And Bobby had made it clear to his girlfriend Melody that he was done with Delphi.

• 43:09Jake Brennan?

  And Melody made it clear to Larry Noons what Bobby's intentions were, and Noons most certainly relayed this information to Morris Levy. Now, let's look at means. Who would have the means to murder Bobby Fuller? Well, perhaps a crooked businessman connected to the Genovese crime family would have the means to murder an innocent young guitar player who was in over his head. Perhaps that crooked businessman could deploy the same tactics he'd been alleged to have used against James Shepard, Jimmy Rogers, and those two dead promoters to make his Bobby Fuller problem go away and to cash in that million dollar hedge. Now, let's look at opportunity.

• 43:53Jake Brennan?

  Bobby Fuller needed to be drawn out and killed before he left Delphi and made it known publicly that he was leaving for Atlantic Records. Enter Melody, Larry Noons's call girl from PJs that he'd assigned to keep an eye on his Delphi star. Melody called Bobby that night. Bobby went to meet her, and Bobby was never seen again. But wait a minute. Insurance policies don't pay out on suicides. This is true. And this is why shortly after LAPD had determined Bobby Fuller committed suicide, they then determined, again, without investigating his death for foul play, that Bobby Fuller's death was, drumroll, an accident.

• 44:38Jake Brennan?

  Meaning, he accidentally died from inhaling gas fumes. And they never sought an explanation for why Bobby Fuller was covered in gas, or for why there was so much gas in his system. Because that didn't matter. All that mattered was that Bobby Fuller's new official cause of death wasn't suicide, so that the insurance policy could be paid out. Some suspect that Morris Levy used Genovese crime family connections to lean on LAPD to come to a different determination on Bobby's cause of death. You have to remember, this was 1966, during a period when the American mafia was its

• 45:21Jake Brennan?

  most powerful and the LAPD was its most corrupt. It was also the same week of LAPD Chief of Police William Parker's death, an incredibly chaotic time for the department. All conjecture aside, here's what I know based on the facts, based on the recollections and statements from Bobby Fuller's mother, his brother, and his bandmates, and the eyewitness testimony from the scene and available evidence. Someone drew Bobby Fuller out of his house that night, the night before he was going to break his contract with his record label. Someone beat Bobby Fuller badly, and someone forced him to drink gasoline.

• 46:04Jake Brennan?

  Two men were seen strong-arming Bobby's mother away from the scene, and those two men were never seen again. I believe those two men were Genovese soldiers who had murdered Bobby Fuller the night before, and had taken two cars to Bobby's apartment that afternoon. One man drove one car, the getaway car, and parked it on a side street. And the other man drove Bobby's car, with Bobby dead in the car, propped up Weekend at Bernie's style. And they pulled that car into the parking lot, doused it with gasoline, and right before they were going to strike a match and blow Bobby the kingdom come outside of his doorstep, similar to the way in which those two promoters had met their maker outside their concert

• 46:49Jake Brennan?

  venue, just as that was about to happen, the two thugs were interrupted by Bobby's mother, who was busy checking the lot out of worry every 30 minutes. Lorraine Fuller went into hysterics at the sight of her dead son, and the two men grabbed her, as witnessed by Mike Ciccarelli and Ty Grimes, and escorted her to her apartment. The two thugs then took off in the second car, leaving the botched murder incomplete behind them with a lot of unanswered questions. But why didn't Lorraine Fuller ever corroborate the story about the two Genovese thugs on the scene? Easy. She was petrified.

• 47:29Jake Brennan?

  Her other son, Bobby's brother and bandmate Randy, made his fear known in various interviews over the years, as did other members of the Bobby Fuller Four and their circle. Also, Lorraine Fuller had another son, Bobby's older half-sibling, Jack, who'd been murdered, actually, before in 1961. And with Bobby now murdered, it stands to reason that Lorraine Fuller would be worried about the murder of her only surviving son, Randy, if she were to talk. So who killed Bobby Fuller? Well, isn't it obvious? In 1988, Morris Levy, who by then was riding high on the success of his chain of record

• 48:12Jake Brennan?

  stores, Strawberries, was convicted of extortion and conspiracy in matters related to roulette records. He was convicted alongside Genovese crime family capital regime Dominic Cantorino. Morris Levy maintained his innocence throughout the entirety of his trial, his sentencing, his appeal, and up until the time of his death in 1990. Bobby Fuller's name was never mentioned during Morris Levy's trial. Bobby Fuller was talented and industrious enough to sing, play, write, record, distribute, and promote his own music back in Texas. Like the music he made, Bobby was innocent enough, and some would say naive enough, to

• 48:54Jake Brennan?

  believe that he could achieve pop stardom by taking on LA and New York's most powerful music men. He was wrong. Bobby Fuller said that he fought the law, and the law won. But the fight he actually fought and lost was against the Genovese crime family. And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 49:34Jake Brennan?

  All right, guys, thanks for checking out this episode on Bobby Fuller. A question this week is very easy. 617-906-6638. Who do you think killed Bobby Fuller, and how? Do you think he died? Do you believe what I laid out here in this episode? 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text. You might hear your answer on the next bonus after-party episode of DisgraceLand, coming up right after this. At DisgraceLandPod on the socials, [email protected]. If you want to email me, here comes some credits. DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

• 50:16Jake Brennan?

  If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All-Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad-free. Rate and review the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook, at DisgraceLandPod, and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgraceLandPod. Rock or roll.

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