True Crime All The Time - Dan White

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

On November 27th, 1978, former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Dan White walked into City Hall and murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. White was angry about Moscone’s decision not to reappoint him to the Board after he resigned earlier that month. Harvey Milk had urged the mayor not to reappoint White. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Dan White. George Moscone was thought by many to be a good mayor, and Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. Their murders were a blow to the City and its residents. Harvey Milk was revered by most in the gay community and was often referred to as the mayor of Castro Street. Harvey Milk worked hard to pass anti-discrimination ordinances and fought against all propositions that would harm the LGBTQ community.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 385 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? Hey, I'm doing pretty good. How about you? I'm doing great. Yeah. Having a good week.

That's good. Just trying to kind of work ahead, get ready for us to go to crime cons. It's coming up. It is. And speaking of that for anybody who's going, I just wanted to remind everyone we're doing kind of a true crime all the time, criminology meetup, and it's Saturday at 9 p.m. at either fuse or fusion. I forget the name of the bar, but it's there at the hotel. I'm glad you got the details down perfectly. Yeah, I don't know. It's one of the two. For some reason, I just can't remember the name of them.

Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Christina Wilson. Hey, Christina. Tara Souter. Well, thank you, Tara. Rory jumped out at our highest level. And you're awesome, Rory. Furious George and Nurse Betty. What's up, George and Betty? Sarah Pugh. Hey, there's, I think it's Poe, but I'll go with, I'll go with Pew. How would you get Poe out of that? I just, you know.

Okay. Candy Schneckenberg. You got to like a little Schnakenberg in your life. Okay. I don't know how, I don't know how she's going to take that, but we had Nicole. Thanks, Nicole. Ray Heron jumped out of her high-slow. Oh, you're awesome, Ray.

And last but not least, and Gris. 30s. Thanks, and. Until we appreciate that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, this week, we selected Ari Ansberg. Well, appreciate that, Ari. Yeah. So the new support, to continued support. We also had a great PayPal donation from Linda Higginson. Look at Linda. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you to everyone who helps to support the show. So Gibbs, right now we have an episode out on True Crime All All the Time Unsolved where we're talking about 30. year old Christopher Hoy. This happened just a couple of years ago. You know, he left his home,

never returned. His truck was found on a bridge overlooking a river, but there were no signs of Christopher. No. So we get into all of the details that are known, but then there's also quite a bit of speculation. You know, what happened to him? Did he meet with foul play, you know, at the hands of someone? Or, you know, did he run off to start a new life? which does come up in many cases. It does. It's not the first thing that I jumped to, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We're talking about Dan White. On November 27th, 1978, former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Dan White walked into City Hall

and murdered Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Mill. White was upset about Moscone's decision not to reappoint him to the board after he resigned earlier that month. And Harvey Milk had urged the mayor not to reappoint White. And this is a case that I've wanted to do for a long time. You know, I'm sure a lot of people have seen the movie Milk starring Sean Penn. Yeah, Sean Penn. He was great in the role as he is in, let's face it, most of the same.

the roles he's ever done. He is a really good actor. He was a little hesitant at first, but I said, listen, Sean, this is going to be a great role for you. So he called you for your advice on whether or not to take that rule. I don't want to like, you know, name drop. Yes, but yes. All right. Sounds far fetch, but I'll go with it. Okay. But these two murders were a major loss for San Francisco. You know, Mayor Moscone was pretty well liked by most of the city's residents. And Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. Well, that was a big deal. Yeah, his election as an openly gay man.

And I'm sure a lot of people look back at that, point to that as maybe inspirational or opening the doors for others who came after him. Harvey Bernard Milk was born on May 22nd, 1930 in Woodmere, New York. The milk family were prominent members of the community. Harvey's grandfather, Morris, owned Milk's dry goods, which was the largest department store on Long Island. Morris Milk also helped organize the first synagogue on Long Island. Harvey knew that he was gay from an early age. According to History.com, he said that he had what he called illicit trip.

in his teenage years, he wanted to keep his sexuality a secret. So he avoided doing anything that would cause suspicion. And we know from just history and research and, you know, everything that that was very common for people to keep the fact that they were gay under wraps back then. Yeah, I mean, you're talking, what, 1940s, 1950s, for sure.

But Harvey was popular. among his peers. He played both football and basketball and was known as the class clown. After high school, Harvey enrolled at the New York State College for teachers at Albany. He joined a Jewish fraternity and became the sports editor of the school paper. So it does sound like he was a popular guy, both in high school and college. He was into a lot of extracurriculars. You were pretty popular in college, too. Has Frank the tank?

Yes. Yes. Frank was very popular. But, you know, I think about a guy like Harvey Milk and so many other people, you know, throughout the years, how hard would that have been? You tied what is a really big part of your true identity, your sexuality. Yeah, I think it would be extremely difficult. I think in some respects, it would be tough day in and day out because, number one, you can't

be yourself, obviously. You can't say and act exactly how you want to. You can't be seen maybe with some of the people that you want to. And so you're constantly in this mode of, well, I can't do this. I can't do that. Or it's going to rouse suspicion. That would be a really tough way to live. Yeah, because in some areas, it was illegal. And even in places where, where it wasn't illegal, it was going to cause people to have to deal with things that they just didn't want to have to deal with. You know,

let's face it, back then, people were much less accepting of people who were gay. Yeah. I mean, that's just, there's no way around it. This is the facts.

Harvey graduated with a mathematics degree in 1951 and decided to enlist in the Navy. He attended officer candidate school in Newport, Rhode Island and worked as a diving, instructor and chief petty officer aboard the USS Kittyweight. That's pretty impressive. It is. And it kind of made me think about you ever see that movie with De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. I think he's a diving instructor. It's a pretty good

movie. You ever dove one of those suits on? I've never been diving. No. No. That's right. You don't like the open water. I don't mind the open water. I don't like the open salt water. I would dive in a pool or freshwater or something like that. But you know, the other thing I think you have to think about is, you know, here's Harvey, a gay man joining the military. Obviously, he can't be himself in the military. Yeah, there's no way that was going to happen. Not back then. Harvey served in the Korean War and was honorably discharged in 1955. after getting out of the military, he started working at a Wall Street investment firm. So that's something that you and Harvey have in common.

Yeah. You know, you were on Wall Street for a number of years. You know, the wolf of Wall Street is loosely based off of you. I can either deny or confirm that. Okay. I'll just say it was good times. There's a lot of good times. Yeah.

You and Jonah Hill? It was a lot of good times. In 1964, Harvey, campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. For years, Harvey was content with hiding his sexuality until he became friends with theater director Tom O'Horgan. O'Horgan exposed Harvey to progressive people. And that's when Harvey really became more open about his sexuality. He moved to the Bay Area in 1969.

After his romantic interest joined one of O'Horgan's production. in San Francisco. He got a job as a financial analyst. In his free time, he joined protests against the Vietnam War or went out in San Francisco's gay social scene, according to history.com. So now he's out in San Francisco, starting his life out there. I'm not surprised he found a job out there. I mean, he's a numbers guy. Plenty of financial analyst jobs out West Coast. in the spring of 1970, Harvey was fired for participating in an anti-war rally. And this was the time. You think about late 60s, early 70s, a lot of protests of the Vietnam War.

It was not a popular war by any means among a large segment of the population. Yeah, during that time, I think there was a lot of changes happening in America. Oh, absolutely. Harvey returned to New York and worked as Tom O'Horgan's assistant for a couple of productions. He returned to San Francisco in late 1972. A few months later, he opened a camera shop on Castro Street, which has been described as the heart of the gay community. And Castro Street comes up in a lot of documentaries, a lot of films. You know, there in San Francisco, it's always been portrayed.

as the center of the gay community there in San Francisco in the 70. Yeah. I don't know if it still is today. Harvey was first inspired to get into local politics because of attacks on small businesses, which he thought was unfair. And I wonder how many people throughout the years have decided to get into politics for that very reason. Maybe they weren't that political to begin with. But something happened brought on by.

you know, the government, whether it was local government or whatever, that they thought was unfair. And you were frustrated because nobody would do anything about it. And you said, you know what, I'm going to take care of this myself. I'm going to be the person who tries to do something about it. Yeah. And that's what I'm going to do in my area. Because something is stuck in your craw about. Yeah, I think our water bills are too high.

Too high? Okay. I got you. In 1973, he ran for a seat on the San Francisco. Francisco Board of Supervisors. He won 17,000 votes, finished in 10th place out of 32 candidates. Hey, you're in the top 10, right? That's a lot of people running for a board of supervisors, seems like. But I'm sure there's, you know, there are a number of board members. I don't know how many. According to History.com, milk was spurned by much of the city's more influential gay electric, who felt that, you know, the outspoken New Yorker should tone down his act and wait his turn. Put some time in?

Well, let's break that down. Tone down his act. What does that mean? Be less gay? Act less gay? I kind of think that's what they met. I don't know if that is what that means, but you could take it that way. Although he didn't make the board, Harvey decided to stay involved in his community.

he co-founded the Castro Village Association to help bring LGBTQ business owners together and launched the Castro Street Fair in 1974. He also allied with the local Teamsters Union by supporting a boycott of Coors Beer. In return, the union promised to hire more LGBTQ drivers. Sounds like he was a dealmaker. It does sound like he was becoming very influential. You know, because of all of this activism, Harvey Milk became known as the mayor of Castro Street. Well, if Castro Street's the heart of the community, that's a pretty good title to have.

Yeah, because it's almost like you're the leader of the community or you're seen as a leader. Harvey lost another election for the board of supervisors in 1975, but he was hired to work for Mayor George Moscone's administration. on the Board of Permit Appeals. Mosconi assumed his position as mayor in January 1976. He was born and raised in San Francisco. He graduated among the top of his class at the University of California Hastings College of Law. He served in the Navy and started practicing law in the 1950s.

Moscone got into politics in the 60s when he was elected to the board of supervisor. So there have been a lot of famous people on the board of supervisors. There's a lot of people who went on to much higher positions. Sure. You know, who have very recognizable names. It sounds like a lot of people got their start there.

Moscone was elected to the California State Senate in 1967 and was rated as one of the most effective members in getting legislation approved by liberals and conservative. Well, that's a pretty good thing to do. be known for because that's not easy bring two parties together and i think you know maybe even harder today you know if if you can get legislation approved that both sides of the aisle agree on you're doing something right yeah because i think that's tougher and tougher or has become tougher and tougher as as the years go on moscone was described as a warm compassionate person who focused on tolerance He was respected by many groups of people and had few enemies, according to the San Francisco

Examiner. And I think that's probably pretty difficult to say about most people in public office. Yeah. You just think about public officials, you are going to tick a lot of people off. Not everything you do is going to be popular. So to say that, you know, a person had few enemies. Okay. I think it shows you this guy was pretty good.

at what he was doing. Yeah, to be in the office for the amount of time he's been there, not to have a lot of people upset with him. That's, that's amazing. I would not be good in that position. I think I would upset a lot of people. You've upset a lot of people in pretty much every position you've ever been in. So I would agree with that statement. Harvey was forced out of his position with the mayor's administration after he announced his candidacy for the California State Assembly. He lost this election. So he lost a lot of elections. And I don't know that that's all that rare.

I think it takes a while. It takes people sometimes many times of going through the process before they break through. But eventually they break through a lot of them do. Some never do, though. No, some people just lose forever, I guess. Because if you're not first. Your last? Yeah.

Harvey then founded the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club to, increase his political support. He's successfully advocated for a reorganization of the Board of Supervisors' election from a citywide format to a geographical district format. So it sounds like he, you know, he's setting up for another run at this Board of Supervisors position, but he's being a little bit more tactful about it, you know, getting more backing, gaining political support, but also advocating. Advocating, for a change in the way that the election is actually held. Yeah, he's being really smart about it. You know, you think a citywide election versus a district type of format.

Well, if your district is the Castro district and that's where all your support is, then you would want to go that route. Absolutely. Maybe you would not be as popular, quote unquote, city one. Harvey ran for the board of sports. supervisors again in 1977, he promised to reform the tax code to boost industry, create low-income housing, and establish daycare centers. On November 3rd, 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 5. And I mentioned it up front, right? But it was kind of

an historic election because Harvey was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S. additionally, the first Chinese American and the first African American woman were also elected to the board that year. That was a big year. Well, I think you mentioned that the times were changing. And I think that gives you a glimpse into some of the changes. Now, maybe San Francisco was a little bit ahead of other places in the in the country. Well, they were definitely more progressive. they had a larger LGBTQ population. Oh yeah,

there's no doubt about that. Harvey said after his victory, per the website famous trials, if a gay can win, it means that there is hope that the system can work for minorities if we fight. And, you know,

I want to go back kind of to the movie, milk. Again, based on the true story, but, you know, he really was seen in the, movie and I think he was in real life is this kind of inspirational figure to many,

many people. Another newly elected board member was Dan White representing District 8. Dan White was born in Los Angeles County. On September 2nd, 1946, White served in the Vietnam War and enrolled at the City College of San Francisco. He was a talented baseball player and had plans to play for the New York Yankees, but he suffered an injury. He was a injury that ended his career. That would be rough. Yeah. But you hear a lot of stories like that.

Sure. You know, it's not enough to be super talented. You also have to stay injury free. There have been great athletes in all types of different sports who never, you know, reached their full potential because of some type of injury. Yeah. I remember what was it? Gosh, just right before we met for the first time, I was probably one.

of the best golfers out there, right? They called me like Tiger Wood Jr., you know, even though I'm older. And then I got injured and I just could never swing the club the way I used to. And I had to surrender my PGA card. That is one of the more unbelievable stories that you've told in a long lineage of very hard-to-believe stories. You know, the Pacific Golf Association said, hey, you know. Did you just say the Pacific Golf Association? Do you think that's what the PGA stands?

Or that's what your PGA. That's what my PGA was. Oh my goodness. We're sorry, sir. We need your card back, but I like how it says PGA on it. White joined the San Francisco Police Department and later became a fireman in 1974. But unlike Harvey Milk, Dan White was a conservative. So they were on opposite sides of the aisle.

his colleagues seemed to think he was insecure and easily upset. According to author David Talbot, Harvey told a friend, Dan White is just stupid. He's working class, a Catholic, been brought up with all those prejudices. I'm going to sit next to him every day and let him know we're not all those bad things he thinks we are. Well, it sounds like there's no love loss there between the two of them. No, it sounds like they were very different people. In the weeks after the election, White and Milk appeared together on local talk shows.

They were often paired together because of their contrasting views. They spoke positively of each other. And Harvey told his friends, he thought he would be able to work with White. Well, you know, you're going to speak positively about the other person in public for sure. Yeah. Because you have to work with this person. you're doing the same job. And they have a large percentage of the community.

So you don't want to offend that group by not working together with the representative. On November 18th, 1977, Harvey recorded a political will because he feared assassination. He said, if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door. And I think anytime you're the first to do anything. anything, you're going to not be popular with the segment of the population. I'm sure there were plenty of people who were not happy that this gay man was elected to the board of supervisors. Oh, absolutely not.

So, you know, to think about him being assassinated probably was not an unfounded fear. The board of supervisors had its first meeting on January 9th, 1978 during that meeting. Diane Feinstein was elected president of the board on a six to five vote. This was her third stint as president. Diane Feinstein had a historic political career. She was the first female president of San Francisco's board of supervisors, the first mayor, and the first female senator from California.

That's an impressive resume. Yeah, it kind of goes back to, you know, what I was talking about. I do think there were a number of people who kind of got their start in this board of supervisor role, and Diane Feinstein was one of them, Harvey Milk voted against Feinstein during the 1978 meeting. At this meeting, Harvey proposed a bill to ban discrimination and employment, housing, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation.

According to history, it was one of the strongest gay rights measures to date in the United States. Now, I think to us today, that just seems like a given. There should be no discrimination based on, you know, color, creed, sexual orientation, all of those things. But we're talking 1978 here. Different times. And they are really fighting. During his time on the board, Harvey urged Diane Feinstein to appoint Dan White, his chair of the streets and transportation committee, Harvey co-sponsored a pooper-scooper ordinance that,

required dog owners to clean up after their pets. That should just be a given, you would think. Hey, clean up after your pets. But I live in enough areas in my life to know that people just won't pick up after their pets sometimes. And you've got to have some rules in place to enforce it. But who's going to enforce those rules? Because I see people walking around my neighborhood all the time, walking their dogs.

And the dog takes a duckey in my yard. I'm not upset about it. I don't really care, but, you know, they're not whipping out, you know, a little baggy to pick it up. I don't see a police officer, you know, rolling around the, the corner to, you know, give this person a ticket. Hey, I follow them home and I do the same thing to their yard. And you don't even have a dog. I don't have a dog. So good luck getting that picture of Gibby out of your head.

Harvey's anti-discrimination ordinance passed with one dissenting vote. And the dissenter was supervisor Dan White. And we said it. There might have been some ill will. There was differences in the reporting, you know, publicly. Yeah, they, they were okay. But behind the scenes, maybe not so much. But I don't think there's any doubt.

They had very different ideas. Points of views. Points of views, values, or whatever you want to call it, beliefs. And what should and shouldn't, shouldn't. happen. Mayor Moscone signed the measure into law on March 21st, 1978. In April of that year, White Milk clashed over a facility for serious juvenile offenders in White's district. Harvey initially said he would join White in opposing the facility, but he changed his mind and gave the key vote that led to construction. And it's been said, this is what really caused their relationship to

sour. The tipping point. Harvey spent most of the summer and fall campaigning against Senator John Briggs introduction of the Proposition 6 ballot initiative, which sought to ban LGBTQ teachers and anyone who supported LGBTQ rights from working in California schools. And I think there are some younger people who are going to listen to this and be like, wow, it's hard to believe that this was even a thing. But it was and it was very commonplace. We're talking about California, which, you know, has always been on the more progressive side. Sure. Yeah. I mean, this was a while ago. It was. But it wasn't a hundred years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, you know. But just break it down. Not only no LGBTQ teachers, but no one who even supported

LGBTQ rights. That's a even bigger population. It sure was. On June 25th, 1978, Harvey Milk delivered a speech at City Hall where he said the Briggs initiative would constitutionalize bigotry. Prop 6 was defeated by more than one million votes on November 7th, 1978. Supervisor Dan White began showing symptoms of depression in the summer of 1978. On November 10th of that year, he announced that he would resign from his post. He wrote that he was resigning because of personal responsibilities that must take precedence over my legislative duties. White was struggling financially and feeling frustrated with his work. He earned $9,600 a year as supervisor. and was running a failing restaurant.

You know what I mean? It's something to think about, right? When you decide to serve the public office, a lot of those positions don't pay much at all, if anything. Well, 1978, how much would that be today? $9,600. Beepo, people, people, poop. Maybe $22,000.

Oh, I think it'd be a lot more than that. $45,000? I don't know. I don't know what the real answer is. I think it would be more than double in almost 50 years. I'll go with that. The 22 or the 45? The 35.

The 35. You're going to split the difference. Okay. Sometimes I think you're pretty on and sometimes I think you are way off. But this is San Francisco. It's really expensive to live there. It is an expensive place. It's probably like 118,000 now or something.

Somebody's going to write in. That's $214,000. Harvey was. to hear this news because it meant the mayor would appoint a new supervisor who could shift the board's balance of power to the liberal side. The board originally had six conservatives and five liberals, but with white gone, the majority would go towards the liberals. And that's obviously in any legislative setting. The balance of power is huge. Whether you're talking about the San Francisco board of supervisors, or you're talking about the House, the Senate, those are big deals.

Whoever has the majority has quite a bit of power. Oh, yeah. This is a big power play right here. On November 18th, Dan White met with the city's police officers association and the board of realtors. The leaders of these organizations told him that his vote was critical to their interests. So White reconsidered his decision to resign. Mayor Moscone handed back White's letter of resignation and told reporters on November 18th,

as far as I'm concerned, Dan White is a supervisor from District 8. A man has a right to change his mind. But Harvey Milk arranged a meeting with Moscone and emphasized that reappointing White would jeopardize the mayor's agenda. He also suggested this move would lead to a loss of support from the LGBTQ community, which had backed Mosconi during the election. It was after this meeting that Mosconi informed White, he would only be reappointed if he could show he had substantial support from voters in his district.

White later told detectives, per famous trials, I could see the game that was being played. They were going to use me as a skate code. Whether I was a good supervisor or not was not the point. This was a political opportunity, and they were going to degrade. me and my family and the job that I had tried to do and more or less hang me out to drive. And I think to some extent, he's not wrong there.

It was a political opportunity. Sure, it's definitely a power play. But he also put in his resignation. He just then changed his mind. Well, and he changed his mind because he had influence from different organizations that wanted him to stay to protect their interest. And I think, you know, Mosconi, after talking to Harvey Milk, realized that I'm sure he could get a lot more done if he had the majority on his side. White supporters collected signatures from voters in his district and urged the mayor to reappoint him. But Moscone had already decided to appoint Don Horanze in White's place.

On November 24th, 1978, White met with his attorney about a most of the most of the most of the most of the same. about a motion for a restraining order to prevent someone from taking a seat. Later that day, White's attorney presented arguments to a judge, but the judge ruled his resignation was binding. Just before 11 p.m. on November 26th, White received a call from a K-CBS reporter, informing him that the mayor was going to appoint someone else the following day. So, you know, I do want to talk about White a little bit. You know, here's a guy who sounds like,

he was going through a lot in his personal life. We said financially he was struggling, struggling. He was running a failing restaurant. He had things outside of this job that were weighing on him, we're bringing him down. And I'm sure hearing this information couldn't have been good for his state of mind. I don't know how good it was up to that point anyway. He couldn't sleep that night. White was supposed to go to City Hall on November 27th.

At 10.15 a.m. His aide, Denise Apcar, arrived at his home to drive him there. White brought a loaded 38 revolver and additional bullets with him. That is never good. Nothing good is going to happen by you taking a 38 to City Hall. No. After he was dropped up, he walked around the back of City Hall, bypassing the metal detectors and snuck in through an open basement window.

Okay, we might have a security concern. I think there's a breach. Metal detectors are great. But if you can walk around the back and, you know, slip in another way, it kind of makes the metal detectors a little bit moot. Now, maybe not everybody would have known this. He would have because he worked there. I don't know.

Yeah, he probably had a little inside scoop on that. White entered the mayor's office and told the secretary he wanted to speak to Moscone. The mayor invited White in and told him that he would not be reappointed. According to White, Moscone told him it was a political decision. And that was the end of it. Cut and dry, right? Yeah, I think it sounds like he was very to the point. It doesn't sound like he was nasty about it, but he was very blunt.

Mosconi could see that White was upset. so he invited him to a back room for a drink. White became enraged. As the mayor talked, all he could think about was how later that morning, Moscone was going to announce the new supervisor. White said that Mosconi was going to lie to the press and tell them that I wasn't a good supervisor and that the people didn't want me. He told detectives, I just shot him.

He shot Mosconi twice in the body and twice in the head. he left the office through a back exit and reloaded his gun. And you think about the number of meetings that just like a person like yourself has on a daily basis. Sure. You know, I think about back in the day when I had an office and how many people would come into the office for a meeting or this or that. I never really thought that anybody was coming in with a loaded 38.

No. It's just not something that enters. my mind and you and I have both had to give a lot of bad news to people. Sure we have over the years. And anybody who's ever managed people knows that has gone through that. You know, not every day is unicorns and rainbows. There's things that you have to tell people at work that you know they're not going to be happy to hear. But it's your job. It is to do it because you're told by somebody else that this is what you have to do. Yeah. And I've gotten. a lot of bad news over the years myself from higher-ups. Never once did I think. You know what?

The next time I'm bringing my gun in. Right. It just never entered my mind. But you know what I get with white here is that it's almost as if his entire world is crumbling down around him. Like that's what's going on in his mind. And someone has to pay. Yeah. And he's going to take it out on. on someone or as we're going to find out multiple people. Have you ever had that thought of like your whole world is collapsing in on you? Yeah. I think most people listening have had that at one time or another. And sometimes it's not nearly as bad as what you think it is.

But in the moment, it's catastrophic. It's anxiety inducing. It's how am I going to dig my way out of this type of stuff? I mean, I've had it with big items and small. And like, you know, here, not having a desk, not having a good chair to sit in. You know, it builds up. And the world feels like it's crumbling down around you. Yeah.

And I get angry. I've always told people, don't make Givy angry. You won't like him when he's angry. No, I'm no fun angry. That's the whole reason I had to wear that thing around my ankle for a while. Yeah. That you don't like to talk about. Yeah.

On his way out of City Hall. White spotted Harvey Milk's aide, which reminded him that Harvey was the most devious board member, in his words. He was angry that Harvey went behind his back to kind of mess up his reappointment. White confronted Harvey in his office and accused him of masterminding the deal to appoint a liberal supervisor. Harvey denied his involvement. White felt he wasn't getting straight answers from Harvey. So he shot him five times. Harvey died on the floor of his office at 10.55 a.m. After the shooting, White ran to his aide's office and asked for his car keys.

He escaped City Hall and called his wife to ask her to meet him at the nearby St. Mary's Cathedral. And it seems amazing to me that, you know, we talked about him getting into the building. Right. Bypassing the metal detectors and security. But then he has fired a number of shots. Yeah, like nine, right? and what nobody comes to investigate, nobody comes to stop him, he's able to escape. A half hour after the shootings, white and his wife walked to a police station where he turned

himself in and gave a statement. And to me, this is, it's so different from many of the episodes that we do, right? How many people just immediately go to the police station and turn themselves in? Not many. No, because what? They run. They might kill again or, but this to me is a little bit of a different situation. You know, we're not talking about a mass murderer.

We're going to talk about a serial killer who is running around or killing for the thrill of it. I feel like this guy kind of imploded. Oh, yeah. Due to this scenario and decided to kill very specific. people who he thought were, you know, at the heart of this thing that was causing him so much anguish. I mean, he definitely went there that day to kill the mayor. Yes. And then it seems like he kind of thought about Harvey almost as an afterthought. Right. Oh, yeah. He's here probably two.

He's part of the problem maybe as much as George Moscone. At 11.20 a.m. Acting mayor, Diane Feinstein. addressed a crowd at City Hall, according to History.com, she said, as president of the board of supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement. Both Mayor Moscone and supervisor Harvey Mill have been shot and killed, the suspect is supervisor Dan White. Diane Feinstein was the one who found Harvey's body. In 2008, she told S.F. Gate, I went down the hall. I opened the wrong door. I opened Harvey's door. I found him on his.

stomach. I tried to get a pulse and put my finger through a bullet hole. He was clearly dead. I can't imagine even doing that, you know, walking in and seeing somebody like that and how devastating. Well, somebody you knew, somebody you worked with. I mean, finding a stranger in that way would be horrifying, but for sure. Somebody you knew and were somewhat close to worked with, you know, that that would be even more difficult. But think about, you know, making the decision that you're trying to figure out, is this person alive or dead? You know, you take one of your fingers and you're going to put it on their neck and you end up

pushing through a bullet hole. Right. What do you think this is going to do to the community? Well, I think number one, it's going to be shocking to people. But then I think very quickly it's going to turn into. Why? You know, why would this guy do this and what were the motivations? And then I think it's going to lead into not only the political side of things and opposing viewpoints, but also the fact that, that Harvey Milk was gay. I mean, how could it not? Yeah, no, you're right. 40,000 people marched

to City Hall for a vigil on the night of the murders. That is a lot of people. That is. Now, this was the mayor and, you know, a member of the board of supervisors, Dan White pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder. And I'll be honest with you, back in the day, I used to think that that seems so strange. Why would you plead not guilty when you've already confessed, you voluntarily went to the police station, you told them everything. Right. But we know now that obviously there are a lot of reasons to plead not guilty. White's defense attorney Douglas Schmidt knew that they would lose if they tried to argue actual innocence. Yeah, pretty hard to say my client didn't do it when, you know, everybody knows he did it. He told the police he did it. Instead, Schmidt decided to

present a diminished capacity defense in hopes of a lesser conviction for manslaughter. And that's why you to what he did, right? Not guilty. Yeah. Schmidt began putting together witnesses, including friends and psychiatrists, who would testify that White was troubled and depressed and snapped under the pressure he was experiencing.

And I'm not sure, quite honestly, if all those things aren't true, you know, I do think he was depressed. I do think he was facing or experiencing a lot of pressure. Now, to me, it comes down to the word snapped. Can you say that the moment that he snapped was the night before when he got the call from the journalist telling them that they're going to appoint somebody else?

Well, I don't know. I think that's why the word snapped is so important. Can you snap and then still sleep on it and then make your decision tomorrow? You have to take into account the fact that, you know, he got up, he took his gun, extra ammo. He wasn't in the office and told right then and there and then killed. Right. Mosconi. He had known ahead of time.

So I'm not saying he didn't snap. I'm just saying you really have to analyze that term. And, you know, it's going to be up to either a judge or a jury to figure out what that means. Dan White's trial opened on April 23rd, 1979. Jury selection was completed on April 23rd, 179. on April 27th, the defense made efforts to exclude all LGBTQ jurors. And that doesn't surprise me at all. No, they want the best candidates for their side. And you know that the entire LGBTQ community

was outraged. I'm sure a lot of people were outraged over these murders, but you would think that group especially, you know, Harvey Milk, the mayor of Castro Street. was killed. This is a guy that a lot of people in that community looked up to. I mentioned it, right? He was kind of an inspirational figure. Well, and he even made that statement at one time that if he is shot with a bullet, that he hoped it would open all closet door. Yeah. Opening statements started on May 1st, 1979. White's defense argued that he was depressed over the loss of his job. this combined with excessive consumption of junk food caused him to suffer mental problems. Junk food is bad for you.

This is the junk food defense. Yeah. Now, I'm sure that many people listening have lost a job. I know I have. It's not an easy thing to deal with. It happened to me twice. Yeah. And both times, I do remember feeling.

some form of depression. You know, it's like, okay, I'm not good enough. Or, you know, there's all these different types of feelings that, you know, run through your mind. Because people put a lot of their identity into their jobs. They sure do. Some. Yeah.

Not everyone, but a lot of people do. A lot of people do. Yeah. So when that identity goes away, it has to do something to you. Now, to varying degrees for different people. Now, to be fair, those voices that you heard the second time around was me coming through your Bluetooth speaker saying, you're not good enough. Yeah.

We're never good enough. And that was very wrong of you. Looking back, you should feel very bad about that. Yeah, but it was a bad move on my part. So I understand that, right? The depression over the loss of his job. But let's analyze the excessive consumption of junk food. because I will admit at certain times in my life,

I have eaten excessive amounts of junk food. A lot of Doritos. Oh, I'm, you know, salty. I'm a salty type of guy. Yeah. Sweets, not so much. But chips, anything in that aisle, I'm all in on. You're good.

Never once has it led me to do anything out of the ordinary, especially illegal. No. I just thought it was a very strange argument to make. And we've heard a lot of strange arguments in, in courtrooms by defense attorneys. This is up there. Junk flu did it. Defense attorney Douglas Schmidt told the jury, is quoted by the San Francisco Examiner.

Good people simply do not kill people in cold blood. It simply doesn't happen. Dan White suffered a mental illness since the time of his early man. depression or manic depression. But I do want to break down that statement just a little bit. Good people simply do not kill people in cold blood. Technically, I think he's right. Because the minute you kill somebody in cold blood, you're not really a good person.

No, that's true. But to me, he's kind of saying that someone like Dan White couldn't just kill. He had to have been suffering from, you know, some type of mental illness. And I don't think that is true. There's a lot of people who make the decision to kill who do not suffer from any type of mental illness. They just make very bad rash decisions.

I agree. Schmidt told the jury that Dan resigned after his pregnant wife had to give up her teaching salary and he was forced to resign as a fireman. According to famous trials, Schmidt told the jury the evidence would show that white underwent a vile biochemical change that pushed him to become violent. White was supremely frustrated with crime and the politics of the city and thought the city was deteriorating. Dan cracked when he shot the mayor and he reloaded his gun basically on instinct. Because he had already cracked due to stress and mental illness, Dan White shot Harvey Milk.

Schmidt also noted that it wasn't unusual for White to take. his gun to city hall, the defense plan to introduce evidence showing that other city officials, including actor, mayor, Diane Feinstein carried guns. Okay, that would be very strange. I'm not saying it didn't happen back then, but I thought Diane Feinstein was one of those individuals who did not like guns at all. I could be wrong, but I thought she was very anti-gun. Yeah, I'm not sure. But I'm just trying to understand. It's one thing if he took his gun to work, that day, which right or wrong, that's what he did. But he also took extra ammo.

I mean, I think, why would you take extra ammo? If you're just taking your gun in for personal protection, are you thinking something big's going down? Or are you taking extra ammo in because you plan on doing something big? I mean, he shot nine rounds that day. Yeah, and I'm sure the gun probably held six or, you know, something like that. But we talk about it a lot, right? the defense is kind of fighting an uphill battle.

They have a client who it's really not in doubt that this person committed the crime or, you know, did the act. So the defense has to be something other than my client didn't do it. It's got to be he did it, but here's why he shouldn't be held accountable to the full extent of the law. Yeah, he didn't plan this. It was a spur of the moment thing that happened and you happened to have his gun on So he grabbed it and used it. And so it should be manslaughter and not murder one. Prosecutor Tom Norman told the jury he would present three elements,

justifying a conviction for first-degree murder, premeditation, deliberation, and malice. Coroner Boyd Stevens testified that Harvey was shot twice at close range in the back of the head. Mayor Feinstein testified that she tried to talk to White on the morning of the shooting, but he told her just a moment as he walked down the hall to Harvey's office. Feinstein heard the door closed, followed by the unmistakable shots. It was like she was one of the lucky ones that day. Well, I think there were probably a lot of people in that building who after the fact would have felt as though they were lucky.

But it does seem to me that White, you know, he wasn't firing indiscriminately. He had a beef against the mayor. Harvey Milk. Feinstein said that at first she assumed White shot himself until she heard more shots. The defense presented testimony from psychiatrists who told the jury that Dan White was depressed, sleep deprived, and bloated from junk food, so much so that he lacked the capacity to premeditate and deliberate. I mean, I'm bloated right now. I was going to say something, but I didn't want to be mean about it. Yeah, it's been a stressful day today. Yeah. But, you know, let's be honest, depression, sleep deprivation, those can mess with you. They sure can pretty badly. I don't know about bloating

from junk food. Like I said, I've eaten a lot of chips in my life. Maybe some heartburn, stuff like that, but, uh, I mean, when you can't get that top button of your jeans, you know, connect it from the bloating. But I know I did that to myself. I'm not really blaming. anyone else or I'm not blaming the chip company. I've done that myself. The press called it the Twinkie defense after psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White's mental state was thrown off by gorging himself on Twinkies. You know the best part of the Twinkie is that middle.

What is in the middle? I don't know, some type of cream. Yeah. Whatever it is. It's good. We don't know what any of it's made of. We just know that it's good. Some type of chemical, but it's good chemical.

but this kind of became famous just in and of itself. The twinkie defense. Blinder told the jury is quoted by famous trials. There is a substantial body of evidence that insusceptible individuals, large quantities of what we call junk food, high sugar content food with lots of preservatives, can precipitate antisocial and even violent behavior. There have been some studies, for example, where they have taken so-called career criminals and taken them off all their junk food and put them on milk and meat and potatoes.

And their criminal records immediately evaporates. How does that study happen? Yeah, I don't know how that happens either. I don't know if I can really buy into that. But I'm just trying to figure out how the study actually occurs. These are people who have committed a bunch of crimes and you're doing the study what in jail? where they have very little to know ability to do the same type of crimes. It's not really a great case study, right?

Or they're on the outside and you're saying, what? Tell me if you commit any crimes. Yeah, let me know. So I can mark that down in my ledger. We won't use it against you, you know, in the court, so don't worry. According to the San Francisco examiner, Dr. Blinder said that Dan was tormented by deep depression after he resigned. White called in sick to work and stopped sleeping in bed with his wife.

Instead, he slept on the couch. I think that's a legitimate defense right there, right? Depression. Depression. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you need to add the junk food thing. Well, and I, yeah, to me, that's what's so strange.

If you want to talk about depression and sleep deprivation, I understand that. And what that could potentially do to someone, I just don't know. what a handful of Twinkies has to do with it. But I think they're really doubling down on this. Oh, absolutely. You know, they went on to say that what White did was basically comfort himself with junk food. In one sitting, he would consume chips, candy bars, eight cupcakes, and a six pack of Coke. But the more junk food he consumed, the worse he'd feel.

That's a normal Saturday night for me sometimes. the worst he would feel. You know how bad you would feel if you ate eight cupcakes, drank six coax and ate a bunch of chips and candy bars? You would feel really bad. Of course you would. Yeah, you probably want to throw up. Your body is not designed to handle all of that at one time.

But would it make you violent? No. That's, I don't know. That's something that is tough. I don't believe so. Dr. Blinder then walked the jury through White's account of the morning of the shootings. White asked the mayor several times why he wouldn't reappoint him, but Moscone refused to answer. Mosconi then invited White back for a drink and asked

him what he was going to do. According to Dr. Blinder, the mayor's voice started to fade out and White felt as if he were in a dream. He started to go out of the room and then inexplicably turned around and like a reflex drew his revolver. White had been under pressure. White had been under pressure for months, which made it difficult to think he was sufficiently discombobulated as to not have his wits about him. His condition at that time impaired his ability to premeditate. You just don't hear discombobulated that much. No, and it's one of my favorite words of all time. Well, I know you use it on me all the time. I do because you make me discombobulated on a, on a quite regular basis. But what is this guy really saying? Right. He's,

depressed. He's under pressure. He goes in to talk to the mayor. He's not getting the answers that he wants to hear. And he kind of goes into like this dream state. He didn't say out of body, but it almost sounds like an out of body experience where, you know, he's, he's pulling his gun, but he doesn't really, it's not really him. Yeah, he doesn't understand why he's really doing that. White's former aide, Raymond Schein, testified that white, was frustrated a lot and wasn't spending enough time with his new child, friends testified about White's character. And his former aide spoke about how White once saved his life on a sailing trip. Well, you have to have a lot of character witnesses. And, you know, you are trying to make the jury see

that, okay, this is a good guy. He's got a lot of people in this corner. Now, okay, you saved this guy's life on a sailing trip. I don't really know what that has to do. other than to say at that point he did something good. Yeah, didn't have Twinkies that day. The defense did not question witnesses about White's frustration with city politics in the board of supervisors, even though Doug Schmidt referenced political frustrations in his opening statement. They most likely chose to do this because the jury might have viewed politics as a potential motive. The defense called on another psychologist, Dr. Jerry Jones, who testified.

that he did not think a person in the midst of major depression was capable of mature and meaningful reflection. White was enraged, anxious, and frustrated, and did not have the ability to control himself. So they have a couple of experts, you know, who are basically saying this guy's state of mind did not allow him to control his actions, let alone premeditate. the killing. The prosecution presented rebuttal testimony from Dr. Roland Levy, who also interviewed White. Levy testified that White showed little remorse during the interview. He talked about his financial and family problems, but White himself said he did not have a history of psychiatric problems. So I think that's interesting, right? When you say that this guy showed little remorse during the interview,

does that kind of fly in the face of someone who just quote unquote snapped? You know, if this was a really good guy who snapped, but now he's unsnapped, wouldn't he be extremely remorseful? You would think there would be some, if not a lot, of remorse. And this guy is saying he didn't show any. Dr. Levy testified that he found nothing to suggest White had a mental disorder and he was less depressed than expected the night of the shootings. And I didn't really understand that, to be quite honest with you. He's saying what? I thought he would have been even more depressed

than what he actually was. I guess, yeah. One of the last rebuttal witnesses was supervisor Carol Silver, who spoke out about the building tensions between White and Milk. In closing, the defense assured the jury that if they convicted White of manslaughter, He will be punished. His child and family will have to live with this. God will punish him just justice. That's all. So what is the defense really trying to say there?

I think to the jury, right? By going with manslaughter, hey, you're not letting this guy off the hook. He's still going to be punished. Yeah. And he'll be punishing the eyes of God, too, is what they're trying to say. On May 21st, 1979, after 36 hours. of deliberation, Dan White was found not guilty of murder. Instead, he was convicted of two counts of voluntary manslaughter. 36 hours is a long time. It is. I mean, we do a lot of cases where it's 30 minutes,

an hour, two hours. After the verdict, a crowd formed in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood and began marching to City Hall. Over 5,000 people gathered at the building. Tensions grew. Some protesters broke windows and lit police cars on fire. People shouted avenge Harvey Milk and kill Dan White. Now, I don't advocate for that type of stuff, but you had to know, right, that there were going to be a lot of people very unhappy with this decision by the jury. Yeah, they were pissed. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'm sure there was another part of the populace that was like, okay, I agree with that. because not everyone is going to agree, right? That's just human nature. And you're always going to have your extremists, right, that are going to say,

well, kill the guy that killed them. But the law is the law and the law spoke. Man slaughter. Well, and you're going to have people who are more outraged than others, right, who are going to break windows and light police cars on fire. That's how upset they are. Officers were ordered to hold the crowd back, but many officers hit protesters with nightstick, some of them taped over their badges so they couldn't be identified. After three hours, officers used tear gas to break up the crowd. 59 officers and 124 protesters were injured and two dozen people were arrested. Not a good night for the city.

No, no, obviously that's not what you want to have happened. There's a lot of people injured. Hours later, a group of officers joined up to raid the Castro neighborhood. They vandalized the local bar and assaulted people. patrons shouting anti-gay slurs and attacking anyone that was on the street. Police Chief Charles Gain learned what was happening and went to Castro to stop the attacks. No officers were ever reprimanded because officials couldn't determine who ordered the assaults. These events became known as the White Knight riots.

And obviously that's not something that you want to have happen in your city either. Not at all. Not a good look. On July 3rd, 1979, Dan Wants, White was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison. But Gibbs, it was possible that he would only spend 57 months in prison. He received credit for 218 days if he received good time credits. On top of this, he would be eligible for parole as soon as April of 1984. Not a lot of time. Public outrage was so strong that California revoked the diminished capacity offense in subsequent cases. While in prison, White told homicide inspector Frank Fauson that on the day of the shootings,

he planned to kill four people, including supervisor Carol Silver and California State Assembly member Willie Brown. Sounds like premeditation to me. Yeah. If that was true, if he really did say that, then I think it really does screen premeditation. Dan White was granted parole on January 6th. 27th, 1984. So he got out even earlier than what they suspect that he could. On October 21st, 1985, 39-year-old Dan White died of suicide inside the garage of his home in San Francisco. His cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. Dan left a note that expressed concern about the pain he would cause his family and his desires for funeral arrangements.

So he wasn't even out a full year before he ended his life. Yeah, you think it was the depression or do you think it was guilt or a combination of all that? Yeah, I'm sure it was a combination of a lot of different things. Maybe it was hard to live with what he did. Maybe he felt it was hard to live with the way his life was after he got out. But as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, you know, when you look at Harvey Milk's time on the board of supervisors, it was pretty short. I mean, he was gunned down, not that long, you know, after being elected. But there's no doubt. He left a very important political legacy. In 2009, former president Barack Obama

posthumously awarded milk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's a big award. It is. It's a very big deal. The state of California declared every May 22nd, Harvey Milk Day. Harvey's openness about his sexuality led other politicians to do the same. His advocacy for anti-discrimination laws is still honored and remembered today. So, you know, when you think about this guy's legacy, it's pretty impressive. I think what, you know, I'm struggling with and what I always struggle with is he was fairly young when he was killed. Sure he was.

So if he left this legacy, what would it have been had? had he not been killed? What would he have gone on to do? I'm sure probably some amazing stuff, but we would never know. No, there's no way to know because, you know, Dan White ended his life. And, you know, obviously it's hard to second guess the jury, right? We didn't hear all the testimony. We weren't there.

That's always hard to do. But my gut reaction just going through the trial was that this was a little bit more premeditated than it was a snapping. That was just my thought. Yeah. And, you know, if he really told this homicide detective later on, hey, I plan to kill four people, that that pretty much removes all doubt for me, if that's true. Isn't it kind of ironic that we're recording on May 22nd? It is. It is. That is very strange. Yeah. Or was it calculated that this episode would come out right around the time of Harvey Milk Death? Only if we were that calculating. But you're using we a lot there. I am that calculating. Just because I don't let you in on everything doesn't mean it didn't work out. You don't let me in on anything. And then, you know, you have to talk about the Twinkie.

defense. That to me just seemed so outrageous. I mean, you had the depression, you had the sleep deprivation. To add the twinkies on top of it seemed bizarre. I think so. I think it kind of takes away from the other two, right? Yeah. Yeah. The stuff that actually does possibly make sense, you're going to muddy that up with him eating too many twinkies? But could you say it worked? You know, it helped him get what they want at the end. Yeah. I mean, obviously the jury, for whatever reason, made the decision to go with manslaughter. And like I said, it's hard to second guess the jury's decision.

But I think a lot of people who look at this case think a more apt decision would have been first degree murder. And I don't disagree with that. No, I don't either. Based off some of his later statements, too. Yeah, especially when you add some of that in there. But I do think, you know, to serve what, five years roughly for killing two people. Yeah, it's kind of an insult, really.

And it was, this wasn't a car accident. You shot two people multiple time, reloaded. Yeah. Because you disagreed with what they agreed with. Yeah, you were mad at them. Yeah. Basically. So, yeah, that's, that's a tough one.

It really is. But that's it for our episode on Dan White. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? It's here. Hey, Mike. Hey, Gibby. I was at work this morning and listening to the latest episode of Roderick and Mark Newell.

I work at Domino's. The third customer of the day ordered a pizza. And you never guess what his name was. It was Roderick Newell. Neither one of those names are very common. So that was a trip. But it was not the Roderick Newell from the episode. Anyway, I'm from Mississippi.

And I would like to hear y'all do more Mississippi cases. There are a few in DeSota County that are just real close to me. And I would just like to hear some more local cases. Well, local to me anyways. Thanks. You all have a nice day. Oh, man, now I want some dominoes. I just fed you like an hour and a half ago.

I'm a growing boy. Okay. We need to look for some cases in Mississippi. But that is strange. We hear that from time to time where, you know, people are listening to the episode. and then either they're on a jog and they're running by some place we're talking about in the episode because they live in the area or in this case somebody orders orders orders a pizza who

happens to be named rodrick newel and i agree with her that is not probably a very common name can't imagine that roderick moved from england to mississippi right and was ordering dominoes the other day it'd be a little freaky though it would be while you were listening to the episode. Hey guys, I just finished the episode on Aaron Key and the color that had called in afterwards and suggested the Albert Fish podcast is right on. I was literally just thinking the same thing not too long ago that I need to just see if you guys have covered it because I haven't heard it, but I just watched the craziest

documentary on him on crime. And I was like, holy cow, that we need to, we need to. hear how I can give to do this, this podcast. So that was my thought as well. I totally agree with him. You guys need to try that out. I love you guys. I've been listening for a couple years now, and I've even like started over on the podcast. So I've tried other ones, but I keep coming back to you guys. So keep up the good work and keep your own time ticking. All right. Love it. Thanks for the voicemail. Albert Fish is definitely coming up. It is. I will say that, but I'll leave it. below. We've been talking about him for years. His crimes are so bizarre that it's going to be

one of those episodes. It will be. Is going to stick with people, no doubt about it. All right, buddy. We had no mailbag this week. So that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabey, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.