Inside, a 44-year-old man lay dying on his bedroom floor. His brother Frankie found him and dropped to his knees. He cradled Marvin’s body. He called for help. He already knew.
When the paramedics arrived, they found Marvin Gaye bleeding from wounds to his chest and shoulder. They tried to stabilize him for the short drive to California Hospital Medical Center. He was pronounced dead on arrival at 1:01 p.m.
Out on the front porch of the house, a 69-year-old man sat quietly and waited. He had already hidden the gun. He had already watched his son stop breathing. He sat on the steps and waited for the police to come.
When officers arrived, the man on the porch identified himself as Marvin Gay Sr., the Reverend Marvin Gay Sr., the father of the man who had just died inside. He told them he had not meant to kill his son. He told them he had feared being hurt.
Asked by a detective whether he loved his son, Gay Sr. replied: “Let’s say I didn’t dislike him.”
The next morning, April 2, would have been Marvin Gaye’s forty-fifth birthday.
—
It is impossible to understand what happened on that April morning without understanding everything that came before it. The shooting was not a sudden eruption. It was the final chapter of a story that had been building for four and a half decades, since a small boy first learned that the man who was supposed to protect him was also the man most capable of destroying him.