Death in the Hills. I'm Rebecca Leib. I'm Jason Horton. And this is Ghost Town.

How Sherman Johnavitch died isn't a mystery why she died is another story. March 15th, 1999,

Sherman Johnavitch was killed by a gunshot to the head in the Hollywood home of actor Robert

Pastarelli, most known for playing Eldon the House painter on the TV show Murphy Brown.

A Murphy Brown murder, damn. I think the pronunciation is Sherman Johnavitch. I couldn't find

anything else to say anything different. Okay, but it's an interesting name so we're going to go with

Sherman Johnavitch. She was Robert Pastarelli's 25-year-old girlfriend. They lived together in the

Hollywood Hills and they had a heated argument and she, according to Robert Pastarelli,

pulled out a gun and killed herself. Pastarelli cooperated with the authorities and the

corner ruled her death as undetermined. Okay. But that would eventually change. Great.

So a little bit about Robert Pastarelli and I've never watched Murphy Brown familiar with it

and I'm familiar with that character and I knew that there was, I don't want to call it scandal

with him, but never watching the show. You just know as like, oh, I know there's one character

on there that had real life scandal. I didn't know to what extent. I think I knew that he had

issues with drugs but that's as far as I knew. I watch the show with my grandmother growing up.

I had no idea this was anywhere on the radar even close but it's such a huge show. There was a reboot.

I think it's definitely still on our cultural landscape and present and no idea intrigued.

Where I'm going to take you, the royal you. And me though. Yeah, you can come along for the ride.

I'm going to take you down a little road of also conspiracy that is unfounded,

unvetted and probably untrue but interesting enough to mention. So be prepared for that at the end.

Ooh, that sounds like my bread and butter. That's just fun.

Robert Pastarelli played Eldin Bernecchi on Murphy Brown. He was the house painter

...