This is an L.A. Times Studios podcast.

In 1991, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark was preparing to prosecute a man for the murder of a young actress he had become obsessed with.

There was no doubt that he had done it.

He gave a detailed confession to a psychiatrist

explaining how he confronted the victim at her home in West Hollywood.

In the middle of the tape, as he's talking about what happened at the door,

something bothered me about his physical gestures.

Clark studied the man's confession, taking notes.

I thought, this is, something's weird here.

And I kept stopping and replaying and stopping and replaying,

and then I realized what it was.

From L.A. Time Studios, this is Crimes of the Times.

I'm Christopher Gafford.

I've been covering crime and the justice system for most of my career.

My prior podcasts have explored cases that had not been well known, Dirty John, Detective Trap, and the trials of Frank Carson.

What we're doing here is a little different. We're looking at older criminal cases in Los Angeles and beyond.

Some of them were famous in their day, but the details are dim in memory.

Some of them were hugely consequential, as in today's episode, and we will explore why.

Some cases are obscure, but deserve not to be.

There will be cult murders and killer cops, would-be assassins and domestic terrorists,

Hollywood movies set disasters, and fallen tycoons.

I'll be talking to the people who know these cases best,

...