This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime. We're in the series Unusual Criminal Defences.

On today's episode,

all detail a case where political rivalry turns into murder. The murderer would turn himself in right away, confessing to his crime. His defense attorneys had their work cut out for them

to keep their client out of the gas chamber. The strategy used would be given the colorful name,

the Twinkie Defense, by the media.

But looking back, almost 40 years later,

we will see that there is a bit more to this story.

This is Chapter 2 of Unusual Criminal Defenses,

the Twinkie Defense, the murders of Mayor Mosconi, and supervisor Harvey

Milk.

On November 27, 1978, Daniel James White traveled a short distance from his home to San Francisco

City Hall to see Mayor

George Moscone. Dan White, until two weeks earlier, had been a member of San Francisco's

Board of Supervisors, representing District 8. White's district was comprised of several

San Francisco neighborhoods in the southeastern portion of the city. They were predominantly

middle class and lower middle class neighborhoods. There was also a large housing project where the

elderly and the poor were provided government subsidized residences. White had been elected in

1977, soon after a ballot measure passed that allowed voters to elect their supervisors

by district instead of by a citywide vote. This change ushered in the most diverse board of supervisors

ever seen in San Francisco, or perhaps anywhere before. Ella Hill Hutch was the first African-American

...