On April 1, 1984, American singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye was shot and killed on the day before his 45th birthday by his father, Marvin Gay Sr., at their house in the Western Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The shooting was a culmination of growing tension between the two men. According to police reports, Gaye intervened in an argument between his parents that later exploded into a physical confrontation between father and son, with the latter party physically dominating the other. Gaye was said to have battled with substance abuse around this time, which affected his actions on the day of his murder.

Gaye was reportedly shot by his father afterwards at around 12:38 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (UTC–8). He was shot twice, once in the shoulder and once in the heart, the latter shot being fatal. Gaye was found dying by his brother Frankie while his wife Irene Gaye called 9-1-1. Paramedics reportedly waited approximately 20 minutes before tending to Gaye as they were unsure about the whereabouts of Marvin Gay Sr. or the gun until Irene Gaye retrieved the gun from Gay Sr.'s pillow and Gay Sr. exiting the property. Rushed to California Hospital Medical Center, Gaye was pronounced dead on arrival at 1:01 p.m. that day. Family believed the shooting was a "premeditated suicide" since Gaye had often talked about death.

Gay Sr. later pleaded no contest to a charge of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to five years probation. After a star-studded funeral, Gaye was cremated and part of his ashes were spread around the Pacific Ocean.

Background

Marvin Gaye had a bitter relationship with his father, Marvin Gay Sr., since his childhood. Gay Sr. was a Christian minister and strict disciplinarian who often physically punished his children. He was also a cross-dresser, a fact widely known in the family's Washington, D.C. neighborhood, which made the younger Gaye a target of bullying. Due to this "sexual ambiguity" on the part of his father, as well as rumors of Gaye's own sexual orientation, the younger Gaye added an "e" to his last name when he became famous. Gaye's father never approved of his son's career in music, and gradually grew resentful that Gaye was closer to his mother, Alberta, and had become the breadwinner for the family. Despite a brief improvement in their relationship after Gaye found success with his album What's Going On, father and son never found any lasting peace.

By 1983, after a period as a European tax exile, Gaye had re-entered the public eye with the hit song "Sexual Healing" and its album, Midnight Love. For a time, the singer, who was a longtime drug addict, particularly with cocaine, had cut back on its usage during his yearlong stay in Ostend, a coastal city in western Belgium under the watchful eye of promoter Freddy Couseart. Gaye abruptly returned to the United States in October 1982 after learning that his mother Alberta was having life-saving kidney surgery in a Los Angeles hospital. Gay Sr. wasn't by his wife's side. At the time he was in their former neighborhood of Washington, D.C. where he was in the process of selling the family's former home.

During his mother's recovery, Gaye embarked on his final concert tour, the Sexual Healing Tour, in San Diego, California, at Humphreys on April 18, 1983. Despite the tour's early success, by the time of his sold-out six date residency at Radio City Music Hall, Gaye struggled to perform due to illness brought by on frequent use of cocaine and PCP, which led to increasing paranoia and the belief that he was targeted to be killed. Gaye wore a bulletproof vest and had his brother Frankie, friend Dave Simmons and security guard Andre White carry guns while he also carried guns. According to David Ritz, his biographer and collaborator on his hit single "Sexual Healing", Gaye had a minister reading Bible scripture to him in one room and a drug dealer offering him coke in another.

Prior to the tour, Gaye settled at his parents' residence at 2101 South Gramercy Place at the West Adams district of Los Angeles in early 1983. Gaye had personally purchased the property for them in 1975. Gaye's father was absent from the property until October 1983, two months after Gaye ended his tour. The house was preoccupied by the singer's sisters until Gay Sr. returned, by which then they left noting the tension that was growing between the two men.

For the next six months, the two men struggled to keep their distance from one another. During one quarrel at the house, the elder Gay called police to have his son leave the property. After staying with one of his sisters, however, Gaye returned to the property, stating to a friend of his, "After all, I have just one father. I want to make peace with him." Jeanne Gay later told David Ritz that her father had told her if Marvin ever touched him, he'd "kill him".

On Christmas Day 1983, Gaye gave his father a Smith & Wesson .38 Special so that he could protect himself from intruders. Friends and family members contended that the younger Gaye was often suicidal and paranoid, and by now was afraid of leaving his room and spoke of little besides suicide and death. Gaye sometimes wore three overcoats and put his shoes on the wrong feet. Four days before his death, according to his sister Jeanne, Gaye had tried to kill himself by jumping out of a speeding sports car, but suffered only minor bruises. Jeanne contended that "there was no doubt Marvin wanted to die" and that he "couldn't take any more."

Killing

In the days prior to his death, Gaye's parents had arguments mainly over a misplaced insurance policy letter. On the day before his death, the arguments spread to Gaye's bedroom. Angered by his father confronting his mother, Gaye commanded Marvin Sr. to leave her alone; Marvin Sr. complied without incident, and there was no violence that night, but Marvin Sr. continued yelling throughout the house.

On April 1, 1984, at approximately 12:30 p.m. PST an impatient Marvin Sr. shouted upstairs to his wife about the document. Gaye, dressed in his maroon robe, shouted back downstairs, telling his father that if he had to say something, he should do it in person. According to Alberta, when Marvin Sr. refused his son's request, Gaye warned him not to come to his room. Marvin Sr. instead charged upstairs to the bedroom to verbally attack Alberta over the document, causing Gaye to jump out of his bed and once again order his father out of the room. When ordering did not work, Gaye, enraged, reportedly shoved his father out of the room into the hallway, then began punching and kicking him.

Alberta later told Ritz: "Marvin hit him. I shouted for him to stop, but he paid no attention to me. He gave my husband some hard kicks." Jeanne later recalled that it was understood in the family that if one of the children ever dared to strike their father that he would "murder him or her", saying her father "made it very clear" and "said so publicly on more than one occasion". Gaye reportedly followed his father to the bedroom and, according to his mother, continued to kick him brutally. Eventually, Alberta separated Gaye from his father and returned him to his bedroom. Afterwards, Marvin grabbed a suitcase and told his mother that he was "going to get my things and get out of this house. Father hates me and I'm never coming back."

Minutes later, at 12:38 p.m., Marvin Sr. entered his bedroom, returning with the .38 pistol his son had bought him, pointed it at Gaye and shot him directly in the heart, as Alberta later explained to police:

The first shot, which proved to be fatal, entered the right side of Gaye's chest, perforating his right lung, heart, diaphragm, liver, stomach, and left kidney before coming to rest against his left flank. Marvin Sr. stepped closer after the first shot and shot him a second time at point-blank range.

In a 2018 episode of the Reelz TV series Autopsy: The Last Hours of..., forensic pathologist Michael Hunter expressed his belief that Gaye was initially shot nonfatally in the left shoulder by his father, while the two men were standing two feet apart while facing each other."Autopsy: The Last Hours of Marvin Gaye." Autopsy: The Last Hours of.... Nar. Eric Meyers. Exec. Prod. Ed Taylor, Clare Hollywood, and Michael Kelpie. Reelz, February 25, 2018. Television. Hunter believed that this first shot "penetrated the left shoulder just below the clavicle and exited his back without causing any serious injury", the impact of which caused Gaye to fall down. Hunter also believed that Gaye was then shot fatally in the chest, which "had a very damaging and odd trajectory," traveling "diagonally down through the lung, heart, diaphragm, liver, and kidney, finally embedding itself on the left side of the torso." From Hunter's point of view, "the direction of the bullet's trajectory suggests Marvin was positioned toward his father, and that his father was likely to have been moving away at the time."

Afraid of being shot next, Alberta screamed and ran out of the bedroom, all the while pleading in fear to her husband not to shoot her. According to reports, Gaye's father hid the gun underneath his pillow. In the meantime, Gaye's brother Frankie and his sister-in-law, Irene, heard the shots as they lived in a guest house on the property. After the first shot, Frankie initially thought it sounded like a car backfired. Afterwards, they heard screams from outside, rushed out, and saw Alberta who ran into Irene's arms, crying and screaming, "He's shot Marvin. He's killed my boy."

Frankie ran to the house and carefully walked into the hallway to his brother's room, not knowing if Marvin Sr. was still armed, whether he was still in the room, or if his brother was dead. After walking into Gaye's bedroom, an emotional Frankie held him as Gaye bled rapidly. Frankie alleges that Marvin, barely speaking above a whisper, told him, "I got what I wanted... I couldn't do it myself, so I had him do it... it's good, I ran my race, there's no more left in me." After police arrived, Irene went to Marvin Sr. in his bedroom and asked him where the gun was. After searching over his bedroom, Irene located it under his pillow. Upon exiting the house, Irene dropped the gun on the lawn. Immediately following this, Marvin Sr., who had by now taken a seat on the front porch outside the house, was arrested.

The police arrived 20 minutes after the shooting. Gaye's body was taken out of the house and sent to the California Hospital Medical Center. At approximately 1:01 p.m., Gaye, still at the age of 44, was pronounced dead on arrival. As soon as his death was announced, several of Gaye's neighbors and onlookers paraded around the house, many in stunned shock and silence.

Autopsy and funeral

An autopsy was conducted on Gaye's body shortly after his death. Test results showed that he had measurable amounts of cocaine and PCP (or angel dust) in his system. After lawyers misread the coroner's report, Judge Ronald George determined later during preliminary hearings in the court case that PCP can often provoke violence. When told that the report had concluded only that Gaye had just cocaine traces in his system, the judge said PCP was not a major factor in his decision.

During an interview with the police, Gaye's father contended that he was scared that something would happen to him and that he only meant to shoot in self-defense, stating he did not know the gun had any bullets in it, claiming he thought there were either "blanks or BBs." When asked if he loved his son, Marvin Sr. reportedly stated in a soft voice, "Let's say I didn't dislike him." Upon being told that his son had died from the shots, Marvin Sr. reportedly wept after realizing he had killed him. Marvin Sr. was held on bond afterwards.