06x23 - Sibling Rivalry

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: This is the story of two brothers who were, at one

time, the undisputed kings of pornography in America.

Their empire crumbled in , when one of the brothers

was m*rder*d-- some say, in cold blood.

The Mitchell Brothers had their share of enemies.

But it took a crime scene reconstruction

to point to the k*ller.

[g*nsh*t]

[theme music]

San Francisco, California, the city by the bay.

[cable car bell ringing]

Cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz

prison, all sites of the landscape.

But there's another side to this city.

One born during the Gold Rush days

when it was a busy seaport.

-Butt naked, showgirls Exotic flush,

this ambient five young ladies.

NARRATOR: Sexual commerce.

A tradition that has lived on today, because of the city's

well known tolerance for sexual expression.

It was here where two brothers, Artie and Jim Mitchell

broke into the adult sex business.

First, as filmmakers, making the minute x-rated films

customers watch with a handful of quarters.

Eventually, the brothers expanded

into the theater business.

At their peak, the brothers owned

adult movie theaters across California.

The crown jewel of their operation

was the O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco.

Here, the brothers went beyond movies,

and offered live sex shows and a nude Cabaret act.

The performances went far beyond anything else that was offered

in the city, and was another financial success.

Author David McCumber, in this book "X-Rated"

says that if Jim Mitchell was the brains of the operation,

Artie was its genitals.

Many future stars got their start at the O'Farrell Theater,

including Nina Hartley and Marilyn Chambers.

Chambers went on to star in the Mitchell Brothers

first x-rated feature length film, "Behind the Green Door."

It wasn't instant hit, grossing over $ million.

-For those people haven't seen "Behind the Green Door,"

it is a story about a woman who is abducted,

taken against her will.

And at one point, she gets into it,

because she's-- and she's loved as she's never been loved

before by six women, a black man, six guys on a trapeze.

Just really bizarre things.

NARRATOR: By all accounts, Artie was the wilder of the two,

earning the nicknames "Merry Prankster" and "Party Artie."

Jim played the part of the responsible older brother.

MARILYN CHAMBERS: Art was way more flamboyant than Jim.

Jim was kind of the introvert and Art was the extrovert.

And although they weren't same age, you would never know it.

They were-- they were like twins.

Like the good twin and the bad twin.

NARRATOR: Not surprisingly, Artie also

had problems in his personal life.

By the time he was in his 's, he

had been through two divorces, six kids, numerous child

support and custody battles, and developed and almost

unquenchable appetite for dr*gs, alcohol,

and sadomasochistic sex.

JULIE: I was thinking that we could go snorkeling.

NARRATOR: On February , , Artie faced another problem.

JULIE: I was thinking about all the clothes I can buy.

Just to go down, I'm going to have a new bathing suit.

NARRATOR: Just after PM, as Artie and his girlfriend

Julie we're going to bed--

[crash]

-- an intruder broke through the front

door of his home and opened fire.

[g*nsh*t]

-I'm going to go check.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Emergency.

JULIE [ON PHONE]: I'm in the bedroom, and--

NARRATOR: Julie ran to the closet and called police.

JULIE [ON PHONE]: -- like g*n noises outside the door.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Do you hear sh*ts?

JULIE [ON PHONE]: Artie. [g*nsh*t]

[g*nsh*t] JULIE [ON PHONE]: Oh, watch out!

Aah!

Somebody's sh**ting.

Oh, my god!

Oh, my god!

Somebody's sh**ting!

NARRATOR: By the time paramedics arrived, -year-old Artie

Mitchell was dead on the bathroom floor

with a fatal b*llet wound to his head.

When police arrived at the home of pornographer Artie Mitchell,

they saw a middle-aged man walking away from the m*rder

scene with a limp, carrying an umbrella.

SGT. TOM PARASPOLO: What was making him walk stiff-legged it

was very r*fle butt sticking out his pant leg.

I drew my service revolver, and I also ordered him to stop.

NARRATOR: Instead, he started walking faster.

Then he stopped and attempted to pull out his r*fle.

SGT. TOM PARASPOLO: Arms out to side palms up!

Do it now!

NARRATOR: The man surrendered, and told police

he was also carrying a handgun.

It was Jim Mitchell, the victim's brother.

As he sat in the back of a patrol car,

he made an interesting statement to police.

DET.

SGT. RAY DELEON: He said something to the effect

that, I know I'm in trouble.

I want a, uh, lawyer.

-I was shocked.

Just what can I say?

I was totally shocked.

I mean, it was just so out of context

for their-- for what you considered

the Mitchell Brothers to be.

You know, what their future was going to be like.

That certainly did not include it.

NARRATOR: In the days leading up to the sh**ting,

Jim said that Artie's behavior had

spiraled completely out of control.

Artie had threatened the lives of his ex-wife,

as well as Jim's girlfriend.

And also made a threatening phone call to their mother.

Artie's ex-wife, Karen, confirmed

that Artie had resisted any plan to get help.

-Artie was actually very violent.

He didn't want to check into the hospital.

And he had told us that he'd rather

die than check into the hospital.

NARRATOR: Jim said he went to Artie's home to force him

into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program,

something Artie had strenuously resisted for months.

Jim said he took a g*n for his own defense.

And said that when Artie came out of the bedroom,

he was holding what looked like a g*n.

He fired seven sh*ts.

Three hit Artie, four missed their mark.

Ballistic test revealed that all the sh*ts

fired were from Jim's r*fle.

JOHN POSEY: It's not a question of

whether or not the person did it.

It's a question of his level of culpability?

And what was his mental state?

What was in his mind?

NARRATOR: Artie had a blood alcohol level

of ., almost three times the legal limit.

MARILYN CHAMBERS: If Art was not k*lled this way,

Art would have, uh, died in his car,

and take a lot of other people with him,

or overdosed on something.

It was inevitable that Art was not going to be around

in this world for very long, I thought.

NARRATOR: Defense attorneys said that what happened

between the two brothers wasn't a m*rder at all.

MICHAEL KENNEDY: This is not a m*rder case.

It never has been a m*rder case.

It's a tragic accident.

An accident of biblical proportions.

NARRATOR: Homicide investigators weren't persuaded

by Jim's version of the sh**ting.

The b*llet holes at the crime scene we're grouped closely

together, a possible indication that Jim had taken

aim at his brother.

But investigators needed to know the sequence of the sh*ts,

and the timing of what took place.

For that, all they had was the call to police.

But were any of the g*nshots captured on the audiotape?

To find out, investigators hired a forensic acoustician,

Dr. Harry Hollien to analyze the sound waves on the tape.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR:

NARRATOR: Dr. Hollien heard some popping and static sounds.

But further tests were needed to see

if they were . caliber g*nshots.

HARRY HOLLIEN: Well, I would have

been real surprise if it wasn't a ..

But nonetheless, we had to go ahead and do

some other analyses to ensure that we

knew what we were talking about.

JULIE [ON PHONE]: Artie!

Oh, my god! ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Hello?

JULIE [ON PHONE]: Oh! Someone--

Someone-- ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Hello?

There's sh*ts.

NARRATOR: Dr. Hollien's son, Kevin, analyzed the sounds

with a spectrogram, which shows a graphical representation

of everything on the tape, screams, static,

and other noises you can mask the sound of g*nf*re.

But g*nshots have a distinct sound wave pattern,

regardless of the weapons make or size.

KEVIN HOLLIEN: It looks kind of like a funnel laying sideways,

where you've got the be flat face,

and then it tapers off to a point.

And the amount of time that it-- that it takes

to do that is one of the things you look at.

The frequencies that it runs at that time

is another thing you look at.

NARRATOR: After analyzing the tape,

Kevin Hollien identified five g*nshots.

But, were they all from a . caliber r*fle?

To find out, forensic acousticians usually

test fire and record the m*rder w*apon at the crime scene

for comparison.

But Artie Mitchell's home was no longer available to police,

since it had been sold shortly after the m*rder.

HARRY HOLLIEN: I suddenly realized

that my house was acoustically very similar.

NARRATOR: So Dr. Hollien set up a makeshift firing

range inside his own home.

This glassed in porch would double

as the hallway in Artie's home.

A bucket filled with wet newspapers caught the b*ll*ts.

To recreate the recording made at the sh**ting,

Dr. Hollien placed a telephone in a nearby room,

and recorded the sh*ts through the open line.

The m*rder w*apon was fired and recorded over the telephone.

[g*nshots]

The test firings were compared to the sh*ts

on the police audiotape.

Since the test firings were done in a different home

with different acoustics, there would be some differences.

But there were many similarities.

HARRY HOLLIEN: When we got the results back,

we began to see that we had made a match.

And this was, indeed, the g*n that was used in the incident.

JULIE [ON PHONE]: Somebody's sh**ting!

Oh, my god!

NARRATOR: Dr. Hollien believes that the five crackling sounds

on the tape were five of the seven

g*nshots fired from the m*rder w*apon.

The first two sh*ts happened before the call

was made to police.

Investigators' next step was to determine

the time between each g*nsh*t in order

to recreate the crime exactly as it happened.

Prosecutors wanted to recreate the sh**ting of Artie Mitchell,

to determine whether it was an accident or m*rder.

Laser tests identified the direction

of each of the seven sh*ts.

Next, the blood spatter evidence and the sequence

of the sh*ts recorded on the audiotape

all helped to piece together the event.

For example, investigators knew Artie

was standing when hit in the shoulder.

The b*llet hole through the wall corresponded perfectly

with the height of his shoulder.

-This was a unique case, because of the nature of the g*nshots,

and the ricochets, and the tracing of the path

of the b*ll*ts, and trying to place

the victim in certain spots.

- --a bathing suit. NARRATOR: Really?

-We're going to lay at the beach.

We're going to sleep in.

NARRATOR: The crime scene reconstruction

revealed that Jim broke into the home,

and immediately fired the first shot down the hall.

[g*nsh*t]

Through the right side of Artie's bedroom door.

The second shot went through that same door,

just as it was opening.

-Hey, what are you doing?

NARRATOR: As Artie stepped into the hall--

[g*nsh*t]

--shot number three ricocheted off of the bedroom door frame,

went into the bedroom, and landed on the dresser.

The fourth shot hit Artie in the abdomen

and came out through his back.

Artie, then, stepped into the bathroom.

The fifth shot went through the bathroom wall

and into his shoulder.

And for the next seconds, there were no sh*ts fired.

JOHN POSEY: The significance of that, if, in fact, there's

a gap in the g*nshots, would be that someone is waiting,

watching, taking aim before the next shot is fired.

NARRATOR: Based on b*llet angle trajectory,

prosecutors believe Jim knelt down at this point

and took aim.

When Artie looked out, he was hit with the fatal shot.

He was k*lled instantly.

The seventh and final shot hit the hallway entrance.

Prosecutors believe the sh**ting was

intentional, and was not an accident.

JOHN POSEY: He had aim, because it was-- the evidence finally

showed that that fatal shot actually occurred when

the victim poked his head out the bathroom door.

And he had already been shot two times, at that point.

NARRATOR: The forensic analysis was

invaluable in reconstructing the crime.

With this information, Jim Mitchell

was charged with m*rder.

The hardest part for prosecutors would be explaining

the sh**ting to a jury in the way they could understand.

So the District Attorney decided to try

something never done before.

He would ask the judge to allow the forensic animation

into evidence.

JOHN POSEY: I knew we were going to have

a big fight on our hands, because I think in, what,

a second video, I think it was, if that,

it basically summarized the whole case

from the prosecution perspective.

And obviously, they wouldn't want it in,

because I felt it was a very powerful piece of evidence.

The actual video, or animation, was really

nothing more than a moving diagram.

NARRATOR: By today's standards, the animation looks crude.

But at the time, it was state of the art.

STUART GOLD: It was done with a rather

flat shaded algorithm for rendering.

It was fairly unsophisticated.

The human models were fairly disjointed.

It was effective, showing placement of situations, where

people were, how angles of trajectory

were, and things like that. But it wasn't terribly pretty.

NARRATOR: Jim Mitchell's defense attorney

argued that the animation was inaccurate, since it included

subjective elements that no one would possibly know.

The defense also challenged Dr. Hollien's acoustic tests,

arguing, his conclusions were based on g*nsh*t sound test

that we're not conducted at the crime scene.

Judge Richard Breiner ultimately allowed

the animation into evidence.

It was the first time forensic animation

was used in a m*rder case.

As the trial against Jim Mitchell drew near,

the prosecution struggled to understand the motive.

Why did Jim Mitchell k*ll his brother?

As self-proclaimed artists, protectors of free speech,

and cultural icons, the brothers were wealthy,

thanks to their multi-million dollar

pornography and strip club empire.

And the brothers had always been close, even since childhood.

Family members admitted that Artie's behavior

had been a problem for some time.

On the day of his death, Artie called his mother.

And even she admitted that Artie was, in her words,

"out of control."

Jim's girlfriend, Lisa Adams, told police

that Artie called her numerous times in the days

before his death.

And the calls were threatening in nature.

-The victim, it was argued was a very, very severe alcoholic,

which it weighed on his brother.

That injected into this case the whole issue

of a heat of passion.

And if the k*lling is done in a heat of passion,

even though you intend to k*ll, that

will reduce it to a voluntary manslaughter.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Jim

was no longer able to cope with his brother's

behavior and irresponsibility.

On the night of the m*rder, Jim didn't knock on Artie's door.

He kicked it in.

During the commotion, Artie's girlfriend

grabbed the telephone, hid in the closet, and called police.

Dispatcher Sherry Tucker took the call.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Emergency.

JULIE [ON PHONE]: I'm in the bedroom,

and we hear noises, like g*n noises outside the door.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Do you hear sh*ts?

Do you know who-- who it is? JULIE [ON PHONE]: Artie!

Oh, watch out! [scream] Somebody's sh**ting.

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Artie had gone out

to find out who was out there. [g*nsh*t]

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Hello? JULIE [ON PHONE]: Oh, my god!

[scream]

ELMERGENCY OPERATOR: Hello?

There's sh*ts.

She was yelling at him loss is on the phone with me,

and we were getting no response.

NARRATOR: After the first two sh*ts, Artie left the bedroom

and headed down the hallway.

[g*nsh*t]

The third shot hit the door frame.

sh*ts four and five both his Artie.

In the abdomen, then the shoulder.

Had the sh**t stopped here, medical experts

believe Artie would have survived.

For seconds, on the tape, no sh*ts were fired.

But when Artie looked out-- [g*nsh*t]

--he was hit with the fatal shot.

The entire episode took less than a minute.

The defense argued that the beer bottle found

near are Artie's body played a significant role in the case.

JOHN POSEY: The defense argued that, either the bottle

appeared to be a g*n, and in one instance, I believe,

the defense even suggested that Artie Mitchell-- at one point

in time-- had a g*n when he came down the hallway.

NARRATOR: But no g*n was found near Artie's

body, only the beer bottle.

In the end, the jury found Jim Mitchell

guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

-The manslaughter is something, that if it stands up on appeal,

it's something that he can accept.

-I mean, it started out with the defense

claiming it was an accident.

Obviously, the jury concluded it was not an accident.

NARRATOR: Mitchell was sentenced to six years in prison.

After serving three years, he was released for good behavior.

Police officers who worked on the case

say, the sentence was not nearly harsh enough.

-For taking a life, I think that was

a very, very mellow sentence.

-He, uh, got away with m*rder.

And now he's back in business.

NARRATOR: Yet, without the crime scene reconstruction

and animation, there may not have

been conviction for manslaughter.

JOHN POSEY: Without that, we couldn't have pieced it

together in a way to show the actual sequence of events.

And once again, coming back to that issue,

what was in the mind of the perpetrator?

NARRATOR: The once young man with mischievous eyes, Artie

is buried in the town of Lodi, far from San Francisco

and the eyes of curiosity seekers.

Jim Mitchell continues to run the O'Farrell Theater.

According to the marquis, it is still

a venture of the Mitchell Brothers, but only in spirit.