Beverly Hills Cop

Questions

Gerald F. Mason, recent

How did Gerald Fit Mason, after getting out of a Louisiana prison for burglary, end up in California with a gun to begin with?  "I didn't have a family life. I didn't have any place to go, and things were not going well for me, so I took off to California," Mason told the court before his sentencing. "I bought a gun at Shreveport with the intention of using it simply as a deterrent insofar as I was hitchhiking." When asked why he attacked the teenagers and raped a fifteen-year-old girl, Mason said he didn't remember having committed the crime. As far as why he killed the two police officers, Mason answered in a shockingly simple way: "I thought, 'If I don't get them, they're going to get me, and I would face the death penalty.' So when the officer turned away from me, I shot them both, got back in the car, and ended up driving away."

It was a split-second decision—one of which had changed the lives of dozens of the victims' family members and generations of cops.

During his final court appearance, Mason tearfully told the families of his victims: "I don't understand why I did this. I feel like I am dreaming. It makes no sense. It's contrary to everything I believe. At no other time in my life have I intentionally harmed anyone. I detest these crimes for which I am convicted . . . I still do not want to remember what happened. Please forgive me. Please! Do not be bitter."

"We will never forgive you," Officer Curtis's daughter, looking her father's killer in the eyes, said sternly. "Never."

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1. The Early Days
2. "All I Want Is Your Money"
3. A Frozen Case
4. "I Think I'm Going to Kill All of You"
5. Forging His Way
6. 99.9 Percent
7. A Rape Turns into a Double Murder
8. Billionaire Boys Club
9. Sherlock Holmes
10. Of Course He's Guilty
11. The Murder Weapon Surfaces
12. Lucky Break
13. Murder By Numbers
14. A Murderer Speaks
15. Questions
16. A Note About Sources