Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  00:05

Producer Natalie Chudnovsky and I are back in Santa Barbara, where Oscar Gomez died almost 30 years ago. This time, we're at the police department, not the Sheriff's office that we visited earlier. [police dept. ambi] [AGL: Hi, how's it going?] We want to know if the police have any records on Oscar that we might have missed. That's how we meet the records manager at the police department. She says there aren't any records on Oscar, and she's not familiar with the name. But she was a UC Santa Barbara college student at the same time.

Natalie Chudnovsky  00:36

And you were in school '91?

Margarita Moreno  00:38

Through uh, I was in IV '91 through '96?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  00:43

She tells us her name is Margarita Moreno.

Margarita Moreno  00:47

Margarita like the drink. [AGL: Yeah. Or the flower.] That's, nobody ever says that. [AGL: My cousin's name is Margarita. (laughs)] Daisy, yeah.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  00:56

And Margarita's college dorm? It was right next to where Oscar's body was found.

Margarita Moreno  01:03

And so I remember when my mom dropped me off, I was the only freshman with a oceanfront view. [AGL: Ooo!] And my mom's like, where, where are you going to school? [AGL laughs]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  01:12

Think of the neighborhood around UC Santa Barbara as a tip of land that points south into the Pacific Ocean. Along the right edge of the tip, is the school's campus. Along the left edge is Isla Vista, the community also known as IV. A lot of college students live there, and it gives UC Santa Barbara its party school reputation. If you zoom in, you'd see that along both of these edges are bluffs that drop down to the beach. [music in] According to the Sheriff-Coroner's report, Oscar was last seen alive on Del Playa Drive, the street alongside the bluffs in Isla Vista, the left edge of the tip. His body was found nearly 15 hours later and about a mile's walk away on the right side near the campus. That's the shore next to the dorm where Margarita lived her freshman year.

Margarita Moreno  01:59

He was found by the Anna Kappa dorms. Oh, so that's, people don't really go off that cliff.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:06

So wait a second. You're saying there's one cliff in particular where most of the deaths have happened?

Margarita Moreno  02:10

DP, [AGL: D-] Del Playa Road. [AGL: Del Playa-] Now, that's on Isla Vista.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  02:15

The apartment where Oscar was last seen alive was also on Del Playa. Margarita says bluff related deaths along that road in Isla Vista are infamous.

Margarita Moreno  02:26

I mean, there's so many different stories out there, running from police, running from other people. [AGL: And they die.] So there used to not be fences back then, um, in what was called, like, dog shit park. And so people would be running, even just messing around, and they'd run o-, literally run off the cliff. So, [AGL: Yeah.] [music out] could he have ran off that cliff or walked off that cliff? Certainly.

Natalie Chudnovsky  02:47

There wasn't even lighting, like you really can't see?

Margarita Moreno  02:50

No, you can't see. Like I would, heard even when I was in school, how the police would be, you know, trying to capture somebody who's running away, like they'd stop chasing them, for them to stop running, so they don't run off this cliff.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:03

The other thing we're wondering is, you know, with so many deaths, it's like what's been done to improve the place [MM: Yeah.] and make sure that people don't fall and die?

Margarita Moreno  03:12

Um, well, you'd have to check the- My understanding is they put up fences at [AGL: Yeah.] this point. Maybe some lighting, but- [AGL: Yeah, yeah.]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:19

The way Margarita is describing these bluffs, it sounds like falls and deaths are common. [music in] When I search Santa Barbara bluff deaths online, there are dozens of news stories, mostly about college students who've fallen off the cliffs of Isla Vista. Some survived, some died, and it makes me wonder just how deadly are these bluffs? And what can they tell us about what happened to Oscar? I'm Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and this is Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  03:59

[Siri: Turning right, turn right onto Stanley Drive. Then turn left onto Las Posadas Road.] After a day of reporting, Natalie and I go to see Isla Vista for ourselves. It's dark by the time we arrive on Del Playa, the street I've only known through Oscar's death report. [street and car ambi] There's student housing everywhere, and one of these apartments is the one where Jose Gonzalez lived with Noel Huerta, where Oscar stayed the last night of his life.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  04:57

This is where Oscar Gomez uh, was in one of these apartments uh, the day before he was found dead. So it's really dense housing, a lot of two story, either apartment buildings or um, some one story homes. There's some frat houses, maybe sorority houses around here too.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  05:18

[footsteps] We walk through a small park, right up to a chain link fence, about four or five feet high, not too hard to climb over. Beyond that, a few feet of land and a straight drop down to the beach, 30 to 80 feet, depending on where you are. Even though I'm behind the fence, I'm feeling a bit of vertigo. Maybe it's because I know that students have fallen here. We look around to figure out how to get down safely to the shore.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  05:45

[ocean ambi] Is this the only, is this a walkway down? We don't, we're new here. [random girl: Uh, to the beach?] Yeah. [girl: No, I can show you where it is. We got, pretty much done here, and I'm walking that way... right over here.] Oh, okay. [girl: Yeah, this is just a little park that um, here I'll show you.] Um, well, very, very nice uh, young woman just pointed us to this walkway, and we're standing now on a um, on a wooden staircase um, that's leading down to the beach. The beach is probably about 20-30 feet down. You can hear the waves. Looks like the surf is only about two or three feet high.

Natalie Chudnovsky  06:24

It's really dark. You can't really see where the ocean meets the sky. You can just see the white foaming of the waves.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  06:31

These cliffs are slowly eroding. So the houses are are just on the edge of these cliffs. And it looks like what, what, this is like a 50-foot drop from the balconies down to here. But I just, I just have in my hand the um, some of the uh, the cliff material and it's this kind of like, look, it's breaking in my hand. Yeah, I want to go touch the water.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  07:05

As I walk to the waves, I'm thinking of the water and sand the coroner found in Oscar's airways. I'm thinking of the grizzly TV news footage of Oscar's body in the surf, nearly covered in seaweed, and three men, probably from the Sheriff's, standing a few feet away, looking at Oscar. The sea breeze, the sand, the ocean water, carry a message, an echo of Oscar that I haven't heard in interviews, haven't read in documents and have not heard in the cassette recordings of his show.

Oscar Gomez  07:36

[clip from radio show] Ximon raza, realizing who you are and where we came from, it's going to be easier for you to have a better feeling of who you are to yourself, and you'll be able to move forward, and you will never be slipping into darkness. [music plays: slipping into darkness...]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  08:06

I can imagine Oscar standing here, breathing in the same salty air, hearing these same waves. And I'm seeing how steep these bluffs are, and the dangers they could have posed for Oscar and for the community of young college students nearby. Just how often do people fall off these cliffs? And has anything been done to protect them? That's after the break. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  08:47

Let's see what you got.

James Chow  08:48

I got some, some documents for you. Let's see... [zipper sound]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  08:54

Whoa, look at that. That's a stack. [JC: Yup. (thunk of paper stack)] This is our associate producer James Chow. I was not able to find a comprehensive list of bluff related falls and deaths in Santa Barbara, anywhere online. So he's been looking through old newspaper articles and requesting information from public agencies, including the Sheriff's office.

James Chow  09:22

And these documents are all the files I was able to compile from the people who've fallen from the Bluffs in Isla Vista from uh, 1990 to 2019.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:35

So the big question for me is whether Oscar's death and his fatal injuries are part of a pattern among all these other bluff deaths. So between 1990 and 2019, how many people died from falling off the Bluffs there in Santa Barbara?

James Chow  09:55

I was able to count 12.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  09:56

[music in] So there are two kinds of cliff related falls in Santa Barbara. The first kind are more straightforward, where people fall off the edge of the bluff. The second kind are balcony deaths, incidents where students fell from balconies that extend over the edge of the cliffs, or the balconies themselves have collapsed. So these 12 deaths include both bluff and balcony falls. I want to give a warning here, that for the rest of the episode, we will be discussing fatal injuries in a graphic way. [music out]

James Chow  09:58

So there was 10 labeled as accidents, accidental deaths, and two listed as undetermined.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  10:38

Just two. [JC: Mmm hmm.]

James Chow  10:41

And that includes Oscar. Um and um, surprisingly enough, uh, in 1994, when Oscar died, he was actually not the only person [AGL: Oh, wow.] to have fallen in 1994 and and passed away.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:12

Oh, tell me about that.

James Chow  10:53

Yeah, so, there's this other person named Brian Scott Miller. Um, here it is, if you want to take a look at it. And they actually had died an accidental death. From what I remember, I think they were under the influence of some kind of alcohol, and they had um, leaned over a fence to vomit and accidentally fell over. And this is just three months before Oscar died.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:16

Wow. Oh, here we go. Um, classification accident, cause, uh, closed head injury, impact trauma.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:27

I'm not a doctor, but this injury looks very similar to Oscar's.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  11:34

Okay, closed head injury. Oh okay, this and, this page right here, the toxicology laboratory page looks just like the one for Oscar. Okay, so for Oscar, the um, blood alcohol level was 0.18. And do you remember for him what the uh, blood, blood alcohol level was for Brian Miller? Oh, here we go. [JC: 0.17.] 0.17, that's right.

James Chow  12:03

And and I will say that out of the 12 people that um, I was able to find um, who fell over the cliffs and died, uh 9 out of 12 of them had alcohol or drugs in their system. 11 of them were also students.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  12:16

So um, Oscar Gomez dies from massive head injury. Um, how many other people die from massive head injuries falling off the Bluffs?

James Chow  12:30

Yeah, so I was able to find seven people.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  12:33

Out of 12 people who died from falling off the Bluffs over nearly three decades, seven of them had causes of death very similar to Oscar's- trauma to the head. James starts showing me the autopsies and coroner's reports.

James Chow  12:49

Timothy Baptista had similar injuries, cranial cerebral injury due to blunt force trauma, and-

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  12:55

And his death was an accident?

James Chow  12:58

Yeah, his death was an accident, but from here, uh, I remember reading that Oscar had some whiplash injury to the neck. This person actually had cervical spine injury and that was the other only injury listed. So for Andrew Litvinchuk, his cause of death was cerebral contusions and basal skull fractures and blunt force trauma to the head.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:17

Wow. Did he have any other major bones broken or anything like that?

James Chow  13:21

The bones broken, that are mentioned here, are all in the, are all in the skull.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:26

Oh, there are none on his arms or legs or anything like that, huh?

James Chow  13:29

Actually, no, yeah. There's, a lot of it is um, abrasions I want to s-, or some kind of bruisings and lacerations.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:36

That's what happened with Oscar.

James Chow  13:37

Exactly. That is what happened with Oscar. Yeah, we were also able to uh, get some data from the Sheriff's department, uh, in Santa Barbara. And uh, this is more recent data, uh and it actually includes both injuries and deaths. So from 2010 to 2021, 43 people fell off these bluffs.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  13:55

[music in] That's 43 people who fell off the Bluffs in Isla Vista in a span of about a decade. And that doesn't include balcony deaths. Wow. It's looking like Oscar's death is part of a pattern, that it's not an outlier.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  14:17

James, it just strikes me that year after year, in this time period that you've looked at from 1990 to just a few years ago, on a regular basis, students, young people fall off of these cliffs and die. [music out] So with so many deaths year after year, what's been done by the University to try to stop this?

James Chow  14:47

It's been kind of like a push and pull with a lot of the community and with um, the county and other institutions. Just like, all these people who are proud of the beauty of the parks, and they don't want any kind of like, obstructions with fencing that kind of defeats that view, that people would love to see of like, the the ocean and whatnot.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:09

And then there are the people who are concerned about this pattern of bluff related deaths. Like the UCSB student advocacy group, Fence Isla Vista, created in 2013.

James Chow  15:20

There's actually been quite a few fencing initiatives over the years. I believe in 2001, Santa Barbara County actually passed an ordinance mandating that oceanside houses have fencing at least three feet high on both the balconies and ground-level patios.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  15:36

Remember that geography I talked about earlier? That tip of land jutting out into the ocean? There is fencing and lighting on much of the university side now, the side adjacent to campus buildings and housing. On the Isla Vista side, there's fencing too, though it's not everywhere, although I should say even fencing can't totally prevent accidents. We've been told by former students that sometimes people climb over the fences for the view or to take a pee. The main responsibility for fencing Isla Vista lies with Santa Barbara County government. So what is the county's legal obligation to make the area safe considering this history of bluff related accidents? We tracked down the Legal Adviser to the county at the time.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  16:21

How is retired life, Steve? [Stephen laughs]

Stephen Underwood  16:23

It's it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Um, you know, you can kind of wear what you want and do what you want most of the time.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  16:31

Steven Underwood is a lawyer who represented Santa Barbara County in 1994. And for 25 years, one of his main clients was the Sheriff's office. He represented the county when Oscar's father, Mr. Gomez, sued them. Underwood says Mr. Gomez was not the only parent to sue the county because of their child's injuries along the bluffs. There's one case he remembers where the plaintiff claimed there should have been a safety measure or a warning sign to deter students from the cliffs. And how that case played out, surprises me.

Stephen Underwood  17:03

And so that case went up to the Court of Appeal, and um, she lost. She lost. Uh, because when we have unimproved public property, government property, um, you're immune from liability if you don't put, you know, you don't have to fix anything, you don't have to fill a pothole, you know, or a gopher hole or anything else. You just leave it in its natural state. And if it's left in its natural state, you're not responsible for that.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  17:32

This immunity Underwood is talking about is part of state law. And it basically says that public entities are not responsible for injury caused by unimproved public property that's in its natural state. That includes lakes, rivers and beaches. The reasoning for this immunity is that to really make unimproved public property safe, would be so expensive to a government that they would likely restrict the use of this land. That would cut off the public from hiking trails, lakes, rivers, and other outdoor recreational activities. So in exchange for free access to say, a waterfall, the liability for any injury is on you. What makes property improved versus unimproved is complicated. But basically, Underwood told us that his recommendation to the county was to avoid putting up fencing, lighting, or other safety measures around the Bluffs in order to keep the county's immunity from lawsuits.

Stephen Underwood  18:29

I mean, [mumbles something] you know, it's sort of counterintuitive, you know, you think, well, if something's happening, let's do something to prevent it. Um, but in this particular case, because we had an immunity, it was just sort of the opposite. So, it was that, sort of that struggle, let's do something for the community, because the community is interested in putting up fences, um, versus well, it could impose potential liability, far out exceeding the, you know, the costs of the fence or anything else.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  19:02

There is a lot of fencing now, but I also know how much of it wasn't there in the 90s.

Natalie Chudnovsky  19:09

I was just curious, going back to the legal strategy of not making improvements [SU: Mmm hmm.] to the Bluffs, like I understand the strategy. Um, and you want to keep your immunity so that you don't get more lawsuits. Um, I'm just wondering how you feel about that in retrospect, not as an attorney, but sort of as a a person. [SU: It's hard-] Not that an attorney is not a person, of course.

Stephen Underwood  19:33

It's hard to separate it. That's hard to separate it. Um, you know, an attorney is going to use all the tools that they have, and if the law allows them to use those tools and they can make an argument that is a valid argument, um, they sh- they should make it. Um, but on the other hand, you know, I've got now grandkids that are in their early 20s, and I would want them to be protected.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  20:02

[music in] So even though this was the legal recommendation at the time, ultimately it's the Santa Barbara County government that sets policy. So we reach out to the office of the Santa Barbara supervisor who represents Isla Vista. Their response? No comment for our investigation. Seeing Oscar's injuries in the context of all these accidental bluff related falls, I'm beginning to understand why Sheriff's detectives would conclude that Oscar's fall was also an accident. But was that because his injuries truly pointed to an accidental fall? Or is it because accident was an easy answer? After the break, an independent forensic pathologist gives us the clarity we've been looking for. [music out] [break]

Lindsey Thomas  21:11

My name is Lindsey Thomas, and I am a forensic pathologist.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  21:16

Uh, have you done autopsies? [LT: (laughs) I have.] How many?

Lindsey Thomas  21:22

Oh, gosh, probably over 5000 at this point.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  21:26

Dr. Lindsey Thomas was based in Minnesota for most of her career, where for over a decade, she was a chief medical examiner. We sent her Oscar's 1994 death documents.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  21:36

So before we get into uh, yeah, some of the conclusions you have about this autopsy report, can you retell some of the main findings in this report?

Lindsey Thomas  21:46

This is a very thorough autopsy report. So in the absence of photographs, I still have a pretty good idea of what's going on here. So when a forensic pathologist makes the diagnosis of cranial cerebral trauma, what they basically mean is that someone died as a result of head injuries. So what we're talking about here is sort of near the top, on the side, and it's focally depressed, meaning again, that that part of the skull has been pushed in.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  22:23

I want to know about the other injuries on Oscar's body, injuries his family and friends believe are suspicious. First, the abrasions. Dr. Thomas says that those are commonly seen when someone is found in the water, because of the way their body might be thrown about by the waves.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  22:41

Um, there's also a description of a, I think it's uh, injury to to a bone in the interior of the skull. Uh, I b-, I've been told that there- a lot of force is needed to, you know, break that, that bone. Can you, can you talk about that injury?

Lindsey Thomas  22:59

Honestly, to get that kind of radiating uh, fracture, I think it's, I mean, it's certainly possible that a really strong person with a baseball bat or a tire iron could do it. But to me, it's more consistent with a really significant fall. And it's the type of injury that you see in motor vehicle crashes, just to give you an idea of kind of the degree of force. So it's not the sort of thing you'd get from, you know, somebody being punched or even being hit over the head with a beer bottle or something like that. But it's certainly consistent with a fall from a height, or a jump from a height, if someone lands on their head.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  23:47

I also asked Dr. Thomas about how Oscar being drunk might have affected what happened to him that night.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  23:54

Tell me about that. Tell me about the 0.18. What does that do to a person's um, functioning skills?

Lindsey Thomas  23:59

Well, he's a young guy. So even if he's been drinking heavily for a few years, it's not like he's a 60-year-old who has a lifetime of experience with, you know, handling alcohol. To have a 0.18 means you're really impaired. And of course, balance and judgment are two of the things that are most frequently impaired early on.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  24:24

In this report, we don't have a measurement of how much marijuana he had smoked, but there's a detection of it in his bloodstream.

Lindsey Thomas  24:33

Marijuana is found so commonly that we tend to just overlook it. But the fact is, in combination with alcohol, it's- there can be kind of a symbiotic, if you will, relationship in terms of perhaps affecting someone's judgment or just thought process, reasoning skills.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  24:59

So if he did fall on to, you know, kind of rocks at the bottom of the bluffs, um, what kind of like, you know, blood would this produce from this kind of injury and, you know, kind of eviden-, evidence, quote unquote, right? Um, w- would we be able to tell where he fell?

Lindsey Thomas  25:23

I mean this close to water, I think it's really going to be hard to predict what you would expect to see in terms of blood at the impact site.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  25:37

Meaning, it's possible that any evidence was washed away.

Lindsey Thomas  25:45

[music in] The other thing and we haven't really talked about this is the um, internal neck injury, where there's hemorrhage into the musculature of the anterior ligaments with a whiplash.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  25:59

Have you seen yourself or read about this type of whiplash injury caused at the hands of another?

Lindsey Thomas  26:07

Um, no, I would say that would be a very unexpected finding. I mean it- I'm not saying it could never happen, but uh, it's much more common from some type of- a car stopping suddenly, and someone's head being thrown back. Or what I would envision here would be a fall or jump and landing on the head and then sort of hyperextending the neck.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  26:36

I hadn't thought of the whiplash injury as important here. Especially not in comparison with Oscar's head trauma. But what Dr. Thomas is saying here feels like a big deal. It's a very compelling argument, that Oscar was not hit in the head with an object, that his injuries and his death were most likely the result of a fall. [music out]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  27:01

We're talking to a lot of friends and family, a lot of people who, who, who knew Oscar, and people will, you know, we're talking to his father, who um, obviously, um you know, there's been a lot of pain in the family uh, becau- because of the death. Um, you know, one of the things that he and others have told us about this report is that, well, why if he fell off a a a bluff, a cliff on the shore, why weren't there any other bones broken? Shoulders, arms, legs? Why just the cranium? How would you answer that?

Lindsey Thomas  27:36

Well, it totally depends where somebody lands. If someone basically does a head dive and just lands on their head, especially in a case like this, where the head absorbed significant injuries, I wouldn't necessarily expect that there would be any other injuries.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  27:57

What's your conclusion about how he died?

Lindsey Thomas  28:01

I think he either fell or jumped off of someplace that landed him close enough to the water, that when the tide came in, or went out, or whatever, it then sort of rolled him around enough that then it washed him up where he was found.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  28:23

We've been told the family believes he was killed by somebody.

Lindsey Thomas  28:29

I mean, this, this is a uh, you know, a healthy young man. So if in fact he were involved in a homicidal attack, why doesn't he have broken bones in his hands that he put up to protect from a blow? Or why doesn't he have facial injuries? I mean, usually, people start with a punch to the nose. I mean, it's heartbreaking to me that families so often go down this route of just believing that life is not so unfair, that a random accident could cause this kind of pain to them, that somebody must have done something. And it's, it's tragic. I mean, I can't imagine if my son [music in] died in this set of circumstances. Who knows what kind of [pause] belief I would develop, just to make it so that I could live with it.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  29:32

All I can think about is what I'm going to say to Mr. Gomez, and whether he'd even believe that Oscar's death was an accident. I explained to Dr. Thomas, my own connection to Oscar, how we ran in the same Chicano student activist circles in the 1990s.

Lindsey Thomas  29:51

Oh, that makes it so hard for you! Because he isn't just an anonymous.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  29:57

He's not. Yeah. What what are the best things you can say to a family, from your, you know, perspective, to help them heal?

Lindsey Thomas  30:10

Oh, gosh. I don't take it as my job to convince them. You know, because I, I get that sometimes it just- thinking that someone you loved made this choice or put themselves in a situation where this happened- it's just too painful.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  30:31

How difficult is that Dr. Thomas, for, you know, this undetermined label to be placed on a death, and you know, the possibilities in this case?

Lindsey Thomas  30:43

Well, I don't think people ever really get closure, whatever that is, from the death of the child. I don't see how you ever fully recover. We know why he died, in that he had a head injury. But we don't know how he got that head injury. And I have to think for the family, it just leaves a lot of space for people to tell them stories, and for them to be pulled in one direction and another, and to not be able to really settle on okay, well, this is, this is what we have to live with. I mean, it's gotta be, in a way, not unlike people whose bodies are never found. You, you can never finish the story.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  31:34

After Dr. Thomas signs off, Natalie and I stay on Zoom.

Natalie Chudnovsky  31:42

How does this moment feel hearing her opinion, like if it feels pivotal, towards what?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  31:49

Ooooh boy...

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  31:51

[deep breath] It does feel pivotal. I think I've turned a corner in terms of the- everything people have been saying to us about Oscar being murdered. Um, you know, I haven't discounted it. I haven't discounted it 100%. But, you know, the medical information, really discounts, you know, some of these h- long held beliefs by the family and friends, that the coroner's report suggests, or points to a homicide. She made a very compelling case for the accidental death.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  32:36

By the way, we double checked with another forensic pathologist, one who knows the Santa Barbara shore line. He echoed everything that Dr. Thomas told us.

Natalie Chudnovsky  32:47

I found it interesting that she said she doesn't think it's her job to convince families. I don't know that it's our job, either.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  32:58

There you go. There you go. Yeah, absolutely. But even if we contribute this, this is more than what's been out there already. Even if we contribute a reliable expert, which I believe Dr. Thomas is, I think that's a, that's a significant contribution to to the question of how did Oscar die? If we de-emphasize the murdered part by introducing this information, you know what that possibly does? That possibly highlights his activism. That possibly gets people to say, oh, yeah, well, after this podcast, it was not really um, clear that he was murdered. We don't, we don't think that anymore. But we still think he reached people. He um, he emboldened them at a time when they were feeling under siege by the elected officials. He gave them [pause] something to be proud of at a time when [pause] the elected officials were telling them they they were less than human.

Natalie Chudnovsky  34:34

How are you feeling?

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  34:36

Oh, man, this is- Well, you know... You know, I got, I started to get choked up trying to get the word, you know, pr- pride, proud out. And that, that uh, that's, that's, you know, that's what he was about- being Brown and proud.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  34:58

[music in] This is what Oscar's friends and family want to highlight too. But the question of his death always steers the conversation off course, which is why I'm still trying to reach a more definitive answer.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:17

So, so th- this is the first time I'm hearing from someone who actually saw Oscar that night in the apartment. You saw them fighting?

Javier  35:26

Yeah, I know he ended up punching Oscar once. A pretty nice hit.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:32

That's in the next and final episode.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez  35:47

Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary is written, reported and hosted by me, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez. Natalie Chudnovsky is the lead producer, and our associate producers are James Chow and Francisco Aviles-Pino. Editing by Audrey Quinn. The show is a production of LAist Studios. Antonia Cereijido and Leo G are the executive producers for LAist Studios. Fact checking by Audrey Regan. Mixing by our engineer E. Scott Kelly, and special engineering thanks to Shawn Campbell. Our music supervisor is Doris Anahi Muñoz. The music is written, performed, and recorded by Joseph Quiñones at Second Hand Sounds in Rialto, California. Our website LAist.com is designed by Andy Cheatwood and the digital and marketing teams at LAist Studios. The marketing team of LAist Studios created our branding. Thanks to the team at LAist Studios, including Taylor Coffman, Sabir Brara, Kristen Hayford, Kristen Muller, Andy Orozco, Michael Cosentino, Emily Guerin and Leo G. Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary is a production of LAist Studios. Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. [music out]