About

Hosted by True Crime author Frank Girardot and Award-winning L.A.-based independent journalist Sarah Favot.  This first episode of LA85 gives the candy-coated version of 1984 and sets the table for a podcast that examines Los Angeles amid  a landscape of serial killers (Night Stalker, the Nightclub Killer and Grim Sleeper), a murderous imposter who would become Clark Rockefeller, escalating gang violence, institutional racism, the HIV epidemic, the film "Back to the Future" and more.  In episode the only killer making an appearance is the Juice. Before he was an accused killer, OJ Simpson was a hero. He carried the Olympic Torch up the California Incline in Santa Monica as a prelude to the 1984 Olympic Games. Everything about the city of Angels was wrapped up in the games and the era, that was like no other.  When the Olympics had ended and the cameras moved on, the city was left with brewing true crime storylines that were about to explode. Nationally in 1985, a conservative movement at the polls saw Ronald Reagan beginning his second term as US President. America had hit its post WWII apex and was struggling with racism, sexism, the very real HIV epidemic and very likely beginning the long goodbye that culminated at the end fo 2020 with Coronavirus, a failed presidency and a nation defined by competing desires and divergent histories.