Opel v. Keenan: The Murder That Never Made Sense Part Three (Season 6; Ep 3)

PART THREE:

It’s a queer true-crime story, political mystery, and historical investigation unlike anything the curious world has ever been exposed to.

9:00-9:15 PM, July 8, 1979: Oscar streaker, gallerist, and bisexual political activist Robert Opel is shot in the head from a foot away. Weeks earlier, he had taken on the establishment and the San Francisco police. He was also the owner of Fey-Way Studios, a queer San Francisco gallery that championed artists like photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Tom of Finland.

Opel was more than a provocateur or a footnote in queer history: he was deeply entrenched in the radical underground of 1970s San Francisco, moving between political activism, art, leather, performance, and the intense queer world. His murder came at a moment when he was increasingly challenging powerful people and institutions—and what happened next remains deeply troubling.

Someone—or ones—wanted Robert Opel dead. And the murderer? He escaped over three times. The first time, he was wearing street clothes and allegedly had money in his pocket. He was gone a month.

In this wild-ride series, we feature the voices of leather goddess and performer Camille O’Grady (she was in the next room when Opel was shot) and even the trigger man himself. Joins us as we name names and walk through the case that has stunned people for decades. Robert Opel did not have to die.

Topics: Political assassinations, police cover ups, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom of Finland, black magic, leather gods and goddesses, Harvey Milk, Dan White, injustice, justice, escaped murderers, flipping the queer world upside down, queer history, San Francisco underground, Oscar streaking, and MORE!