On this day in 1964, in response to a reported shooting,
officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were
dispatched to the Hacienda Motel, where they found
singer Sam Cooke lying dead on the office floor, shot
three times in the chest by the motel’s manager, Bertha
Franklin.

The authorities ruled Cooke’s death a case of justifiable
homicide, based on the testimony of Ms. Franklin, who
claimed that Cooke had threatened her life after attempting
to rape a young woman with whom he had earlier checked
in.

Even as the lurid details of the case were becoming common
knowledge, some 200,000 fans turned out in the streets of
Los Angeles and Chicago to mourn the passing of Sam
Cooke.

In the years since his death, the circumstances surrounding
Cooke’s shooting have been called into question by his family
and others. Though the truth of what happened on this day in
1964 remains uncertain, Sam Cooke’s place in the history of
popular music is anything but.

NEW YORK (AP) — George Joseph Kresge Jr., who was known
to generations of TV watchers as the mesmerizing entertainer
and mentalist The Amazing Kreskin, reportedly died from
complications of dementia at an assisted living facility in Wayne,
New Jersey.         

Kreskin (right) and Johnny Carson.

Michael Cole, who most famously portrayed Pete Cochran,
one of the three young undercover cops on ABC’s crime
drama Mod Squad (1968-1973), died on Tuesday at the 
Medical Center in Tarzana, California. No cause of death
has been revealed at this time.

Cole was the last surviving member of the original cast.

On its final approach to Madison, Wisconsin on December 10,
1967, the private plane carrying soul-music legend Otis Redding
would crash into the frigid waters of a small lake three miles
short of the runway, killing seven of the eight men aboard,
including Redding.

His megahit “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” would be released
in its “unfinished” form several weeks later. It would soon
become history’s first posthumous #1 hit and the biggest pop
hit of Redding’s career.

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group
that transformed popular music in the 1960s,was shot and
killed by an obsessed fan in New York City.

The 40-year-old artist was entering his Manhattan apartment 
building when Mark David Chapman shot him four times at
close range with a .38-caliber revolver.

Mark David Chapman (69).