was sam cooke murdered?

Question

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/celebrity/sam_cooke/index.html

if he had lived i wonder how many more great songs he would of made........

Answer 1

yes he was and supposedly by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel who claimed she shot him in self defense.

Answer 2

Yes, absolutely.

The talk was that his WIFE conspired to shoot him, I believe, not some other man. He was notorious as a womanizer (hey, music biz and was a very good-looking & smooth guy). His career was strong, surely... but, that doesn't mean that he'd have made many more "great songs" at all. Remember, the partying was huge back them, and he wouldn't have been part of the late-60's "British Invasion" that obscured MOTOWN at that, right? -- and while you can say that a contemporary like Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson had more hits a few years late (they didn't do much in comparison to their earlier work). More accurately, Sam Cooke was big when Johnny Mathis hit the scene, right? What has Mathis done to blow anyone away - since those first days/years? but sing his old songs over & over to the same audiences? it might have been the same, once Sam Cooke came through a decade or so of the change in music, self-indulgence and rediscovery of the 70's/80's had he lived.

Listen, we ALL would like to believe that talent would continue & expand with more years, and more time on this Earth -- but wouldn't we say the same thing, if George Lucas died (and you can't count ANY films passed maybe Star Wars I, II and III right?). I subscribe to the same fantasy and thinking -- with say, a Jimi Hendrix but a Jim Morrison might have turned into a Brian Wilson, for all we know through the 70's had he lived. Never can tell...

Answer 3

Most solo singer's careers didn't survive the Beatles era (Bobby Vinton was an exception) but Cooke was almost a year into that time, so I'm thinking yes he would have had more hits, at least until maybe 1967 when music wasn't so innocent anymore, then have a revival in the 1970s or '80s. Look at Chuck Berry (88 as of this writing) & Fats Domino (86) who are still going at it.

Answer 4

Yes, He was murdered by a landlady at a hotel where he was staying . I would love to know how Sam Cooke would stack up against todays artists. I would even like to see a show about Sam's talent and have record producers of today, Quincy Jones and Randy Jackson talk about their opinions of Sam's music versus the music of today. His voice was like no other, I think he would have stayed on top a long time, ala Ray Charles, another great voice!!! I really missed his music after he was killed and still listen to all his great recordings.

Answer 5

He was shot in a case of "alleged" self-defence. From what I've read it was definitely a case of murder, but the Police viewed it differently. I think he would have continued to create great music, he certainly had the talent for it. I love his version of "Summertime", it's beautiful. Poor, tragic guy.

Answer 6

YEP! Supposedly on walkway outside of a motel room wearing only a sportcoat. Sad end for a great singer.

Answer 7

He was killed by a motel employee. He had a lady in his room who ran out to get away from him. She went to the office and when Sam went in there after her, the employee shot him.

Answer 8

Yes.

Answer 9

the man and his music is still one of my most played,he was one of the greats thats for sure. you already know he was murdered so i wont tell you.(he was tho.)

Answer 10

The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record[1] states that Cooke was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me," before finally falling, mortally wounded.

According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing conflict and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.

A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.

Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.

Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Due to inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses, as well as other circumstantial evidence (e.g. cash Cooke was reportedly carrying that was never recovered, and the fact that Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke, and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him, rather than in order to escape an attempted rape.

Ultimately though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.[2]

However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events, but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder did in fact take place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder.