Murder on Music Row from The Tennessean

This is the second part of a two-part mini-season focusing on some of the issues raised in "Murder on Music Row Season 2: The Skull at the End of the Rainbow." In this episode we look at some of noteworthy murder cases investigated by Nashville detective E.J. Bernard, including the one that ended with him retiring in disgrace. 

This special two-part mini-season focuses on some of the issues raised in "Murder on Music Row Season 2: The Skull at the End of the Rainbow." We do a deep dive into the career of Nashville detective E.J. Bernard, who has been accused of coercing and beating a witness in the David "Skull" Schulman murder case. This is part one of "Good Cop, Bad Cop."

In this bonus episode you'll hear the latest development. We got a call from Jason Pence, the star witness who testified he saw a teenager kill David “Skull” Schulman.

How strong can the case be when the prosecutor says he thought his side was going to lose? In the murder of David "Skull" Schulman, the prosecution pinned the crime on a 17-year-old homeless drifter. Will the Tennessee Innocence Project get involved?

As the investigation into the murder of David "Skull" Schulman began to focus on one suspect, a Nashville detective flew to California to interview a teenager who had been arrested in San Francisco on drug charges. Could this be the guy they were looking for? The new suspect said he didn't do it, and there was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime scene.

All roads led to Lincoln, Nebraska. A detective made the trip to Nebraska to find a new witness to the David "Skull" Schulman murder. This person may have been inside the Rainbow Room when Skull was attacked. The problem was that the detective found the witness in a mental institution.

As the police investigation into the murder of David "Skull" Schulman stalled out, the lead investigator on the case ran into serious personal difficulty. A new investigator emerged, and he was a legendary Nashville detective. All of a sudden, witnesses came forward and took the case in a different direction.

Police found that David "Skull" Schulman had borrowed a lot of money from a Nashville music business icon. And the Rainbow Room was getting threatening calls about Skull repaying that money in the week before he was murdered.

Nashville police scrambled to catch a knife-wielding assailant. But they would quickly discover David "Skull" Schulman was killed by a blow to the skull. One of their early suspects was serial killer Paul Dennis Reid (The Fast Food Killer), who was already in custody at the time of Skull's murder. The investigators were baffled.

In the last moments of his life, David "Skull" Schulman opened the Rainbow Room like he had done every day for 50 years. He was wearing his Hee Haw overalls when he was brutally attacked. Police said robbery was the motive, but an examination of the evidence shows how much of a reach that was.