Berke Breathed helps police in murder investigation
The Associated Press reports that cartoonist Berkely Breathed is helping police in an unsolved 1979 murder of a young musician. Authorities believe the killer may have burglarized Breathed’s home when Breathed was a student at the University of Texas in Austin.
The cartoonist’s drawing of the burglary scene will be aired Saturday night on Fox’s America’s Most Wanted. "I had forgotten about it for many years," Breathed said Thursday in a telephone interview. "Once ‘America’s Most Wanted‘ called, I got angry about it all over again."
Cahill, 28, was shot to death April 13, 1979, when he confronted a burglar leaving his apartment with his guitar. The University of Texas dropout worked as a cook, but his main pursuit was a music career.
Driving up to his home with friends, he saw a man walking away with his guitar in its case. He jumped from the car, chased the man and was shot to death in his driveway. The killer escaped and was never identified.
Investigators believe the same person who shot Cahill had just broken into the apartment of a photographer in the same building.
Breathed, who now lives in Southern California, believes he surprised the intruder during the break-in at his Austin home about a week after the shooting. He said the burglar had stacked albums by his door, including Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
"The house was turned upside down, and it took a few minutes to understand what happened," he said.
Like similar break-ins at the time, the perpetrator seemed to be focused on a few selected items.
"He ended up killing a musician, and he was stealing music as well as photographs and photographic equipment," Breathed said. "There was this odd connection between the music and photographic community."
In 1982, Mike Gamble opened a comic book store in Willow Glen, California. Today, owned by Dan Shahin and renamed 
