Text by Sarah Phelan
More details about the Mitchell family have emerged from the Guardian’s investigation of the events that led up to the July 12 murder of Danielle Keller than I had space for in my print story about the Mitchells.
So, I am posting them below, along with more details of an encounter I had with James Rafe Mitchell, who has been charged with Keller’s murder.
I’ve also included more details of a conversation I had with Rafe’s older sister Meta, at the O’Farrell Theater in October 2007, and another extract from a column that Meta Mitchell wrote, when she took over as general manager of the Mitchell’s strip club, two years ago.
And I’ve included more details about Mitchell matriarch Georgia Mae, who Cinema 7 paid $80,000 in 2007, even though she is 85, performs no services for the strip club, and lives in Lodi.
And extracts from testimony that Jim Mitchell Sr. and Meta Mitchell gave in 2007, during a class action suit that dancers brought against the club and that was eventually settled in 2008, after Mitchell Sr. died.