Eraserhead - Original Soundtrack
Peter Ivers scored the 1977
David Lynch film
Eraserhead, and also contributed both songwriting and vocals to the piece "
In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)".
[6] Later in his career, he wrote songs that were recorded by
Diana Ross and
The Pointer Sisters.
[4] Ivers was murdered in 1983 under mysterious circumstances, and the crime remains unsolved. Following the publication of a 2008 biography on Ivers, the
LAPD re-opened the investigation into his death.
Death and investigation
On March 3, 1983, Peter Ivers was found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in his Los Angeles loft space apartment. The murderer was never identified.
[2]
In the hours following his death, the LAPD officers sent to Ivers' house failed to secure the scene, allowing many of Ivers' friends and acquaintances to traffic through the loft space. The scene was contaminated, and officers even allowed David Jove to leave with the blood-stained blankets from Ivers' bed.
[10] Harold Ramis was briefly considered a suspect in the murder (due to Ivers' close relationship with Harold's wife Ann), but was quickly cleared after he was able to establish an alibi.
Several of Ivers friends told biographer Josh Frank that they suspected David Jove, with whom the musician had a sometimes-contentious relationship. Harold Ramis noted, "As I grew to know David a little better, it just accumulated, all the clues and evidence just made me think he was capable of anything. I couldn't say with certainty that he'd done anything, but of all the people I knew, he was the one person I couldn't rule out."
[11] However,
Derf Scratch (of the band
Fear) and several other members of the Los Angeles punk and New Wave scene have maintained Jove's innocence.
[12]
About five weeks after the murder, Lucy Fisher paid for a private investigator named David Charbonneau to focus on the crime. Charbonneau interviewed a number people who knew Ivers, but due to the botched initial investigation, lack of evidence and lack of witnesses, the case eventually stalled out. Charbonneau stated: "I do not believe it was a break-in. I do not believe it was just someone off the street that Peter brought in because he was a nice guy that night and fell asleep trusting them. I'm not buying it."