When Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death on a San Francisco street nearly two years ago, it was initially assumed to be a robbery gone wrong and reignited an already growing fury over increased violence in the city.
But the assailant wanted nothing to do with Lee’s money, leaving behind the tech titan’s watch and wallet after stabbing him to death. Instead, as the district attorney’s office alleged, it was a murder of one tech professional by another, motivated by passion.
San Francisco Police Sergeant Brent Dittmer, who was the lead detective on the case, says he knew this early on.
“There was a lot of talk that this was random homeless violence in San Francisco – could that have happened? Maybe. But it very quickly appeared that was not the case,” Dittmer tells NBC Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz, in a clip shared with The Independent. The detective pointed out that Lee had still had his watch and wallet when he was found, in the episode “Under the Bay Bridge” airing Friday evening.
Theories circulated online about a possible mugging, but even though Dittmer and his team believed it was something more, they chose to not to publicly dispute the theories.
“If that’s the story people are gonna run with, that is an advantage for us because the people who are responsible, we don’t want to know what we know.” he said “Let everybody think that this is whatever’s on Twitter at that time. We’ll work on what actually happened.”
The two-hour episode on Friday features exclusive interviews with Lee’s family and friends, as well as colleagues from the tech industry, dramatic surveillance video footage an in-depth look at the timeline leading up to his death, and the investigation that led to an arrest and conviction.
Lee’s former wife, Krista, also speaks to Dateline, revealing the emotional aftermath his family has endured as she insists he would have never have put himself in such a dangerous situation – which made his murder even more puzzling.
“The main people were saying that ‘he must have gotten mugged,’” she said about Lee who was allegedly walking back to his hotel late that night when the attack happened.
Krista said she never believed the robbery theory because Lee never walked anywhere.
“He would’ve Ubered. Especially at that time,” she said. “And had Bob been approached by someone that was trying to mug him, he would’ve given him, them, the shirt off his back, his wallet, his keys, his clothes. He would’ve said, ‘Hey, man, let me buy you a meal. Please don’t hurt me.’”
The 43-year-old beloved tech mogul was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help after being stabbed in the early hours of April 4, 2023. He was rushed to a hospital but died of his injuries.
Lee’s violent death sent shock waves through the tech world and drew national attention. A well-known figure in the tech community, yet there was no clear reason why someone would want to harm him.
At one point, his death inflamed debate over public safety in San Francisco as X owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that “violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.”
