Marvin Pentz Gay, Sr.

The Reverend Marvin Pentz Gay Sr. (October 1, 1914 – October 10, 1998) was an American minister of the House of God. He was the father of musician Marvin Gaye and gained notoriety after shooting and killing him on April 1, 1984 following an argument at their Los Angeles home. Gay was born on a farm on along Catnip Hill Pike in Jessamine County, Kentucky to George and Mamie Gay, and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. Gay had a difficult childhood, surviving his father's physical abuse towards him and his 12 siblings. Gay eventually entered ministry in his late teens, joining a Pentecostal church as a pastor in a church in Washington, D.C. where he and wife, Alberta Cooper from North Carolina, raised their family of four children: daughters...