Daniel Joseph Lockin (July 13, 1943 – August 21, 1977)[1] was an American actor and dancer who appeared on stage, television, and film.

[2] His act co-starred Neal Reynolds, an African American boy with whom he would tap dance, tell jokes, pantomime, and do impressions of famous people.

Lockin had an early, and uncredited, role as one of Dainty June's farm boys in the 1962 film version of Gypsy.

[5] He appeared in the play Morning Sun in October 1963 with Patricia Neway and Bert Convy, but it closed after nine performances.

[2] Later that year, he was cast in a starring role in the musical Tom Sawyer, which played at the St. Louis Municipal Opera.

in the winter of 1965, and went across the United States on six traveling productions with several actresses playing Dolly Levi, including Betty Grable, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Dorothy Lamour and Anne Russell.

"[9] He also later expressed unhappiness with the way audiences reacted to Merman in the role of Dolly Levi, and how this changed the show.

[3] In 1967, he was cast in a minor role in the film The Graduate, but was contractually bound to continue in a regional production of Hello, Dolly!

He stayed with the tour until it ended; at which point, with his career in decline due to substance abuse issues, Lockin moved into his mother's apartment in Anaheim.

[14] He left the bar with a slight, 34-year-old unemployed medical clerk, Charles Leslie Hopkins (who already had a police record, and was on probation at the time).

Police found a book of pornographic pictures in Hopkins' apartment which showed men being tortured during sexual orgies.

[14] On August 8, the trial court judge held that the death penalty could not be applied to Hopkins due to lack of evidence of premeditation.

[15] Since the court was permitted to consider suppressed evidence if the evidence was not seized merely to obtain a lengthier prison sentence and it did not "shock the conscience of the court," the trial judge increased Hopkins' sentence from the usual three years to four years.