The Premise for "Buyer Beware" Was Largely Based on a Single Real-Life Case
I was checking the exported audio from the game files (thanks to Puterboy1), and I noticed the voice line for when Phelps tackles and arrests Edgar Kalou has "david_klor" in its file name. Searching "David Klor" online brings up a court decision "People v. Klor" which I wanna quote a few things from:
"The defendant was the proprietor of a jewelry store on West Fifth Street in Los Angeles located a short distance around the corner from a branch shoe shop. In the forenoon of June 12, 1946, a young lady employee of the shoe shop entered the jewelry store and began to look at watches. Shortly thereafter Kenneth Temple, the manager of the shoe shop, also came to the jewelry store and after a few words with the young lady left the store with her. <...> [Goldman] told the defendant that the young lady was on the point of buying a watch from him when he looked up and saw Temple and heard him say to her, "Is that the watch you are buying?"; that Temple began to examine the watch the young lady was interested in, compared it with his own, and "more or less threw it back" toward Goldman; <...> Goldman stated that <...> the defendant became very excited and secured a revolver from one of the showcases; <...> Temple then turned and ran out, proceeding down the street in the direction of the shoe shop. The defendant ran after him, firing four or five shots as he ran."
I don't think anyone discovered this yet. It's kinda cool to find out after all this time that the setting for the very first case is almost entirely ripped from real life :D Apparently it was a pretty important landmark case too