When Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was shot dead on December 2, 1999, it was a tragedy that resonated throughout the world. But as time wears on, that tragedy has developed into a mystery for many observers, who see police misconduct and a cover-up where others see an open-and-shut case. NOTHING SO STRANGE follows the efforts of an organized group of these skeptics, who call themselves Citizens for Truth, as they launch an aggressive independent investigation of the Gates assassination and in the process confront the LAPD, a hostile mainstream press, and the group's own internal squabbles. With never-before-seen amateur footage of the Gates assassination, hypnotic 3D recreations of the various aspects of the crime, and almost unlimited access to the inner workings of Citizens for Truth, NOTHING SO STRANGE is ultimately both personal and political-an intimate portrait of average citizens on a search for the truth, as well as a revealing look at the last great crime of the 20th Century.

For Citizens for Truth, the mystery begins with the assassination itself. While there is no question that Bill Gates appeared at a charity event in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and was killed by two bullets fired from a rifle on the rooftop of the Park Plaza Hotel, the motive of the alleged assassin, a 24-year-old African American man named Alek Hidell, has never been determined. While Hidell's journals contain references to his concerns that a "class war" is brewing in the U.S., in the view of Citizens for Truth his writings amount to no more than the expression of frustrations shared by many African Americans. The lack of physical evidence linking Hidell to the crime - no fingerprints on the murder weapon, for example - and the seemingly rushed nature of the official District Attorney's office investigation also arouse the suspicion of the group. Because Hidell was killed in the hotel basement minutes after the assassination by a lone LAPD officer who says Hidell tried to shoot him, the public has never heard Hidell's side of the story. Given the long history of corruption and cover up by the LAPD (from its Wild West origins to the Rodney King beating, Mark Fuhrman and the Rampart scandal), Citizens for Truth makes it their mission to discover exactly what the real story behind the assassination might be.