RedHanded - Episode 301 - Tupac & Biggie: 'Ready to Die' - Part 2

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

In our second instalment, Hannah & Suruthi turn to Christopher George Latore Wallace – better known as the Notorious B.I.G. – and his side of the Biggie/Tupac saga. Lyrically gifted, privately educated and no stranger to a little crack dealing, Biggie became the face the East Coast rap scene in one of the genre's most volatile and dangerous eras. So what happened to Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls? As H&S find out, sometimes the simplest explanation is the most likely...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Sruti.

And welcome to episode 301 of Red Handed Ultimate Version. Ultimate Red Handed. Ultimate Red Handed. Extreme. Extreme to the max. Full fat, all of the others. Max power, Red Handed. So, obviously, if you did not listen last week, shame on you.

And if you've never listened before, you've probably stopped listening by now. Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow. If you have never listened before, you've probably stopped listening by now. Dishonour on you. Dishonour on your cow. If you have not listened to last week's episode, I'm not going to say this episode will make no sense, but it will make significantly less sense. Yeah. So I would advise you to go back to episode 300 for part one of our Biggie and Tupac series. But you're your own person, you know. Do what you want.

But are you? I mean, is free will real? I don't know. Who am I? Who are we? We don't have time to get into all that because we've got loads to talk about in the shape of Mr. Biggie Smalls. Mr. Biggie Smalls, indeed. Welcome to part two of our Biggie and Tupac series. And before we get going, let's recap briefly what we learned last week, because if we don't do that, you get annoyed. At the age of just 25, rap icon and sexual assault convict Tupac Shakur was gunned down by a Glock poking out of a white Cadillac

on the 7th of September 1996 after a Mike Tyson fight in Vegas. Tupac had kicked the shit out of a crip called Orlando Baby Lando or Baby Lane or just Lane Anderson. And Tupac did that because, as we all learned last week, Anderson had stolen a medallion and chain from Death Row Records associate Trayvon Lane in a footlocker near Long Beach. And it is generally agreed by most that in an act of retaliation,

Orlando Anderson would be the one to shoot Tupac Shakur from the window of a white Cadillac. How everyone, including us, came to that conclusion is what we're all going to find out together this week. But before we get to that bit, let's get better acquainted with our major player this week, the notorious B.I.G. Born Christopher Wallace in 1972, Biggie grew up in Brooklyn. His mum, Violetta, was the nicest, most hard-working woman you could ever meet. As a result of her hard work and migrant work ethic, Biggie spent his early years on the very brink of the middle class. He even went to private school.

Nobody talks about that bit. And he actually did well at that private school. And despite his later lyrics describing growing up with no food on the table in a one-room shack, Nobody talks about that bit. endured as a baby. Eventually, Biggie convinced his mum to let him transfer to a public high school that just so happened to have been attended by Jay-Z. After this transition, Biggie's education took a turn for the worse in his new school, and he dropped out. The Nick Broomfield documentary will tell you that Biggie never actually sold crack. All he did was work in a supermarket, bagging old people's shopping or whatever. I actually think that the Nick Broomfield documentary is the reason that people hate Nick Broomfield. Yeah.

It's so... We'll go on to discuss it a bit more, but basically everything that is presented to you in that documentary isn't true. Mm-hmm. And very easily provable. But because he gave it such airtime, it's the reason why a lot of people believe things that are just not true. I did when I watched it. Absolutely. Why would you not? Like if you watch a documentary, you assume that it is legitimate information and you can trust it.

Not always, as we have learned over six years of doing this podcast. So the people that Nick Broomfield could get hold of for this documentary said that all of the crack-slinging lyrics that Biggie threw out were all just for show. Violetta claims that her son was just an artist observer, poetically documenting life around him.

But the NYPD said her son's criminal record would beg to differ. Just like Christopher Wallace, hip-hop was born in Brooklyn. Biggie was surrounded by it his whole life. And the reality was he was just better at it than anyone else. He and his mates would often spit rhymes whilst on the corner in between selling crack cocaine that they kept in their socks.

Biggie's dad hasn't had a mention because he was never really in the picture. And when Biggie and his high school sweetheart Jan Jackson found out that they were expecting their own little bundle of joy, Biggie swore to provide for his child. Jan Jackson never really goes away. There's a couple of like interviews with her after he died when she was like, I was amazed when he married Faith Evans because I thought I was in for the long haul. So with his baby in mind and no high school diploma, Biggie Smalls kept selling crack. And when he was 17, he was arrested for it and did nine months in a North Carolina prison. You don't get nine months for

being an artist observer, I'm afraid. After he was freed, he went back to New York and kept experimenting with music. He joined the already existent Old Gold Brothers group and made solo moves of his own. And eventually, Biggie Smalls was featured in the unsigned talent column of Source magazine. And this was a huge deal. People got record deals out of that magazine. And that's exactly what happened to Biggie. That article is how Sean Combs, still at Uptown Records, was first acquainted with Biggie Smalls.

Combs knew he had struck gold and was determined to make Christopher Wallace a star. And that is exactly what he did when he left Uptown to start Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records. People use those interchangeably. I don't know which one. Both bad names. That's the main point. So Combs loved Biggie because he was unique. His look was super different to anything else around. He wasn't this sort of caricature. He was the real deal. And he had the criminal record to prove it.

Although I'm sure no one mentioned the whole private school bit. The reason Sean Combs gets so excited about Biggie is he looks menacing. And then he opens his mouth and you're like, oh my God, you're a genius. Do you know what I mean? Like he was just his own thing completely. And so, under the name Notorious B.I.G., Christopher Wallace was about to make a whole different type of record. He appeared on Mary J. Blige's single, Real Love, followed by his solo debut single, Party and Bullshit, in 1993. The next year, Biggie released his first album, Ready to Die.

Juicy and Big Papa were released as singles, neither of which Biggie particularly liked. But they propelled him to stardom. That is fascinating that he didn't like Juicy or Big Papa because I would say they are the two that took him into the stratosphere. I'm sorry to compare Biggie Smalls to Meghan Trainor, but she also says in an interview, she was like, I hated all about that bass. Yeah. And when my record label were like, no, that's the one, I was like, really?

That one? So yeah, it happens. It happens. So at the infamous Source Awards, where Suge called out Bad Boy Entertainment, Biggie won Best New Artist, Best Live Performer and Lyricist of the Year. He wasn't as big as Tupac yet, but he was certainly talented enough to be headed in exactly that direction. And naturally, the East vs West rivalry meant that the media, Suge Knight and Sean Combs all smelt blood and money at the same time.

Deadly combo. Let's make sure we're all on the same page. Let's recap Tupac's death quickly from a slightly different angle. After Tupac died, there were over 20 shootings in 10 days in south-central Los Angeles. The mob Piru had a war council and gave the green light to go after any Southside Crips. Many suspected that Combs and Bad Boy had an alliance with the Southside Crips, and we're going to go on to find out they were absolutely right. The official police investigation into the shooting of Tupac Shakur was pretty toothless.

The Las Vegas Police Department cited a lack of cooperation from all involved. But really, it's down to the same thing that happened to Tupac when he was in prison. Chico's vocal criticism of the police force didn't exactly endear him to any officers, not to mention him being the face of the East versus West Coast gang violence. And I do think it is the same thing. Like, they didn't investigate his first shooting because he was in prison. They're damn sure not going to do this one. He's dead. The media ran with a similar theme. Essentially, or the headlines said the same thing tupac had it coming he was born to die it was kind of like a well if you're going to live fast you'll die young and of course rumors swirled all over the country that biggie combs and bad boy entertainment and

the south side crips were behind the whole thing there were were, and still are, those who believe that the LAPD were actually behind the shooting and killing of Tupac. And they mainly believe this because of former LAPD detective Russell Poole, LAPD officer Kevin Hackey, and the publicity brought by Nick Broomfield. This is where the problems start. So Russell Poole was head of the original investigation into the death of Tupac. And he discovered that LAPD officer Kevin Hackey had visited the hospital after Tupac was shot

and pretended that he was an FBI agent investigating the shooting. He was escorted from the property. Police also found that Kevin Hackey had been moonlighting as a security guy for Death Row Records. Yeah. Kevin Hackey is in the Broomfield documentary, as is Russell Paul. Neither of them say fucking anything. But they are desperate for the airtime. Like, it's like even the police in LA are there because they want to be famous.

I think he was just trying to get in front of the camera. Like I really, I don't doubt that he was moonlighting. But yeah, I don't think anything significant about Kevin Hackey, to be honest. No, but it did add fuel to the fire that the LAPD were working with Suge Knight to kill Tupac. Now, over time, Russell Paul became more and more convinced that the LAPD were behind the death of Tupac. But like Hannah said, there's no concrete evidence of that being the case. There's kind of two camps, right, at this stage. There are the people on the street who are convinced the Southside Crips did it.

And then there's Russell Paul, everyone who watched the Nick Broomfield documentary, who say it's the LAPD. So those theories exist parallel to each other. They don't really cross over. It's confusing. And the problem with Russell Paul's theory is that he very much sort of confirmation biased his way all the way down the worst kind of rabbit hole imaginable. It's kind of embarrassing, honestly.

Yeah. And things got even worse for paul when he was taken off the case entirely which for him just proved that he was onto something yeah yeah he's just like corruption deceit and like yeah i'm sure yeah but like not convinced no and also we're gonna go on to find out what a fucking terrible job he did anyway. So the reason the LAPD theory rather than the Southside Crips theory was so popular in the conspiracy crevices of the universe was all of the airtime that Nick Broomfield gave Russell and his theory in his Biggie and Tupac documentary and also the book that Paul himself co-authored which was called Labyrinth but like L.A. Brinth.

Sure. Like capital L capital A Brinth. Sure. Like capital L, capital A Brinth. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But don't worry, my friends, we will be coming back to Paul to utterly crucify him later on and also talk about how all of his theories have been proven to be quite brutally unreliable. So stick an $18 million death row pin in that. We are not going to get ahead of ourselves. Before we go any further, we need to learn about the night of the Soul Train Awards in 1997

just six months after the death of Tupac Shakur he was 25 I think he looks so much older than that if you look at pictures of him that were taken at his oldest or having coffee with his auntie in Cuba yeah I would never ever have guessed

that he was 25. No, I know. But when you see the footage of him like shouting out of cars and spitting at paparazzi, I'm like, yeah, you're 25. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies

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Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So the awards themselves were fairly uneventful.

Bad Boy Records were there with their own security outfit, who most people believe, including me, to have been Southside Crips. Why would someone like Sean Combs employ gang members to be security? Well firstly it makes you look hard as shit and secondly if you hire police as security they're probably less likely to pick up drugs for you or bring girls backstage apparently but I think Kevin Hackey would have. So what happens is there's a confrontation between security and the Brothers of Islam backstage, who were also there that night. This falling out was quelled by Sean Combs fairly quickly, and then everyone went off to their respective after parties.

The place to be was the Vibe magazine after party at the Peterson Automotive Museum on Wilshire. Biggie was headed there. But before he did, he rang his mum. And she told him that she was worried. He was in LA, on enemy territory. But Biggie told her not to worry. He had the LAPD protecting him.

And besides, since Tupac died and Suge went to prison, Biggie was pretty sure that he was in the clear. And the whole east side, west side rivalry had really died down a bit. So he told his long-suffering mum that there was nothing to worry about. Of course, he couldn't have been more wrong. Having consoled his mum, Biggie headed to the Peterson Automotive Museum. Missy Elliott was there. Whitney Houston was there. And most of the MBA were there. And of course, Sean Combs was there. And Biggie tracks were being played on repeat. And thousands of other people were there too.

Way more than the building could handle. There was an enormous crowd outside the venue, who there was just no room for inside. And as loud crowds outside of parties often do, they were getting progressively more rowdy. So rowdy that the fire marshals for the venue called the LAPD to get the crowd under control. At midnight, the party was shut down due to overcrowding. Combs and Biggie were well ready to leave by then. But the venue and its exterior were so packed

it would take the two men about 45 minutes to get to their cars. At 12.05, a gunshot was heard on the corner of 8th and Orange Grove. Witnesses identified a man in a black Bronco to be the one who fired the shot. Later, though, it was discovered that the man in the black Bronco was in no way involved in the later events of the night. But he was a total idiot. This is unbelievable to me.

And I know we don't have a gun culture in this country, but this seems outrageous even for California. This man had dropped his gun and he picked it up and fired it to make sure it was still working. Was it Tupac? This is what would make me believe that Tupac was still alive. Fucking hell. So, moron maybe, but murderer not. Nevertheless, the tinfoil hat team still argue that this shot was intended to create a diversion from what was to come. Biggie's bodyguard, Eugene Deal, did notice someone looking menacing as they exited the venue. A black guy with a blue suit on,

who Deal would later say he was sure was a member of the Nation of Islam. The Bad Boy Entertainment crew left the party in three separate SUVs. Combs was in the first car, Biggie was in the second, and security followed behind in the third. Both Biggie and Combs were sat in the passenger seat of their respective cars. Biggie's car got cut off by a white SUV, separating him and Combs from their security. Then a Chevy Impala drove up to Biggie's car. The driver kept his left hand on the steering wheel and fired a semi-automatic pistol at Biggie Smalls several times. This took me a while to work out because obviously our steering wheels

are on the other side in this country. But if Biggie is in the passenger seat and the driver is driving parallel, they're window to window. Yep. So the Impala then made a quick right turn and disappeared into the night. For years, it was thought by basically everyone that this Chevy Impala was black.

Yeah, remember that. It comes back. Now Combs' car made a U-turn and went back to Biggie. As Combs opened the door, it was clear that his friend and biggest earner was unresponsive. Biggie had been shot four times and he was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA at 1.15am. Once his autopsy was released, it was revealed that the final shot was the fatal one. It went through his right hip, into his liver, his colon, left lung and heart. So at least Biggie went quickly.

I mean, that will do it. Yeah, that will do it. So Biggie's funeral was held on the 18th of March. Sean Combs gave the eulogy and Biggie's estranged wife faith evans sang a month after biggie's untimely death another of his albums was released by bad boy ironically entitled life after death yeah yep i mean considering his first album was called ready to die yeah i do believe that it was always going to be called life After Death, but it is. There's something about it. Yeah. And actually, very timely episode because, of course, we lost Tina Turner. Yeah, we lost Tina Turner yesterday. Yesterday. And I had to look it up, but yes, Biggie did sample

quite a few of her songs. Years after the Rodney King riots, the LAPD were about to endure an even greater corruption scandal. Loads of people believed that bent coppers had killed Biggie Smalls. And there's one theory that stands above the rest. They're talking specifically about Officer David Mack and his mate Amir Mohammed. And because of the narrative spun by Russell Poole, his associates and eventually the media, Biggie's heartbroken mum Violetta filed

a $300 million civil case against the LAPD. The $300 million was the estimated lifelong earning potential of her dead boy. The suit was filed nine years after Biggie died because, yet again, just like the Tupac shootings no charges were made. And almost a decade after Biggie

died, no one was any closer to answering the question who shot you? So now the LAPD really had a problem. If they didn't prove that they weren't behind the shooting of Biggie, they could have an enormous bill to pay. Naturally, the LAPD did not want to do that. Nobody, nope, nope, nope. So a new task force was created and a new man in charge was appointed, Detective Greg Kading. I am very conflicted about Greg Kading. I think he is an excellent policeman within the parameters that are allowed to him.

My problem is that those parameters are allowed at all. So this is not Detective Greg's first rodeo. He was a gang expert. He had worked on the major narcotics unit and had investigated over 200 cold homicides. It was difficult for anyone to argue that he wasn't the man for the job. So he began. And this is not a joke.

Operation Wrap It Up. Spelled R-A-P. Yeah, kill me. It up. I would like to die. Yeah. I would like to die. Yeah. I'm ready to die. I hate that.

So are the LAPD picking operation names based on what they're actually to do with? Because here, when we interviewed a detective many, many moons ago, and we asked him where like the Metropolitan Police or the UK police forces get their names for different operations, he was like, it's just an alphabetical order. You just get given a randomly generated word based on alphabetical order and that's the name of your operation. I just feel like it's some sergeant on desk duty who is like, I'm actually a stand-up comedian.

Do you know what I mean? Fuck it up. The first thing that Greg Kading did was get all of Paul's assets from his previous failed investigation. And there was a lot to get through. Kading and his team dug through 92 four-inch folders. It was a good start.

These folders had composite sketches, interviews, eyewitness accounts, vehicle descriptions. And because the LAPD really needed to get this done, the case was quickly federalised. So that meant Kading had the FBI and the DEA at his disposal. The LAPD clearly meant business. They want this over and they want it done quickly. As we said, there are two names at the centre of the Russell Poole investigation. David Mack and Amir Mohammed. Kading's first job was to find out if there was any merit at all to the claims

that these two men were behind the shooting of Biggie Smalls. No, they weren't. Short answer. So let's start with David Mack, an undercover narcotics LAPD cop who had a shrine to Tupac in his house. He also had a black Chevy Impala and the type of ammunition that was used to kill Biggie. In 1997, David Mack robbed a bank. And not like in some tiny way, in a massive way. He got away with over $700,000. So whilst he was being held in prison, Mack was visited by a friend of his who went by

the name Amir Mohammed. But that was his Mohammed Ali name. His given name was Harry Billups. Yeah, it's quite common for people to have Muslim names alongside their Christian names. So when Billups visited Matt, he wrote the name Amir Mohammed on the visitor form, along with a fake social security number. Paul claimed that Billups also wrote a fake telephone number and a fake address, but Kading soon found out that that wasn't true. There was no section on the visitor's form that asked for a phone number. So why would he have left a number at all, let alone a fake one? Yeah, this is classic Russell Paul. So when interviewed by police,

Harry Billups slash Amir Mohammed told the LAPD that he had put a false social security number on the form because he had no idea how many people had access to it and he didn't want to have his identity stolen. My question is, on a visitor's form, I would think it would be more normal to ask for a phone number than your social security number? Well, I guess they have to look you up to see how nefarious you are if you're in a prison. Oh, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But if he was lying about who he really was for clandestine reasons, then why would Billups have put his real birthday and real driving license number on the form? But in classic Russell Paul style, Detective Paul overlooked this detail. Yeah. I'm not saying that David Mack is a great guy.

Amir Mohammed just went to go and visit his mate in prison. Yeah. I'm just wondering if, does everybody in the US like know their social security number off by heart? Yeah. Oh, right. Because I was like, if I went to fill in, if I went to like go visit somebody and I didn't know I needed to know my national insurance number, which I definitely do not know off by heart, maybe I'd put everything else correct, but I just write something in so that I could

just get in. Yeah. I think social security numbers, I think everyone does just know them. Yeah. I think they're used for a lot more stuff than our national insurance numbers. I just like have a picture of my national insurance number. I think I know mine now. I definitely know. Or is it? Yeah classic Paul confirmation bias abounds and And once you realise, he's like, he's definitely Amir Mohamed because he wrote down all of this fake stuff. And once you realise that literally none of that is true,

it's so difficult to take anything Russell Paul says seriously. And he overlooked a bunch of other things as well. So let's run them down for you. He happened to overlook that the ammunition found in Mac's house that Paul claimed was really hard to find and therefore had to be the one used to kill Biggie Smalls actually wasn't very rare at all. Paul only focused on wholesale retailers. If he had bothered to bop down the supply chain a little bit, he would have found that there were

over 24 stores on the South Side that stocked these specific type of bullets. In fact, that particular ammunition was a South Central gang favourite. So how did they get to David Mack as a suspect in the first place? To answer that question, we need to pay a very quick visit to Michael Robinson, a police informant who also answers to the name Psycho Mike. Is he really nice and it's just ironic? Just such a reliable witness. Psycho Mike, unsurprisingly perhaps, was in prison when Biggie got shot. But he had ways of gathering information.

Or so he said. Psycho Mike did tell Russell Poole and his team that the man who shot Biggie Smalls was called Amir. Great, Poole thought. They had already connected bank robber bent copper David Mack to one Amir Mohammed. But what Poole doesn't tell you is that Psycho Mike also gave him six or seven other potential names for the killer. Not full names, literally just first names. They might as well call him Psychic Mike. Like, I just feel like... Mystic Mack.

Yeah, like that is how unreliable any of this information feels. Like, it just makes no sense. I'm even struggling, having read this script script having gone over this talk to you about it i'm still struggling to understand how paul even starts to go down this road it's literally just like oh he's got a shrine in his house he drives a black impala he's got a mate named amir who lied about his social security number bing bang boom psychic mike backs me up this is it he very early on becomes so convinced that it's an lapAPD cover up that he only looks at LAPD. Yeah, yeah. And because David Mack was LAPD and he was on the narcotics team, blah, blah, blah.

And he's got the shrine to Tupac. He's like, I will jam this square peg into this round hole. Sure, sure, sure. So equally, absolutely everybody in prison had a theory about who shot Biggie. Inmates were ringing in tips about Oprah being the mastermind behind it, or even dead Tupac pulling the trigger on himself, which I could actually, not on purpose, but did Tupac shoot himself by accident. But I think people were also saying Tupac shot Biggie.

Everyone had, like, police informants in prisons are important, right? They're a big part of a lot of investigations. This one, there's, oh, I know. I for sure know who did it. It's because there's too many alliances, too many, like, loyalties in this, where it's not just a straightforward killing of a person and who did it. It's like, there's corruption. It was the LAPD because they hated him. Tupac isn't actually dead and who did it. It's like there's corruption. It was the LAPD because they hated

him. Tupac isn't actually dead and he did it. It's completely driven by your lens of your reality and your loyalties in this situation. Now also, Psycho Mike said that Biggie had been shot with a machine gun and also had no idea where the shooting actually happened. So this is the man that they are going with as being like a solid informant on the case. Absolutely. Which, like, for reference, he was shot with a semi-automatic. He just said it was somewhere in LA. LA's quite large. Yeah. So it turned out that Psycho Mike had absolutely no contact with anyone who was actually there.

Which, even for Russell P paul yeah is such terrible policing yeah that's what i'm saying psychic mike it's just like somewhere in la with a machine gun and sure biggie's bodyguard eugene deal did pick amir muhammad out of a six-pack photo lineup as being the nation of islam guy that he had been eyeballing in the car park the night after the Soul Train Awards. Remember the black guy in the blue suit that he thought looked suspicious. But he did that in 2001

when Amir Mohammed slash Harry Billups' picture had already been printed in the LA Times twice by then. It's always fun for me when there's like a police lineup or a photo lineup and it's like that person's face has already been everywhere and you've already accused him of being involved. It doesn't work anymore. And after the shooting just happened, Eugene Deal identified a totally different person as being the man in the blue suit. Yeah, so he's presented these photo lineups essentially a decade apart. Yeah. And. After publicity. After publicity.

And the first one, he picked someone else entirely. And also the man in the blue suit. That's absolutely the fuck nothing to do with it. Still, Russell Paul claims that Mac robbed the bank to pay Amir Mohammed slash Harry Billups for taking Biggie out as revenge for the death of Tupac. And his reason for saying this is that Russell Paul wants to do this because he loved Tupac and hated Biggie. Yeah, that's the reason. That's the reason. Okay. We're not convinced

and you won't be either once you hear that Psycho Mike was sent to Harry Billups' house by the FBI and neither of them recognised each other. Can you imagine how awkward that would have been? Oh, my God. Harry Billups just opens his front door and is like, who the fuck are you?

And he's like, hello, I'm Psycho Mike. Yeah. Harry Billups actually called the police, which I don't fucking blame him for. A poor old Harry Billups, his life was almost totally ruined. In his own words, he was not a murderer, he was a mortgage broker. But the LA Times printed his face twice.

Fucking hell, he's just a mortgage broker who couldn't remember his social security number. I'm convinced that's what it is. And in the end, Psycho Mike recanted every single word of his testimony. So it all falls to pieces. Yeah. And sure, Mac did have a black Impala. But take a closer look at the witness statements from the night that Biggie died and they reveal that only people who were quite far away from the car said that it was black.

The closest people to the car said that it was actually dark green. And also, Impalas were one of the most popular cars at the time. Basically everyone had one. On top of that, Mac didn't drive his own car when he robbed the bank. Why would he drive it to murder somebody? Especially when that somebody is incredibly famous Biggie Smalls. So that pretty much winds up the whole David Mac and Amir Mohammed killed Biggie for death row revenge narrative.

But that didn't stop Greg Kading. He went in a new direction and ended up with top level Southside Crip, who we briefly met last week, who just so happened to be spending a lot of time with Sean Combs and who drove, pretty much like everybody else at the time, a Chevy Impala. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows,

uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And we already know that there had long been rumors that Combs was hiring the Crips for his security. It made sense Suge Knight was affiliated with the opposing gang, Mob Pyrrhu. Greg Kading and his team had suspected, like the rest of us for quite some time, that the

murders of Biggie and Tupac were connected. And he was about to be proved right. There was a rumour kicking about that Combs had paid $1 million for the assassination of Tupac and Suge Knight. And that Combs had never actually paid up. How true that was, was a job for Greg Kading. So he zoned in on the top-tier crip that we met last week called Keefy D. But he also knew that Keefy D would never willingly cooperate with law enforcement,

but Greg had an idea. Detective Greg had access to the resources of both the FBI and the DEA, and he was going to use that to his full advantage. Here's what happened. The DEA set up a fake drug deal. Keefy D was under the impression that he would be securing an enormous shipment of cocaine and PCP. Hideous. A friend of mine took PCP at a concert by accident. She didn't know.

All right, fuck it up. I'd be like, that's a choice. Yeah, no. I think it was like a Chili Peppers concert or something. She didn't know. Anyway. And she was like, I was in this field and this cartoon dog was swinging me around and I felt my feet leave the floor.

And then apparently like in the real world, she's just like on the floor like this like dead weight and like no one can pick her up. And then she was like, I still think that I hallucinate sounds. She was like, sometimes I'll hear a doorbell where there's no like possible way I could hear one. She's like, so yeah, don't recommend. No, thank you. Fuck it now. bell where there's no like possible way i could hear one she's like so yeah don't recommend no thank you fucking hell but if that's the worst thing that happened to her on pcp then that's probably all right fucking hell it's like jumping off buildings like kermit yes but this enormous

shipment of cocaine and pcp was a setup that greg cading was planning to use to milk kifi d for all he was worth which turned out to be quite a lot naturally Naturally, this wasn't Keefie's first run-in with the law, and the amounts of illicit substances he thought he was receiving would have meant life in prison. There were three strikes, and he was out of there. And because Keefie D liked to keep it in the family, a lot of his kin were implicated too, and Detective Kading made it very clear

that if Keefie didn't cooperate, then his life would be over, and so would the lives of his extended family. Going real North Korea on him. Yeah. So over a series of meetings Keefy agreed to cooperate in exchange for not going to prison for the rest of his life. Kading asked him what he knew about the assassination of Biggie Smalls, and Keefie D uttered the immortal phrase, that one wasn't us. Now obviously, Kading's response was, then what was? Now you've probably already guessed that Keefie D was essentially confessing to the murder of Tupac Shakur, ten years after the fact.

Kading was sure that if he could solve one hip-hopur, 10 years after the fact. Kading was sure that if he could solve one hip-hop homicide, he could solve the other. But put down your conspiracy and deception encyclopedia and fold up your tinfoil hats. Because by Jove, we think he's got it. Yeah, again, like last week, it's quite horrifyingly simple, to be honest. Keefy D was interviewed years earlier, just after Tupac died,

and he claimed that he had nothing to do with anything. But once presented with life in prison, Keefie told Kading that his original story was entirely bullshit. I think he says whole bullshit. Whole fat. Full fat. Full fat bullshit, yeah. What you're about to hear is what Keefie D said happened,

and it's probably the closest we will ever get to the truth. Keefie was introduced to Sean Combs through a man called Zip. Zip owned the Zip Code Club in New York. He was an original gangster and he knew everyone. In exchange for concert tickets, Keefie and his Southside Crips had offered Bad Boy Entertainment security services. Eugene Deal, Biggie's bodyguard, confirmed that he'd seen Keefie D and many of his associates at Bad Boy concerts and events. And long story short, Keefie alleged that Sean Combs offered him $1 million to kill Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight. And Keefie remembered being quite surprised by the amount. He told Kading that he would have done it for 50k and that there were plenty of hitmen who would have done it for 1500. Sean Combs is so extra.

A million dollars. And they're like, who would have done it for 1500. Sean Combs is so extra. A million dollars. I'd have done it for like 10. Yeah. I'd have done it for free concert tickets. Anyway, that was the offer. Now Keefy D needed his opportunity. The night of the Tyson fight, Keefy D just so happened to be in Vegas having dinner with bad news gangster and nightclub owner Zip. Whilst they were eating, Kifidi heard the news that Tupac had attacked his nephew Orlando Anderson. Baby Lando, Baby Lane, all eight. The two of them wasted no time. Zip handed Kifidi a Glock and Kifidi headed out to earn himself a million dollars. Everyone knew where Deathrow were headed after the Tyson fight. The mob Piru owned 662 had booked Tupac to perform there after

the fight. So Keefy D, his butthurt nephew Orlando Anderson and two other Southside Crips got into their rented white Cadillac and headed to 662. Tupac and Shook's location was given away by a group of overexcited young women shouting Tupac's name. The women followed Death Row's convoy and Keefie D pulled up right behind them. As Keefie and Anderson drew parallel with Tupac's car, Shook looked right into Keefie D's eyes. They had known each other all of their lives and Suge would later admit that he knew that Tupac Shooter was a Southside Crip. Yeah, like they've grown up together.

Like there's no way he wouldn't have recognised him. And I also do truly believe that Suge always knew who did it. Yeah. Oh, definitely. But again, it's just like, it's that thing, isn't it? Like even if you know,

are you going to cooperate with law enforcement? No, of course not. I'm Suge Knight. Yeah. And then you're going to be, you're going to be a snitch regardless of like even if you know are you going to cooperate with law enforcement no of course not on suge night yeah and then you're going to be you're going to be a snitch regardless of like the fact that they shot you and yeah right and snitches get hugs from the police but they get stabbed by everyone else so they're parallel with the car that has tupac and suge in it the glock was passed by kifi who's driving to one of the other men in the back of the Cadillac,

but he refused to shoot. So Orlando Anderson took the gun, leant across the car, out of the window, and opened fire on the SUV with Tupac and Suge inside. That is very much the actions of a man who's like, I'm just going to do this, and then we'll figure it out later. Yeah, I have very little doubt that this is not the first

time orlando anderson killed someone yes and i think obviously they leave the restaurant they go there it's very purposeful it's very premeditated because they're going and looking for suge and tupac but the fact that when they pull up they don't even know who's gonna fucking shoot him it does feel like he just like snaps and he's like, I'm going to do this. And then you got this right. We're going to clear this up later. I'm not going to go to prison, right? It just feels like I'm not making excuses for him.

He seems like a fucking crazy person. After the shots were fired, Keefie sped them away in the white Cadillac into the night. Tupac's security vehicle followed them, firing several shots before losing Keefie and Orlando for good. Again, this is even more proof that Shug wasn't in on it, because if that was true, why would his own security shoot down the assassin car that he had sent himself? After they lost the security car, Keefie D discarded the white Cadillac half a block from where Tupac's car had stopped. It was actually a higher car, and in one of the documentaries, not the Nick Broomfield one, a much better one, they were asking like why they were in a hire car. And it was like, well, they drove to Vegas for the fight in a hire car

because they knew they were going to get into some shit. They're not going to drive their own cars. So this hire car that was used for the shooting of Tupac Shakur is just like back in the fleet. Yeah, probably. Back in the fleet of rental cars yeah I think they even rented it over under like one of the guy's mum's name or something anyway so if you've ever gone to Vegas and rented yourself a white Cadillac you could have been in the car that definitely baby Orlando baby Lando whatever his fucking name is shot Tupac out of so they get

rid of the car they discard it half a block from where Tupac's car. So, they get rid of the car, they discard it half a block from where Tupac's car had stopped, so they don't really go that far at all. They'd just made themselves a million dollars, so they felt like celebrating. So Keefy, Orlando Anderson and their two pals got some booze and some weed and went to their hotel room to get fucked up.

Keefy D was seen in a white Cadillac in Compton the next day. And Orlando Anderson was busy bragging all overillac in Compton the next day. And Orlando Anderson was busy bragging all over town that he had killed Tupac. He was even briefly arrested but let go due to a lack of evidence. Months later, Anderson went on TV, God knows why, to protest his innocence. But even he can't keep a straight face through it. He is smirking in the most obvious way. I mean, the kid's probably only about 22, right?

But he looks like he's about to burst out laughing any second. So Kividi claimed that when the news of Tupac's shooting broke, he and Zip received a call from Combs in which he asked, was that us? When Kividi confirmed that it was, in fact, us, Sean Combs was very pleased. But according to Keefie, that million dollars that he had promised was never paid up. Combs and his people insisted that the money had been paid, it had just been pocketed by Zip. So Keefie D and Zip had a big falling out and didn't speak to each other for years.

Meanwhile, Marion Sugar Bear Knight. Oh, I also found out this week from watching Inside Number Nine what Ice-T's real name is. Oh, really? Guess. Dorothy. Tracy. I think I knew that, actually. Suge Knight is in prison. And in a rather bizarre move,

he paid Orlando Anderson $16,000 to testify on his behalf to basically say that Suge was helping him in the casino, not kicking him in the head. Anderson took this bribe and he did testify in Suge's favour. Keefy D wasn't happy about it and he called his nephew a sellout. But it didn't really matter. It didn't help Suge's case anyway and he stayed in prison. So that wraps up Tupac.

The Crips did it because Bad Boy paid them to. Well, like you said, Hannah, they said they would. Combs had Tupac killed because he wanted to get in there first. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.

Yeah, I mean, if you cast your mind back to last week, Tupac is making very open threats of murder. And I genuinely think Sean Combs was just like, I don't want to wait and find out and see if that's a joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, Sean Combs' dad was a kingpin.

Like, his dad was a gangster. Like, he has grown up in this world. Like, it's not like he doesn't know how it works. Yeah. So it follows if suge always knew that the crips were responsible then he would send one of his own after tupac's rival biggie smalls and like we said suge basically admits that he looked into the eyes of the person that did it and knew it was a south side crib and this time the most obvious solution probably is exactly what happened.

Sorry, Reddit. I know. Like, I really want, I wanted to believe. I, X-Files, want to believe. Yeah. But I just don't, I'm afraid. No, no. So now, Greg Kading turned his attention to the problem paying his bills.

Who killed Biggie Smalls? But luckily, Suge Knight would make this quite easy for Detective Kading and his team. Two months after Tupac died, Suge was in prison. And that was kind of the least of his worries. The FBI reopened a racketeering case against him, which revealed a whole cavern of corrupt treasures. Including a personalised Chevy Impala that was meant to be a gift for Tupac. The bonnet was emblazoned with the artwork

from Tupac's chart-topping album Tupocalypse Now, but obviously Shakur died before he could ever receive his gift. So that meant that this very personalised car, you're not really going to miss it, ended up at a body shop. Pre-prison Shug sent his people to locate it and eventually the unique vehicle was picked up by a woman who we are going to call Teresa Swan. That isn't her real name, it's the name that law enforcement used to protect her identity. Teresa is a significant ex of Suge Knight. They've got a kid together. And once the Rapid Up task force found out that Teresa Swan was still running errands for her baby daddy, Kading and his team tracked her down,

just like they'd done with Keefy D. And it turned out that Teresa Swan's rap sheet was just as long as your arm. Unsurprising for a loyal follower of Suge Knight. Teresa had been involved in a lot of fraud and car theft, particularly when it came to the bankruptcy of Suge Knight. What she would do is when he was in prison, she would pretend that she was on his legal team so she could have conversations with him in private that weren't recorded.

Smart. Well, not that smart. Sir Kading knew he could manipulate Teresa into talking, even dropping the dime on Suge, to use Kading's own words. So Kading met with Teresa Swan several times, usually in a Starbucks. And after the third meeting, he told her that they needed information about the killing of Biggie Smalls. Kading and his team had a hunch, via their network of informants and prison snitches, that the man who shot Biggie had been hired by Shug and that he went by the name Poochie.

Poochie had form for being a murderer and a Shug henchman. He had been implicated in the murder of a bounty hunter called William Ratcliffe, who had threatened Shug, and he had a solid reputation as a hired gun. I really enjoy that the murder of Biggie Smalls was solved in a Starbucks. Yeah. It just feels so like...

Horribly American. Dissonant. Yeah. So those close to death row noted that Poochie never hung out in a social setting. His relationship with Shug was private and all behind closed doors. Yeah, everyone's like, yeah, no, we knew him,

but he was never like invited to the parties. Like he really feels like a hired gun to doors. Yeah, everyone's like, yeah, no, we knew him, but he was never, like, invited to the parties. Like, he really feels like a hired gun to me. Yeah. So by this stage in their investigation, Kading and his team had a pretty good idea of how the murder of Biggie Smalls went down. They just needed proof. And Theresa Swan was going to give it to them.

What you're about to hear is not the most ethical thing in the world, but we are dealing with the LAPD here, let's remember. Here's what happened. Kading and his team crafted a falsified confession letter detailing how they thought things went down between Poochie Foose and Shug Knight when it came to the murder of Biggie Smalls, which is entrapment and illegal in this country.

The letter went something like this. And also exactly like this. So it's written as Poochie, right? In the winter of 1996 and the spring of 1997, I met with Knight on various occasions to discuss Knight's desire and intention to murder Christopher Biggie Smalls Wallace. I understood the motive for the murder was retaliation

for the murder of Tupac Shakur during the fall of 1996. Fake Poochie also listed Teresa Swan as one of his co-conspirators. Kading presented Teresa with this fake letter, dated the year after Biggie died, to make her think that Poochie had already given her up. And they even dated the letter the 1st of April 1998. April 4th. The LAPD assured Teresa that they could protect her from Suge.

How? Like, the fuck they could? And she knows that. Yeah. Anyway, she didn't really have a choice. It worked. In May 2009, Teresa Swan confessed that Suge offered Poochie 25 grand to kill Biggie Smalls, and that she herself made a cash payment to Poochie of 13,000, which presumably means that Teresa kept 12 grand for herself. So with this information ready to go, Greg Kading started to push through the paperwork to tap Suge Knight's phone. They also sent Keefie D back to New York to reignite a relationship with Zip to try and bring him down too. And then, just like that, Greg Kading was taken off the case. Kading was removed due to an administrative error on another

case, which he holds his hands up to. And a new detective on the Biggie case was never appointed. Why? Well, Kading had as good as proven that Tupac and Biggie were not killed by the LAPD. So really, they were off the hook. Also, the two men who had killed the hip-hop legends, well, they were both dead. Orlando Anderson was shot to death over a drug

debt in 1998, and Pucci was shot 10 times in the back in 2002 whilst on his motorbike. By the time Greg was even on the case, both of the gunmen had been dead for years. So what was the point in pursuing the case, really? And there are people who are like, well, of course they pinned it on two dead guys, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I just don't see it. And when a judge dismissed the enormous wrongful death suit of Biggie Smalls against the LAPD in 2010, the

LAPD really had no reason to keep pumping resources into the investigation. Not to be blunt, but everyone was dead, and no one had anything to gain. And that leaves us with coastal turf war survivor Suge Knight. Where is he now? Prison. He did five years for stomping Orlando Anderson. He was out for a bit and then he went back in after he killed someone with his car before a

meeting with Dr. Dre in Compton. He got 28 years for voluntary manslaughter in 2018. Nick Broomfield did manage to interview Suge in his Questionable documentary and he's in prison he's like in the prison yard doing this interview and he's the man is enormous like he's absolutely huge and he basically is like everyone makes mistakes like I want to help the kids like when I get out I'm gonna start like a fucking non-profit and teach children he really gives it the big I am about that for about five minutes but while he's um saying all of this stuff about how you know he wants to save the kids the children are the future let them lead the way i i do shouldn't i believe that but he also takes the time to call

out death row signee snoop dog calling him a rat yeah and it kind of comes out of nowhere, but he essentially says that Snoop has a lot of criminal charges, which is true. He's got murder, attempted murder, gun possession, drug possession, rape, sexual assault, just to name a few. I've linked it in the show notes

if you want to go and see all of the things that he has been accused of. Yes. But he's never, ever, ever had a conviction. So Shug tells Nick Broomfield that no one gets away with that much shit unless they're a rat. He might have a point. Maybe he does have a point.

But Shug had to declare bankruptcy and he lost Death Row. And do you know who bought it? Snoop Doggy Dog. It's almost poetic, isn't it? It is. Just, mwah. Yeah, so you could basically say that Snoop Dogg might. It's almost poetic, isn't it? It is. Just, mwah. Yeah, so you could basically say that Snoop Dogg might well be a rat.

Yeah, he's a rich one though. He's a rich one. But, you know, Suge might just have an axe to grind because he took, well, he bought Death Row Records. So there you have it. I really thought I was going to get more conspiratorial on this one, but I do genuinely think the Crip shot Tupac, the Blood shotgie yeah I mean it does make sense doesn't it I also thought it was going to get very conspiratorial I also thought it was going to end with with maybe knowing like that

the relevant gangs shot the relevant rappers but I kind of thought we wouldn't have a name to put to yeah it and who actually did it and how it specifically played out. But yeah, I think you have very, very clearly laid out the facts. And I agree. Thank you. I'm glad. There you have it. Biggie and Tupac.

Gang violence. Gang violence. Gang violence. So yeah, that's it, guys. We hope you enjoyed episode 300 and 301. Though, in reality, I was thinking about it the other day. I was like, we've actually probably done like 500 episodes when you take into account Under the Duvet's Patreon bonus, live streams, et cetera, et cetera.

And do you know what? Five bazillion episodes in, we're still loving it. So we hope you are too. And we will see you next time for some other things. And if you aren't loving it, keep it to yourself. Bye. too and we will see you next time for some other things and if you aren't loving it keep it to yourself bye so get this the ontario liberals elected bonnie crombie as their new leader bonnie who i just sent you a profile. Her first act as leader asking donors for a million bucks for her salary.

That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes.

She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

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