Episode 391： Tupac & Biggie’s Murder Solved By Greg Kading
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Summary
On this episode of Valuetainment, I sit down with Detective Greg Kading, who is the lead detective on the case of the murder of Tupac Shakur, who was shot to death in the early morning hours of February 1st, 1996.
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start.
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Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above.
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Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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Today I'm sitting down with Greg Kading, who is the detective from LA trying to solve the Biggie homicide,
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who killed Biggie that led to him finding out who killed Tupac. And all I can tell you is if you
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remember the nineties, West coast, East coast, hip hop rap, the rivalry that was going on,
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you're going to be very interested in today's sit down. Greg, thanks for making the time for
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coming out. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. So, so before getting this, you had already done
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200 cases, give or take. Yeah. Throughout my career, I was already, you know, a senior detective
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at the time that I got this case, but I had come through narcotics and homicide and had a really
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deep background in gang investigation. So it just seemed like a natural fit to, to take on this
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case. Now, was this something that you went after? Or was it something that was just given to you
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out of nowhere? It was given to me out of nowhere. Really? I was working major narcotics and I got
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a phone call one day from a detective at robbery homicide division who was overseeing the new
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resurrected Christopher Wallace, Biggie Smalls murder, which was being re-examined due to a
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lawsuit that was being waged against the city of Los Angeles, wherein allegations had been made from
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the Wallace estate that LAPD officers were complicit in the murder. Complicit in the murder. And is that
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kind of what attracted you to it? Or you already kind of knew this was taking place? I had some
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knowledge of the case, but very limited, really just superficial knowledge of the case. I was
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attracted to it just by the challenge of it all. I enjoyed things that had to do with gangs. I enjoyed
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things that had to do with narcotics. And of course, this is a high profile murder, wherein both of those
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worlds were going to be visited. So all of those things kind of attracted me to it. And I knew the
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department wanted to get to the bottom of it. Now, before even getting into it, what is the itch?
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Why do you want to be a detective? Like, what is the inspiration behind, you know, I want to go find
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out more. I want to dig up more. Where does that come from? Have you always been like that?
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Yeah, I've always enjoyed puzzles. And that's what homicide, any investigation is. It's about,
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you know, finding pieces of evidence and trying to fit them all together to get a comprehensive
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picture of something. And so there's a challenge involved. And it's a lot of fun, you know, being a
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detective. And especially in a city like Los Angeles, it can be a lot of fun. It can be
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really challenging. But when you have a good partner and you got a team around you, it's
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all worthwhile. Did you listen to hip-hop back then or no? Were you a hip-hop guy or?
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No, no. I have to admit I wasn't. I'm kind of a classic rock guy. I came up on, you know,
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Bob Seger and Aerosmith and that type of stuff. Slightly different music. Slightly different music.
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And, you know, and again, back in the mid-90s, of course, there was kind of an adversarial
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relationship between law enforcement and the gangster rap community. You know, songs from MWA
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like F the Police and that were coming out. And so, you know, there was just these two different
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worlds that were kind of frowning upon each other. Did you personally see them as the enemy
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yourself? Was it kind of like, I want to put a stop to this and I'm willing to contribute? Was that
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kind of your mindset or I'm just going to go do my job? Well, the gangs, you know, we perceived as
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being, you know, they're a detriment to their community. And so that's what it is. You're
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trying to protect the people in those communities that are trying to just get through their lives
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with pursuing, you know, their own agendas. And then these gangs, they wreak all kinds of havoc
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in the communities. So somebody has to be there to try to curb that. And that's us. That's law
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enforcement. Did you have a personal incident that happened to you with a gang member
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or anything that even created more fire in your belly or not really? You've never had
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an issue yourself. Well, there were certainly gang members who I despised, you know, guys
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that were out there, you know, committing murders and robbing houses and raping women and that
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type of thing. But with that being said, I developed really good relationships with certain gang
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members and we became friends. And even guys that I'd sent to prison for years, I'd stay
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in touch with. And once they got out, I formed friendships with them. So everything really
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is taken on an individual basis. But, you know, you have to judge the behavior at certain
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times. The only reason I ask is because I can only imagine if you put 97 four inch binders
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on this table, I mean, there's a high likelihood one of them is going to fall off, right? To
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want to do that and pursue it, you can obviously say no to it, right? You can say, no, I don't
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want to do this. I want to pass it to somebody else. Do you have the ability to do that? Or is
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it, Kading, this is yours, you got to take it, go get the job done? I could have declined
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it, you know, because they did. They wanted somebody who would be interested and motivated
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to do the work. And so they didn't want to have somebody that the work was forced on.
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It just doesn't, it doesn't amount to a good objective, proactive approach. So I liked it
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because I have a certain kind of obsessive compulsive personality. And if you put something
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like that in front of me, you know, the challenge is and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to
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do my darndest to figure it out. So. And you need the right personality for this
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because, because this is like I was telling you earlier, you know, so I'm like, okay,
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I'm going to sit with Greg. Great. We've done a lot of different interviews on the channel.
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We've never gotten into the hip hop side. And you know, my interest with Tupac. I said,
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okay, great. Let me, let me want to pursue this. But the more and more you read and the more
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and more you investigate, it's a never ending story with this, with the, all the conspiracies,
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17 conspiracies that could be right five over here. Here's a person on this side. It was this
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guy was that guy. So when it was first given to you, what was your first approach when you got it?
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Did you say, let me go through all this material first then, or did you say, I don't want to look
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at any of this stuff. Let me do my own investigation and I'll come to it. No, we had to review all the
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information that was available at the time. All of those binders, we had to go through with a fine
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tooth comb and start piecing things together and develop the most viable theories. Because
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there are, there were some, you know, there was just some ridiculous allegations and theories
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out there that, you know, we, we had to listen to, but we couldn't really take seriously just
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based on, on face value. But putting together all the information contained in those binders
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did lead us to the most viable and practical of the theories and decided that those would be
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the ones that we'd spend our time and energy trying to prove or disprove.
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Got it. So, so you're, you're getting it. You're looking at, you're reading all the material
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yourself. Russell Poole himself had come up to a conclusion, right? And he, he was going
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in a direction where he felt it was, you know, who he thought had handled the business for
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Biggie or Tupac. First of all, what was that to the audience, assuming they know nothing
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and they've not seen the documentary or read your book? And secondly, what direction did
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So Russell Poole, he developed a loose theory based on some strong circumstantial evidence
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that there were some police officers moonlighting for death row records and some LAPD officers
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that may or may not be associated with Suge Knight. And through kind of a series of random circumstances,
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put together this theory that these cops were involved. And the cops that he ultimately identified
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was a notoriously bad cop from the LAPD, a disgraced cop named David Mack, who after the murders
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of Biggie Smalls had robbed a bank. And you know, there was some indication that who he
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was associated or with, with gangs down in Compton. So all of these things led Russell Poole down this
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road where he started to fit information together to serve that theory's purpose. And we took it as a
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serious theory. There was, as I said, really good circumstantial information to believe that this
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could be true. And so we pursued that as a viable option while keeping in mind that it may not be
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true also. And so it was kind of through a process of elimination that we'd take a theory. If we could
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disprove it, then we knew we could set it aside and move on to the next theory.
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Got it. Greg, do you mind if we go to the other room on the board? I have pictures of everybody and
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I kind of want you to walk us through the connection of everybody with each other where, you know, when
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you're investigating, I would picture like, you know, some of these movies that they're doing
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investigation. They got all the characters up and you kind of are trying to figure out how you got
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to the bottom of who killed them. Yeah. You mind if we do that? That'll be fine. Let's go to the other
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one. Yeah. So Greg, I want to take a different angle with this because I think this gives the
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audience a better visual to kind of see how everybody's connected to each other. So if you can
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kind of walk us through what we know here is obviously it started with Biggie, the investigation,
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Tupac kind of came in. And then I have Eazy-E here. I have P. Diddy and Suge Knight and a lot of
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different characters, even Johnny Cochran and Russell Poole. If you can kind of walk us through
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some of the connections here, that'll probably be most helpful. Great. Yeah. And this is very helpful
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for me also during the investigation. This is exactly what we did, put together a big flow chart so we
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could put faces to names and start making connections. So this is the way to present the case. So I appreciate that.
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Of course, you've got Biggie and Tupac. There are victims killed in 1996, killed in 1997. Over here,
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you have Russell Poole, who was the primary investigation back in 1997 assigned to investigate
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Biggie's murder. And so, of course, we know that Biggie was with P. Diddy at Bad Boy Records and Tupac at
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the time in 96 was under the death row with Suge Knight at the helm. So these are all just some of the
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ancillary characters. These guys aren't really related insofar as the murder investigation is
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concerned. But of course, we know Eazy-E and Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre from the founding days of death
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row. You know, Eazy-E coming out of NWA and Dre. And then, of course, Snoop Dogg joins forces and they
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all become... How much do you buy into the conspiracy about the AIDS where Suge Knight said what he said on
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Jimmy Kimmel? Or you've never investigated to find out the validity of it anyways?
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We didn't take a deep dive into it. I don't believe it. I don't believe that he, you know,
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injected him with a needle full of... Even though he said it on Kimmel?
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Right. Well, Suge Knight said a lot of things, most of which are untrue. So it's just his nature
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to throw out, you know, all kinds of nonsense. You know, he said Tupac's alive. He said that Diddy killed
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him? He said, you know, he said a million different things. He'd make a good politician today.
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There you go. Perhaps when he gets out of prison, he'll become one.
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So walk us through the rest. Okay. So, you know, back in 96,
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Tupac Shakur, as we know, was in Las Vegas, Nevada, watching a Mike Tyson fight.
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He's along with Suge Knight and this big entourage of people with death row records. They're at the MGM.
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After the fight, Tupac gets into a fist fight with a gang member from Compton named Orlando Anderson.
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His street name was Baby Lane. After this fist fight takes place, security gets there. They break
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it up. Everybody goes their own way. And Tupac Shakur later on that evening are on the way over to
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Suge's nightclub. Do you mind highlighting this? And I don't mean to interrupt you. Orlando,
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they got into a fight because of Trayvon claimed that he took the death row medallion. And at that
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time he was given $10,000 for every medallion that they took. Apparently it was the case, right? Or
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all of that's true, except the thing about him offering up any kind of bounty for those medallions
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has always just been kind of street rumor legend. It's never been validated or verified,
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but there was a rumor on the street that there was an offer of $10,000
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to get one of these death row medallions, which Tupac had and many of the other people that death
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row possessed. So they're heading over to Suge Knight's club. This is after the Tyson fight.
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Suge Knight has got this club in Las Vegas called the 662. It's a new enterprise for him. He's trying
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to secure a gambling license and a liquor license. So it's a really big night. It's an important night.
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He's got Tupac alongside of him in a, in a BMW. Tupac's supposed to perform at the, at the club
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that night. Mike Tyson's supposed to make an appearance. So it's a big deal. While they're
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in route there, a white Cadillac pulls up alongside of them. Somebody leans out of the back window and
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opens fire, hits Tupac multiple times, and he ultimately dies six days later in the hospital.
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So the murder investigation out in Las Vegas begins immediately and they begin to question people,
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including Reggie Wright, who was the head of security at death row. They try to question
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Suge. He's not cooperative. Many other people within that entourage get questioned, but the
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cops don't really make any real headway because people aren't, aren't cooperating.
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So as a result of that fight that took place between Tupac and baby Lane,
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Suge Knight gets himself involved in that melee and gets sent back to prison on a probation violation.
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So six months later, when Biggie is shot, Suge Knight is in prison arms. He's in, uh,
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the LA County jail facing these probation violations. Biggie comes back to LA in 1997. He's with
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Diddy and his cousin, Little Cease and the rest of the bad boy entourage. They attend a party at the
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Peterson Auto Museum on March 7th of 1997. And as they're leaving, the fire marshal is closed to the
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party down for overcrowding. As they're leaving, Diddy and his bodyguard, they're in a, uh, suburban
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leaving the location. Following them is Biggie Smalls, his cousin, and several other members of the
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entourage in a dark SS Impala pulls up alongside, very similar to what had taken place in Vegas six
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months earlier. An assailant reaches out the window, shoots Biggie several times, and he dies on the
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way to the hospital. So now the 1997 Biggie Smalls investigation is unfolding. Um, and it's assigned
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to this guy, Russell Poole, who is an LAPD robbery homicide detective. Got it. And, and, and a part of this,
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when the shooting happened here and he went to jail, did, didn't he make, uh, an offer to him
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for $16,000 to say that he wasn't hitting him. He was trying to help him. Did that actually take place?
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It did. Uh, there is some question as whether it was $16,000 or $60,000. We've gotten different
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versions of that story, but we know he did go to testify in his hearing and favorably trying to say,
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yeah, uh, Suge was not kicking me. He was actually trying to stop the fight and he shouldn't be,
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you know, violated for his probation. The judge doesn't buy it. He can see that Orlando's lying
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through his teeth and, uh, Suge ultimately gets sent back to prison for eight years.
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So it didn't help at all. Didn't help at all. All it did was expose him as a, uh, as a perjurer.
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Got it. Okay. Let's, so from here at this point, we have both west coast, east coast top rappers
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have been shot and killed, have been shot and killed. He died six days later. He died, you know,
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on the way to the hospital. There's a recording apparently on, you can hear the recording, uh,
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on the driver. It's like, I'm trying to find the hospital. What do I find the hospital? And then
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he dies on the way there. Right. So what happens next? So after, uh, he's DOA, uh, the murder
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investigation begins to unfold. They secure the crime scene back at the Peterson Auto Museum.
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And as I said, um, shortly thereafter, Russell Poole becomes one of the primary
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investigators, uh, to, to, to look into the matter. And he begins to figure out that there has been this
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ongoing rivalry between these two camps. It's been going on for years. There's already been
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violence between the two camps and we're seeing that there's this hostile animosity going on,
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not only between Biggie and Tupac, but between Diddy and Suge Knight and then their respective crews.
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So there's like these different levels of the conflict that are going on. So he begins to develop,
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uh, you know, a theory that, uh, all of this is probably due to some type of interaction among all of
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these, these people. And then an unexpected thing takes place while he's investigating that he hears
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and responds to a shooting that takes place between two LAPD officers. This guy, Frank Liga,
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who was working undercover narcotics at the time and an off duty officer named Kevin Gaines. These two
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guys get into a road rage incident. They both pull guns on each other. Frank Liga shoots and kills Kevin
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Gaines. And during the investigation of that shooting, he finds out that Kevin Gaines is driving
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a vehicle that's registered to Suge Knight's wife. And during the, um, follow-up of that investigation
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finds out that Sharitha Knight, his wife was actually dating this guy and had been for some time,
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an LAPD officer. So for him, it raises the question, why is an LAPD officer dating the wife of a known
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criminal and a guy who's got a reputation in Los Angeles that precedes him for violence and that
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type of thing? Now at this time, does he know that that's taking place or no, it's not public info?
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Uh, Suge is aware of the fact that this incident takes place. He's aware of the fact that they've
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determined that, uh, his wife has loaned her vehicle to this police officer. Did he know it pre the
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event or he learned afterwards? He knew it before. He was aware that his wife, yeah. So they were kind of
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separated on the outs, yeah. So, uh, Johnny Cochran ultimately defends the lawsuit that's, uh, lodged
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against the police department representing Kevin Gaines. It doesn't really go anywhere. Um, but,
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you know, Johnny Cochran is of course a infamous LA lawyer. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So during, during,
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by the way, his credibility, does he have a strong credibility of who he was with his past?
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At the time, you know, Russell Poole was known as a really diligent, um, hardworking, uh, respected
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detective. Had he worked on something this big before a case this level? Just some ancillary
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involvement. You know, when, uh, Cosby's kid was killed in Los Angeles, he'd worked hundreds of
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gang homicides and gang investigations. So he's got experience. This doesn't sound like that he knows
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what he's doing. He knew what he's doing. Okay. And I remember when this, when this took place,
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both of these events took place, P Diddy, Puffy and Snoop got on and they interviewed and they said,
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we got to bring it together. And it was a way of them trying to bring peace. Let's bring West Coast,
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East Coast together. You could tell there was fear in both of them, because if this continues,
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he's probably next. There's a lot of other people that are going to be next. So they're trying to bring
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peace. Yeah. Well, particularly Snoop Dogg, you know, I think he was in the middle of it. Dre didn't
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really want anything to do with all the violence and nonsense going on around death row, which is why he
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wasn't like that since they won with Dre. He just wanted to produce and do his thing and make,
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make great music. So he wasn't about all this drama that was going on. Snoop also, he just wanted to,
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you know, he wanted to do the same thing for all intent and purposes, make music. He wanted to be
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able to go to New York and, you know, do things out in New York and promote his music out there.
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But this conflict going on between them was making all of that very difficult.
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Did you watch that when that interview took place, when they're trying to bring peace?
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Like, do you, do you, when you're investigating, do you look at those types of things or not at all?
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Oh, of course we do. Like, you know, hey, we're really not trying to hurt anybody. Nothing really
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happened. Or does that actually bring more attention to say, why is he getting on there saying something
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like this now? Does it put more of a target on him for saying that or no? Personally, I think he
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would have preferred there be a truce, a piece. Pre, pre both of these events or post?
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Uh, prior. Okay. And after both, because I think he wasn't, he knew how dangerous this
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was over here. You know, he's a New Yorker. He's not a gangster by nature. He's just a guy who
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wants to make music and, and be an entrepreneur and, and, you know, not have to deal with all of the
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crap that was going on around Suge Knight. When it got really bad was when they were in Atlanta,
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and then both of these guys and their entourages were at a nightclub. And they got into a little
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squabble over some girls on the dance floor. And, you know, one thing led to a pushing match. And
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then of course security tells them to all go outside. And then his bodyguard pulls a gun and
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shoots and kills his bodyguard. So now there's blood on the ground. He holds him responsible for
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the death of his friend. And the conflict is really bad. This all takes place long before these
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guys get killed. How much long, how much before? So that shooting in, uh, 90, that was in 95.
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So two weeks. In Atlanta. Okay. So a year before. So a year before this. And of course, even before
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that, 94, he gets assaulted at the Quad Studios in New York and believes that both Puffy and Diddy,
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at least for a little while initially, he thought that Puffy and Diddy had set him up and they were
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responsible for that. What do you think? For that robbery. I don't think so whatsoever. And I think he
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came to learn that it wasn't these guys in here amongst these guys. Is it fair to say that these
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three were not gangsters? He was the only one. Correct. Definitely not these guys. You know,
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he was a drug dealer, just a street corner guy. Um, you know, of course Diddy was coming up in the
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music business and kept his nose clean for all intent and purposes. Uh, Shug was definitely from
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the neighborhood. He wanted that whole gang atmosphere and reputation to be what death row was.
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And Tupac ended up kind of becoming an affiliate of, of the gang that Suge Knight represented,
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which was the Mob Pirus. He was not a gang member in any way, shape or form, but he certainly was
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associating with them and claiming them, um, because he was looking for protection, not only protection,
00:22:26.760
but a sense of, you know, for lack of brotherhood and belonging. Which is most of them though,
00:22:32.280
right? Most of us, if you get into a gang, you're missing something. There's not a father figure.
00:22:36.520
There's not a French brother you have. So you kind of want to get into something. But, but based on
00:22:41.000
what I read is Tupac had a lot of different personalities. One day he's the entertainer,
00:22:45.560
one day we're taking over the world. One day it's a philosopher, one day it's the gangster. So you
00:22:49.080
didn't know who really showed up. So, you know, even him not necessarily taking claims of one certain
00:22:53.720
city, whether it's Baltimore, New York, LA, what are you really representing? Right? Yeah. But he was
00:22:58.920
man of the people, yet not really affiliated to any gang. So background wise, would you say he
00:23:05.320
wasn't like an OG, OG gangster compared to him? Oh, no, no, no, none, none whatsoever. You know,
00:23:10.680
he, he was a complicated guy, but, uh, you know, he, he certainly wasn't, you know, a gang member. Okay.
00:23:16.760
We call him an affiliate just by this, you know, just by nature of the fact that he's affiliating or
00:23:22.120
you don't call him a gangster or gang members. Not at all. Got it. Not at all. But we do have to
00:23:27.000
remember that he was at odds with these guys. When he was in jail, Suge was the one that came
00:23:32.200
out there and rescued him, got the bail money up, brought him to Los Angeles, allowed him to make
00:23:37.960
some, you know, phenomenal music. And so he saw in Suge a big brother or possibly father figure or mentor.
00:23:46.520
And then of course, Suge Knight's entourage embraced Tupac and he saw with them a sense of belonging.
00:23:53.400
Got it. Okay. So what happens next? So what happens next after this happens, uh, Russell Poole,
00:24:01.400
then becomes after the shooting in this whole, the aftermath of this cop on cop shooting, another
00:24:07.400
incident takes place in Los Angeles where a corrupt cop, a rogue cop named David Mack, robs a bank in
00:24:15.480
Los Angeles, a bank of America and, uh, runs away, runs out of there with like $722,000.
00:24:23.320
Investigators quickly figure out who he, what his involvement was and they arrest him. And when
00:24:28.760
they arrest him, they find out that he drives a black 1996 Chevy Impala, which is the exact same
00:24:35.640
vehicle as the suspects used in the murder of Biggie. They also find that there's photographs of him
00:24:41.080
wearing all of the, a red suit and a red brim hat, what was very indicative of how Suge Knight dressed.
00:24:47.400
And he's from Compton and he's got a loose affiliation with some bloods according to some
00:24:52.760
of the letters he's written while he's in jail. He's claiming these West Side Riders, I believe it
00:24:57.240
was, um, a Compton street gang. So Russ Poole knows that he has at least one cop who's loosely affiliated
00:25:04.120
with Suge Knight through his wife. And now he's got another cop who is claiming to be a gang,
00:25:09.480
dressing in red clothes, indicative of the bloods and drives a black Impala, which is,
00:25:14.840
matches the suspect vehicle in Biggie's shooting. So he begins to form a theory that, uh, potentially
00:25:21.240
this guy was involved in the murder of Biggie Smalls. Adding to that, we discover that while he
00:25:28.280
was in jail for the bank robbery, he's visited by this guy named Amir Mohamed and he goes into the
00:25:34.920
jail and visits David Mack. He becomes aware of this visit and he finds out that during the investigation
00:25:44.520
into Biggie's murder, an informant had mentioned the name Amir as being the shooter of Biggie Smalls.
00:25:51.400
And so he finds out there's an Amir that visits David Mack and that kind of adds fuel to the fire
00:25:57.640
of the theory that he's trying to develop. It's purely a theory. It's purely a theory.
00:26:01.720
Good circumstantial support for the theory. Sure. Uh, but it's, it's far from conclusive.
00:26:06.360
It, where, where, where does the story come with, uh, Louis Farrakhan where it's,
00:26:11.000
hey, are we good? I want to make sure I'm good with the brother or Muslim, you know, the Muslim,
00:26:14.680
you know, that, that conversation was that Puffy and them or what, where does that take place?
00:26:18.600
Yeah. So that takes place the night prior to Biggie's murder at the Peterson. They're at the
00:26:24.440
Soul Train Awards. Uh, their Puffy's entourage is bad boy entourage gets into a little bit of a,
00:26:30.760
a confrontation with members of the nation of Islam. And that's when, um, Diddy supposedly says
00:26:37.800
over to Farrakhan, Hey, we're cool, right? I mean, do we need, do we need this? And they call the incident.
00:26:43.880
Got it. But is there anything connected with that here or not at all?
00:26:47.640
There's nothing connected other than he's Muslim, not fruit of Islam, but Muslim,
00:26:55.480
and there's a conflict the night before. Got it. So it's completely, uh, separate.
00:26:59.160
Completely separate. Got it. Completely separate. But for him,
00:27:03.160
it's a loose connection. Sure. Yes. Sure. So now what, what role does Rafael Ray Perez play?
00:27:09.240
So Perez is most notable. He's kind of the face of what became known as the rampart scandal
00:27:14.840
in Los Angeles. He was another dirty cop who was going to our evidence, checking out cocaine under
00:27:21.000
an alias name, and then going out and selling and using the cocaine for his own profit.
00:27:25.800
He becomes discovered during that internal investigation. And then he ultimately makes
00:27:31.320
a deal with the district attorney's office in Los Angeles and starts to name all these other people
00:27:40.280
Was there a lot of dirty cops at that time? Is it a list as a long list or not really?
00:27:44.200
The whole rampart scandal ultimately turned out to be like three guys. Okay.
00:27:48.760
Including, you know, including him. He's the main one. So he was just throwing all kinds of dirt in
00:27:53.880
every direction, trying to get himself out of trouble. He was making a lot of false allegations
00:27:57.960
against a lot of innocent cops. Got it. Um, but the rampart scandal
00:28:04.120
legend kind of just took on a life of its own and is perceived as something much bigger than it actually was.
00:28:09.320
These guys used to work together. And so there was some, there was some
00:28:15.720
suspicion that he was also involved in the bank robbery, but that had, that had been ultimately
00:28:21.000
refuted. So now you have this, you read this, you do the investigation, 97 binders, you're going
00:28:26.520
through. This is what Russell Poole's theory is next. Where do you go next? So he's developed his theory.
00:28:32.840
He's presenting it to the department. They're like, okay, this is circumstantially interesting,
00:28:39.080
but it's far from being conclusive. Uh, let's not start making allegations. Let's not start making,
00:28:44.600
uh, you know, adding to a newspaper fodder with this theory. He gets frustrated and walks away from the job,
00:28:53.240
basically just quits the job a year prior to qualifying for his retirement.
00:28:57.560
And he goes out and writes a book. And so you've got, you know, a year and a half worth of
00:29:05.560
investigative material in these books. The case of Biggie Smalls is assigned to another
00:29:10.520
investigator. Tupac's case is still being worked out in Las Vegas, but he goes and writes a book
00:29:15.960
called Labyrinth. And that leads to, based on the book, a lawsuit is waged against the LAPD.
00:29:24.120
This is the $400 million lawsuit. This is the $400 million lawsuit that's waged against the LAPD.
00:29:29.560
Based on the allegations in the book that he, that he helps to write, an attorney gets a hold of Biggie's
00:29:35.560
mom and says, listen, I've read this book by this ex detective in Los Angeles. He's got all this
00:29:40.600
incredible information about how cops were involved and they're covering it up. Let's sue the department
00:29:45.480
and get to the bottom of this. So that's what takes place. The civil lawsuit goes in and out of court,
00:29:53.400
federal court, state court dismissed, refiled. And ultimately in 2006, the LAPD says, listen,
00:30:02.200
let's put a full court press on this, get a bunch of people involved. And that's how I get involved.
00:30:07.560
And we start to take our, take a fresh look at everything involving the case. But of course,
00:30:13.560
now it's nine years later, nine years later. So now you're on the $400 million lawsuit. Just a
00:30:20.280
question for you. When, when the, when the city of LA gets a lawsuit that big, are they worried
00:30:25.960
because they don't have the funds to go lawyer up and protect themselves? Is that where their first
00:30:30.120
brain goes? It was like, man, we cannot afford that kind of a lawsuit. It's a, it's a combination.
00:30:35.000
Yes. Of course it's that, you know, nobody wants to, you know, you never know what is going to
00:30:39.160
happen in a civil case. You know, you just, uh, juries are very fickle and you can't afford to
00:30:45.720
lose that kind of money. $400 million is no small change. So they say, listen, we're confident based
00:30:52.840
on all the investigative effort that has taken place in that nine year period, because it wasn't just him,
00:30:59.320
other investigators, teams of investigators had looked into all of his claims. And the LAPD was
00:31:04.760
very confident that should this go to court, they can successfully defend it and get out from under
00:31:11.720
that lawsuit. But in order to do that, they had to resurrect the case and have us take a new look at
00:31:17.720
it and see if we've missed anything. So, so why did they go from him to you? Is that because he had
00:31:23.000
the heart attack and he died? No, he died years later after I'd already, after we'd already been
00:31:28.520
involved. He died long after the fact. Long after that. He just died a few years ago. Who was he
00:31:33.400
about to have a meeting with that he was and then something happened where he'd had a heart attack
00:31:38.040
right before that? He was over at the homicide unit of the LA County Sheriff's and the LA County Sheriff's
00:31:44.520
was at that time, um, in charge of the investigation of Suge Knight when he ran over and killed this guy,
00:31:51.720
Terry Carter. It's a completely unrelated event, but the LA County Sheriff's Department is pursuing him
00:31:59.240
as a, as a murder suspect for running this guy over. And Russell Poole says, hey, I've got this idea.
00:32:05.800
Let's make sure, let's cut Suge Knight a deal on this murder in order to get him to cooperate
00:32:11.240
about the things he knows regarding these two murders. During that meeting, the investigators were
00:32:16.440
kind of looking at him cross-eyed. All these years had gone by. He comes out of the wood
00:32:21.640
work. He's been suffering from a whole bunch of, you know, personal problems and he basically just
00:32:28.120
collapsed and dies right there at the table. It's purely a conspiracy when people try to connect it
00:32:32.760
with any other events. Oh yeah. No, it's just a conspiracy. Nothing happened. He died from a heart
00:32:37.160
attack. Died from a heart attack. Tons of stress for years. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. This, this,
00:32:41.160
it's the world filled with stress. So, so you, you explained this situation perfectly well. Now,
00:32:46.120
what do you do next? So as we get involved, you know, we're going to treat all these theories as
00:32:50.520
if they're true. And then through a process of elimination, come up to the one that we can't
00:32:54.200
disprove. And that's the most viable theory. And then we're going to try to corroborate that.
00:32:58.520
So as we're looking into this, we know about all the conflict that's taken place between these crews,
00:33:03.800
between bad boy and death row and puck and big, and of course the gangs. And so we ultimately
00:33:10.760
want to corner this guy because we knew that he was a, he's a known gang member from Compton.
00:33:17.960
We know he was in Las Vegas at the time of Tupac shooting. And we know that he was at the
00:33:23.000
Peterson Auto Museum the night that Biggie was killed. So he's a person of extreme interest.
00:33:28.520
Up to this point in time, he'd been interviewed and says he doesn't really know anything and,
00:33:33.560
you know, kind of gives a, you know, throws a bunch of curve balls at us.
00:33:37.080
So we know that he's not going to sit down and just be transparent and open with us
00:33:41.400
after all these years. We develop an airtight drug case against him because we're aware of the fact
00:33:48.840
he's got a known history of dealing drugs and particularly to this guy in New York.
00:33:54.920
And we put an ironclad case against him, approach him and say, here's the deal, KPD. We have questions
00:34:00.680
about these murders. If you don't cooperate, you're going to prison for the rest of your life. And so are
00:34:05.560
several members of your family who are caught up in your drug organization.
00:34:09.560
He confesses to his involvement in the murder of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996.
00:34:15.000
He tells us that his nephew, Orlando Anderson, was in the same car with him, which was the white
00:34:20.840
Cadillac. And they had gotten into the fight, obviously, between Tupac and Orlando. And now they're
00:34:27.000
going to go and retaliate at the club where they know that Tupac and Sugar are going to be. And they
00:34:32.920
go over to the club and hunt to hunt down Tupac. And prior to that, they meet with this guy in Las
00:34:41.480
Vegas, who happens to be Biggie Small's godfather. He's a close friend of Puffy. He's out in Las Vegas.
00:34:47.080
He's aware of all this conflict going on. He's aware of the shooting of Tupac. And so he gives him a
00:34:52.360
gun in Las Vegas. And then they set out, along with another guy named Corey Edwards and five or six
00:34:58.680
other members of the Southside Crips. And they go on the hunt for Tupac and Suge Knight. Ultimately,
00:35:04.760
they run into him on the strip, just off the strip, actually. And at the intersection of Flamingo and
00:35:10.280
Koval, the Cadillac pulls up. He gives him the gun. He leans out and shoots and ultimately kills Tupac
00:35:17.800
And in the car, he is sitting in the front passenger. Terrence Brown, T. Brown is the
00:35:25.400
driver. He had, I think, his mother-in-law rented the car, the Cadillac. And apparently,
00:35:29.160
Kifidi, every time he would go out, he would always rent a car.
00:35:32.200
And then in the back is Orlando right behind Kifidi. And then DeAndre sitting on this side,
00:35:37.880
he first gives the gun to DeAndre because the car is on this side. DeAndre says no.
00:35:41.960
Then Orlando says, give it to me. He turns around and he shoots, gets him. So that's pretty much the
00:35:46.600
event that takes place. And a lot of it was the attention because the girls were hollering,
00:35:49.880
hey, Tupac, hey, Suge. And they figured out they're them. They made a U-turn to go get him.
00:35:55.640
So where do we go from here? By the way, he looks like Cuba Gunnar Jr. from American Gangster,
00:36:03.160
not Frank Lucas, but the guy that Frank Lucas was going up against, who was making Blue Magic
00:36:08.840
and spicing it up and selling it for a cheaper price. Anyway, just an interesting guy.
00:36:13.400
It's not too far off. He's a known, well, it was a well-known established drug dealer in Harlem for
00:36:19.240
years. He was getting a grip of dope from Kifidi out here on the west coast. Anyways,
00:36:25.720
he died a few years ago of cancer, natural causes. But he was a co-conspirator in this murder,
00:36:31.320
associated with these guys. And then, of course, these are your two primary suspects.
00:36:36.200
He provides the gun and the direction, and he follows it and does the shooting. So now we have
00:36:43.000
a confessing co-conspirator in the murder, which is huge for us investigatively. You know,
00:36:49.480
now we've got testimonial evidence to support this theory. And he tells us things that he could not
00:36:58.440
have known had he not been actually at the scene at the time of the murder. So we corroborate what he
00:37:05.560
says, and you validate it. So now we have, for all intent and purposes, solved this murder.
00:37:13.960
So now we've still got our other objective, which is to figure out what happened to Biggie.
00:37:20.200
So we take the same investigative approach, and we know that Suge has got a girlfriend. We've given
00:37:26.600
her an alias of Teresa Swan, and that she's complicit in a whole bunch of kind of white-collar
00:37:32.840
crimes, fraud, forgery, and that type of thing. Has she ever done time or gone caught or no?
00:37:37.000
She's been to jail. Okay. So she had a- She has a record. She has a record. Okay.
00:37:42.360
And a lot, she's got a history. She was his bad girl. You know,
00:37:46.280
she had a lot of women in his life. This happened to be the one that he could count on
00:37:51.720
to do something that the other girls may not be willing to do. So we basically find out that she's
00:37:57.240
involved in a bunch of fraud related to automobile purchases. We do the same thing with her that we
00:38:05.160
did to him. We approach her and tell her, listen, we've got a case against you. We're not only going
00:38:10.120
to send you to jail, but we're going to have your young children put into, you know,
00:38:14.680
put into foster care and, you know, your world's going to take a big 180 if you don't tell us what you know.
00:38:21.720
She ultimately breaks down, confesses that after the murder of Tupac Shakur,
00:38:27.640
Suge's at the county jail. She goes and meets with him. Suge says, listen, I want Biggie killed.
00:38:33.400
I want you to go ahead and get a hold of my boy Poochie from the neighborhood. He knows Poochie's a known
00:38:37.960
shooter. And he agrees to pay her $25,000, half of what she gives to Poochie. And they conspire to do
00:38:48.120
the murder. So on the night of Biggie Smalls' murder at the Peterson Auto Museum, she goes to the
00:38:54.600
to the party. He lies in wait outside in a dark colored Impala that Suge Knight had purchased for him.
00:39:01.080
And as Biggie Smalls and the entourage are leaving, he just simply pulls up alongside,
00:39:08.280
starts to shoot, hits, hits the big man who dies on the way to the hospital.
00:39:13.560
So this was validated by Teresa Swan, you know, whatever name you gave her was validated by her.
00:39:21.000
Okay. And, and based on another interview with Reggie Wright, he always saw them,
00:39:27.720
but away from everybody talking. It was almost like a, it wasn't a public relationship. It was
00:39:32.680
more like a private relationship they had. Right, right. When you look back at the activities around
00:39:37.480
Death Row and specifically Suge Knight and his entourage of gang members, they were always out
00:39:42.440
front and center. You know, they, that, that was the image that Suge Knight wanted for his record company.
00:39:48.280
Reggie Wright explained to us that the relationship with Poochie was something completely different.
00:39:52.920
Poochie would stay in the cut. Poochie and Suge would always go off on their own to have private
00:39:57.560
conversations. We knew he was already wanted for at least one murder. And so he was the kind of guy
00:40:03.240
that you would go to if you needed something like that done. Is it fair to say that on this list of
00:40:07.480
all these faces, the toughest guys on this list, he would be one of them? These are your killers.
00:40:14.680
Right. These are your CEOs, um, and you know, in a shock collar. Got it.
00:40:20.440
But these guys, you know, at the, at the top of the food chain and, uh, because this whole thing never
00:40:26.600
got dealt with responsibly, these two guys suffer the consequences. Got it. So what, what happens
00:40:32.440
next? So now, you know, Poochie's it, you guys make a letter that, hey, he testified and he's already
00:40:38.600
told us right before he died. And even on the letter, you put the date of the letter was April 1st,
00:40:44.200
1998, meaning April fools. Yeah. I think we were just trying to be a little bit too clever, but
00:40:49.000
ultimately it worked. Uh, she reads the letter. That's a ruse. It's a fictitious confession letter
00:40:55.880
that was signed by him and given to an attorney before he was, he was shot and killed in 2002.
00:41:00.920
Um, on a motorcycle, on a motorcycle, driving up the street. Most of these guys have all, you know,
00:41:06.760
expired. Um, so we show her the letter. She says, wow, that's exactly what happened. We tell her,
00:41:13.960
well, why don't you tell us what happened in your words? She explains her solicitation with
00:41:18.920
Suge Knight and how he had paid her and how he had told her to get ahold of him and commit the murder.
00:41:23.800
So we corroborated her statements and now for all intent purposes, effectively have solved both
00:41:29.800
these murders because we have corroborated co-confessing, uh, co-conspirators that are confessing.
00:41:37.720
So that's where we go to the department and we say, listen, we've got all the goods,
00:41:44.680
the department then has their attorneys reach out to Valetta Wallace in the estate and say, listen,
00:41:51.560
we've got, uh, new information in the case. It undermines and refutes your civil case.
00:41:56.840
You can continue to pursue that and spend money, but this is where we're going with it.
00:42:01.640
Valetta Wallace, an attorney at the hearing that they decide that they're going to retract their
00:42:11.720
You've said that you believe behind all of this is Puffy. You've said this yourself with a million
00:42:18.440
dollars, whether it was a million dollars, whether it was a half a million dollars. Tell us a little
00:42:24.200
What I believe happened with, with Puffy was that, again, I don't think he wanted this conflict to
00:42:30.360
get worse than it already was. And if he could figure out a way to quell that, he would. In fact,
00:42:36.440
we have a statement saying that Puffy had reached out to the members of the Nation of Islam to
00:42:41.880
approach Suge Knight and say, hey, let's have a peace treaty. Let's squash this thing. But Suge wanted
00:42:46.120
nothing to do with it. So he was trying to get out from under this imposing threat, knowing that
00:42:51.480
Suge held him responsible for the murder of his friend. And whenever he would come to LA, he knew that
00:42:57.320
Suge Knight was trying to hunt him down. We have a reported incident, an investigation where Suge Knight
00:43:04.520
had accosted one of his associates at a Christmas party in Los Angeles, and they beat the living
00:43:09.800
shit out of this guy. He almost lost his eye in an attempt for these guys to gain knowledge about
00:43:17.000
where he lived in Los Angeles. So he undoubtedly becomes aware of the fact that these guys are
00:43:22.840
actively hunting me down. They're kidnapping, assaulting people. My life's definitely in harm's
00:43:28.920
way. And so I think that out of that desperation and fear, he turned to the streets and said,
00:43:36.040
can you guys kind of handle this for me? Because he knew that if you're going to deal with these gang
00:43:43.560
members, then the best thing to do is get their natural enemies to do the work for you.
00:43:51.080
And is that the million dollars? The million dollars was on the...
00:43:54.040
According to Keefy Dee, he says there was a kind of a loose conversation at Greenblatt's at Bunsen set,
00:44:00.600
in which Puffy allegedly tells Keefy Dee, listen, whatever it takes to get these guys off my back,
00:44:08.680
I need you to take care of them. He says we wanted a million dollars. Diddy's like whatever. But again,
00:44:14.840
I have to couch that with the understanding that he was in fear for his life.
00:44:21.400
I fully get that. Yeah, I fully get that. So, but the million dollars is from him,
00:44:25.720
but you don't know really if it's a million dollars or it's a half a million dollars.
00:44:28.520
I think it's just boastful talking. Okay, got it.
00:44:31.160
You know, it's like I saw if I see a really nice car that I'd like to purchase from you,
00:44:35.560
and I just, man, I'll give you a million dollars for that. Yeah.
00:44:37.720
It's just that kind of like loose... So how about the part where Zip gives him the gun,
00:44:42.360
he says, listen, right now is the time to do it. Everyone's in town. Go to 662.
00:44:46.360
Here's a gun that I have. He leaves it to him with the car. Right.
00:44:50.040
He gives him the gun. And then afterwards, when they talk on a call, he says, was that us?
00:44:56.840
And they're on the call together listening. And Zip says, yes, that was us.
00:45:01.240
Keefy says, yes, that was us. Yes, that was us. Keefy says, that was us.
00:45:05.000
And then he says, we'll take care. Zip says, we'll take care of the money. Six weeks later,
00:45:09.080
he's not getting the money. And, you know, he's finding out maybe he didn't get paid.
00:45:14.280
And then afterwards, he meets with an associate of P. Diddy, Puffy, saying, yeah, we did pay,
00:45:19.880
but Zip kept it. And then when they met, is that all been verified that maybe he did keep the money
00:45:26.840
or they did not pay? We don't have anything to validate other than his claim. Got it.
00:45:32.840
He's claiming that he had people that were closely associated with Eric that with Zip that told him,
00:45:39.000
hey, Puffy paid a half a million dollars and Zip kept the money. So that's his claim. We do know that
00:45:46.840
these two people do exist and that they were associated with him. But those people have never
00:45:50.600
verified that. So that that unpaid debt is it was definitely never collected.
00:45:58.040
So why why were you removed from the case in 2009 or, you know, a year before your retirement?
00:46:05.320
Why did they I mean, obviously, the show is called Unsolved, right on Netflix. Why was it like,
00:46:10.840
listen, you're going a little too deep with this. Stop what you're doing. We're going to we're going
00:46:14.840
to remove you and go a different direction. For the LAPD, once we bring them the confession of
00:46:21.000
Kifidi, their attitude is like, OK, well, that's Las Vegas's case. Pass all the information you have
00:46:29.000
on Tupac's murder to Las Vegas. Let them deal with Kifidi. Let them follow up and handle their own
00:46:37.480
murder case. With Biggie's case, now the LAPD is out from under this massive lawsuit. They're
00:46:42.920
breathing a sigh of relief. They've just spent millions of dollars conducting this investigation
00:46:49.400
with wiretaps and narcotics buys and all of this, you know, is a large operation. And at that point
00:46:55.320
in time, they realize prosecute prosecution wise, it's going to be very, very difficult to take the
00:47:02.520
remaining co-conspirators, which at that time really consisted of Kifidi, Eric Martin and Diddy,
00:47:10.120
and prosecute these guys based on the sole testimony of a convicted drug dealing gang member.
00:47:18.920
So they realize that it's going to be very, very tough to prosecute these people. We spent enough
00:47:24.840
time and energy on this. Greg, you're going to get reassigned back to cold case homicides. Everybody
00:47:29.800
else go back to your respective agencies. And they just... That's it. Yeah. But it's nothing bigger than
00:47:35.640
that. It wasn't like, hey, let's try to find out more. This is going to get us in trouble. We don't
00:47:41.240
want to get more negativity behind it. Or maybe even some cops internally are trying to protect some
00:47:46.520
people that are living. Any of those things could be possibilities or no?
00:47:50.520
Not for me. Not at all. I think it's just simply they were kind of indifferent about it. Like,
00:47:55.720
hey, Valletta Wallace sued us. We spent a lot of money trying to defend this lawsuit. We've spent a
00:47:59.720
whole lot of money trying to pursue the truth. We found that. And now we're just going to let
00:48:03.800
sleeping dogs lie because we can't prosecute the case, you know, for all intent and purposes.
00:48:08.520
It's not practical with Biggie's murder. And so, you know, you've got an ex-girlfriend who's
00:48:18.360
known to commit perjury. And she's going to take the stand and be the sole witness against Suge Knight
00:48:24.200
saying that he... Because this guy's dead, remember? And so now you've got this, you know,
00:48:30.040
relationship between the two. And she's the only person you can put on the stand to,
00:48:33.880
you know, point the finger at him. It's just not going to work out in court. And same thing with
00:48:37.720
Tupac's murder. You know, these guys just don't have any credibility in so far as getting on the
00:48:42.120
stand and testifying because of their backgrounds and their previous, you know, convictions and status
00:48:48.600
as gang members and established perjurers. It's just complicated. And so...
00:48:55.480
Even though you have this much evidence, it's still complicated? I mean, what that then tells
00:49:03.000
a person watching, how are they protected at this point that you know this happened?
00:49:09.400
You're not talking about a small brand. This guy was growing at a level that was pretty wild. And
00:49:14.680
you're not talking about... I'm not even talking here. I'm specifically staying here with the talent.
00:49:19.000
They're the ones that's making the money. They're the ones creating the opportunity,
00:49:23.400
but they're the ones that are doing the talent. Don't... Isn't there a reason to want to go
00:49:27.880
really find out the truth for not only fans, families, people involved, businesses involved
00:49:32.520
with them? Isn't there a reason to even go deeper with that? Well, there, you know, for us,
00:49:36.200
there's a saying in investigative circles, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove.
00:49:41.480
And knowing what happened is one thing, but then going to court and successfully prosecuting people
00:49:47.320
to bring them justice, that's a different thing. It's a different, it's a different,
00:49:53.960
it's just a different, you know, ball to juggle. And so we know what happened conclusively with all
00:50:00.280
confidence. And so that is the reason why I speak about the case and why I wrote the book about the
00:50:05.080
case is because I believe the public should at least be informed as to what took place in the
00:50:10.200
investigation, what evidence we developed, and how this all fits together. But as far as prosecuting
00:50:17.240
people and getting judicial justice in these cases, it's never going to happen. That's done.
00:50:22.040
Yep. The best thing we could have done, you know, rest in peace, Afeni Shakur,
00:50:26.200
the best thing we could have done was at least let the family and their friends know what happened.
00:50:30.600
And many of those people have given us their feedback saying, we've always known that was the truth.
00:50:35.160
They, who, the family and friends have told you. Oh, absolutely.
00:50:37.640
We've always known that to be the truth. Yeah. Many of them. When I spoke with,
00:50:41.480
with his aunt, Gloria, and I told her about the book and explained what was in it. She said,
00:50:46.840
that's very interesting. Thank you for all your time and effort. But we always knew that. So,
00:50:52.040
and of course we know that Afeni Shakur had sued Orlando Anderson after the shooting,
00:50:57.640
claiming that he was the shooter. How much after? Almost, you know, within a year.
00:51:02.440
Because he was going around at parties talking about, I'm the one that killed Tupac. Yeah.
00:51:05.640
Keefe said, why don't you stop talking? Exactly. You're being too loud.
00:51:07.960
Yeah. He was, he was boasting about it in the neighborhood. So it was not a well-kept secret.
00:51:12.440
The people in the neighborhood, in their inner circle, they all knew that he was responsible for
00:51:16.600
it. But again, it's very difficult to then get those people with any credibility up on the witness
00:51:22.200
stand and prosecute successfully. What are the chances of another thing? Like, do you think we're at a
00:51:28.360
point right now due to, again, social media where to start another East Coast, West Coast type of stuff
00:51:35.320
is pretty much mathematically impossible to do it today? I do believe it is just because of technology.
00:51:40.680
Sure. You know, back when Tupac was shot in Las Vegas, there was no traffic cameras. Even the video
00:51:46.760
that we see during the fight between these two at the MGM, it's so grainy, you can barely even make out
00:51:52.600
images. So technology's come so far. You'd have cell phone videos, traffic cameras, all types of
00:51:59.160
things that we could have utilized more effectively had we had that technology 20 years ago. And it would
00:52:05.800
have been easier to and faster to figure out who it was. Yeah, absolutely. If you had the technology
00:52:09.480
we have today. I believe so. So how about Keefe D, the fact that he's going around talking and he's
00:52:13.880
you know, saying a lot of different things right now in many different interviews. Can he get himself
00:52:19.000
in trouble with Las Vegas PD going after him for what he's saying? Absolutely. So his initial confession to
00:52:24.840
us was done under what's known as a proffer session. It's a it's an agreement between his attorney, him and
00:52:30.920
his attorney and the prosecution, in this case, the U.S. Attorney's Office, where he can disclose
00:52:37.160
everything he knows about a crime, answer all of our questions truthfully, but we can't use his own self
00:52:43.640
incriminating statements against him. It's called kind of queen for a day. You cannot use your own
00:52:48.840
self-incriminating statements against yourself. You can't use it against the individual. Correct.
00:52:54.360
Now that doesn't mean that he has immunity. That just simply means he's, we can't use his own
00:53:01.640
testimony against him. If other evidence or other people. Are you serious? So if a person says,
00:53:05.880
I did kill that person, you can't use that against the person? Under the unique conditions of this
00:53:10.600
agreement, this proffer agreement. Under the unique conditions of disagreement. Right. I got it. Not just the
00:53:14.520
average person. Of course, no. It's this agreement that he's made. It's a particular agreement having
00:53:20.280
to do with the fact that we had a bunch of narcotics. Fair enough. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes
00:53:23.640
sense. And then, and then any. But to follow up with you, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the statements
00:53:28.840
that he's made publicly after that, the ones that are not under our proffer agreement, he's gone on BET,
00:53:34.120
he's gone on Vlad TV, he's gone on all types of different platforms and tells the story about his
00:53:40.200
involvement, the involvement of his nephew, the story as I've explained it to you. He's confessed
00:53:46.360
to it multiple times now. And we're all sitting here kind of dumbfounded why Las Vegas hasn't reeled
00:53:53.000
him in and dealt with him. When you say, we, who is we? You and everybody that's involved in this case?
00:54:01.320
Fans, other investigators, advocates for, you know, for these gentlemen.
00:54:06.280
So is that an indirect way of hinting to him that stop talking and just kind of
00:54:09.960
go live your life and stop talking about the stories that's only going to get one person in
00:54:13.400
trouble and it's him? No, I, I'm just talking about, you know, go out there. And, uh, you know,
00:54:19.400
because again, I think that the story that he's revealing is for all intent, you know, he's,
00:54:23.480
he puts some little twists on it, but, uh, you know, he's ultimately explaining what happened.
00:54:30.040
I believe that Las Vegas PD and the LAPD, based on the evidence that we have currently,
00:54:35.960
should clear the cases and set history, right? You know, these men, their cases are not unsolved.
00:54:42.680
Unprosecuted, not unsolved, unprosecuted. How big of a difference is the personality
00:54:47.480
between them two? I know they grew up in the same place. How big of a difference in personality
00:54:53.800
Um, in person, they, they can both be somewhat charming. Um, you know, sitting down and talking to
00:54:58.920
Keithy D, he was cordial and respectful and, uh, and, and truthful. Um, but at the,
00:55:05.160
there's this whole other side to him as there is to him. Um, what makes these guys dangerous
00:55:10.680
is not who they are. It's who they know. It's the guys that they can influence to go out and commit
00:55:16.680
the crimes and do the shootings. So, you know, these guys as shot callers are dangerous by the nature of
00:55:23.640
Got it. They call the shots. Somebody has got to go handle it.
00:55:26.280
Last thing here, F. Gary Gray. What involvement does he have with this whole thing here?
00:55:30.840
So, uh, F. Gary Gray, uh, was producing a show called Straight Outta Compton, basically
00:55:37.080
the feature film showing the development and life of NWA. He was, uh, going to have a character within
00:55:45.000
this feature film of Suge Knight. Suge Knight felt that he owes him money for using his image.
00:55:51.000
And so he began to show up at the set in Compton when they were shooting the feature.
00:55:55.560
And kind of threatening people around F. Gary Gray.
00:56:00.600
So F. Gary Gray and other people involved in the production, they get ahold of a guy named Terry
00:56:06.040
Carter. They know Terry Carter. He's one of those guys from the neighborhood everybody respects.
00:56:10.920
He's a guy that can go in and kind of mitigate a situation. And so he goes and tries to meet with
00:56:16.360
Suge Knight down at a hamburger stand, not too far from the set. And Suge Knight and another
00:56:21.960
individual that came from the set, a guy named Clay Sloan, get into a fight. And Clay is hitting
00:56:28.040
Suge through the window of his truck. Suge backs up and runs over Clay and almost kills him. And then
00:56:33.880
he pulls forward and runs over Terry Carter and kills him. So you can pull this video up on YouTube.
00:56:40.120
It's, it's a very graphic video of him being run over and killed. Ultimately, he gets prosecuted for
00:56:46.520
that vehicular manslaughter and receives a 28 year sentence, which he's currently serving. And for
00:56:52.120
all intent and purpose, that's a, that's a life sentence. That's a life sentence for someone like
00:56:55.320
him. Have you ever had a sit down with him face to face? Or no, I've conducted tons of surveillance
00:57:00.360
with him, listened to phone calls with him and, you know, obviously seen all of his interviews,
00:57:04.920
but I've never actually sat down face to face with Suge. When you do the surveillance,
00:57:08.760
does he sound like a pretty firm guy? Meaning if he wants something to be done to people?
00:57:13.880
He's a tremendous manipulator. Okay. Tremendous manipulator.
00:57:18.840
Nobody knows that better than Reggie Wright Jr. who's out there vocally talking about his history
00:57:23.640
with death row, his involvement with Suge Knight. And you know, he's, you know, he's got a really
00:57:28.520
interesting story to tell also. So let me ask a question, Greg, at this point, everybody here,
00:57:34.120
can anyone be litigated today that hasn't yet been? Not really. The only, the only possibilities I see
00:57:45.800
is that these guys created work environments that led to their murders. And so there is a, you know,
00:57:56.440
there's a civil situation where when you create such a hostile environment within the workplace,
00:58:03.400
and then somebody suffers harm because of that, that's, that's an actionable thing. Of course,
00:58:10.040
it would have to take his mother to kind of perceive that and see things that way.
00:58:14.360
But it's still a long shot. It's not like it's a long shot. It's a long shot. If they couldn't do
00:58:20.440
anything, his mother with the 400 million, and after all this, it's probably going to be a long
00:58:25.640
shot to do that. It really is. But keeping in mind that also that, you know, in a criminal court,
00:58:31.000
you're trying to prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt. In civil court, the burden of proof is
00:58:35.960
that much lower, and it's just more of a preponderance of the evidence.
00:58:39.800
So what's to come next with you, Greg, with this story? Is this story pretty much done for you? I
00:58:43.480
mean, obviously, it turned into, the book turned into a documentary, turned into a series. I know you
00:58:47.400
had a couple scenes as the bartender in the Netflix series. What's to come next with this story?
00:58:52.520
Anything to expect? Not really. You know, like I said, the majority of these guys have all met their
00:58:58.440
demise. And there's not much more to say about it. We've got to the bottom of it. And I think we can
00:59:07.240
conclusively and definitively say, this is what happened to these two individuals.
00:59:15.640
Well, I can tell you one thing. I was in high school when this happened. And I was a die,
00:59:20.040
I mean, I'm a diehard Tupac fan. At the time, as a kid, we were listening to him.
00:59:24.280
I got him into painting. And I've been on a flight with him before. I almost sold him an insurance
00:59:28.520
policy. But the insurance carriers will never approve. I had a meeting with him one time
00:59:32.440
through one of my associates at the Beverly Hills Hilton. And I said, I can't sell this
00:59:37.400
guy on insurance policy. Who's going to insure Shug now?
00:59:39.400
Yeah. You know, it's a very interesting story. And, you know, I know obviously a lot of time
00:59:43.160
was put into it to investigate this. So thank you for your service to do that and get to the bottom
00:59:47.640
of it and tell the story and, you know, turn it into a book and a movie now. And outside of that,
00:59:52.360
you know, if you haven't watched the series on Netflix called Unsolved, if you haven't watched it,
00:59:57.880
one, go watch it. I think it's 10 episodes. 10 episode limited series. Yeah. 10 episode
01:00:03.160
limited series. But Greg, we appreciate you coming out, man. This was great. And this visual
01:00:07.000
was a very different approach. I really like the way it ended up happening. Yeah. I think this is
01:00:10.600
the most effective way to tell the story. It's a convoluted and complicated story, but at least
01:00:15.080
this helps to put faces to names and put it together. I agree. This is a complete different
01:00:20.200
way of looking at it. Absolutely. Thanks everybody for listening. And by the way,
01:00:23.320
if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so. Give us a five star,
01:00:28.920
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01:00:32.600
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01:00:37.320
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01:00:43.320
With that being said, have a great day today. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.