March 9th. 1997, Los Angeles, California, just after midnight. Superstar music artist Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. the notorious B.I.G. Was shot while in the passenger seat of an SUV. The assailant pulled up alongside Biggie in a Chevrolet Impala and attacked Biggie was rushed to the hospital but passed away shortly after arriving. He was only 24 years old. This came just six months after rival rapper Tupac Shakur was also shot and killed.
And no one can deny the connections and implications of both murders happening so close together. No suspect has ever been arrested for Biggie's murder, despite the fact that many consider the case solved. And therein lies where the case takes a strange turn. The murder of Biggie Smalls is shrouded in conspiracy theories and rumors. And the truth may lie somewhere in the middle of gang violence, police corruption and personal rivalries. Today, I speak with an expert on the Biggie Smalls case.
This is a study of strange All right. You ready? Yeah. Good. Welcome to the show. I'm Michael May, and normally I tell a story to someone that doesn't know the case that we're talking about very well and do some reenactments, explore some theories. But today, I'm doing it differently because I'm not an expert on Biggie Smalls. But with me is Michael Dorsey, who I just called Dorsey. But not everybody calls you that, right?
Dorsey it is surprising how many people me, Dorsey, actually, like, I'm on a team. It's really weird. Awesome. So Dorsey is a he's a filmmaker, documentarian. He's a co E.P. and showrunner on Ghost Adventures. How Skulls and Discovery. Plus my back, my mind blanked for one split second there. But for today's topics, so you're you've become well known as like a Biggie Smalls expert in terms of his murder and everything. Right. So how did that come about in your career?
So when I first moved to L.A., I lived maybe a couple of blocks away from where he was killed, which was the intersection of Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles, right outside the Peterson Automotive Museum. So I always knew that was like one of the first things I knew about my neighborhood was that's where that happened. Right.
And so fast forward, you know, a decade I came across a book called Murder Rap, that from a detective named Greg Kading, who had been a senior detective for the LAPD for a robbery homicide division. And he had led a task force for a few years in the late aughts. And he solved the case essentially I believe they saw both Biggie and Tupac murders. And he got confessions to both. Yeah. Yeah, part of the task force. So when I read that book, I just felt like this feels real to me.
My bullshit meter is not going off. Yeah. And I had done other true crime before. My first documentary is about the Manson family called The Six Theories of Helter Skelter. So I grew up in a law enforcement family so crime is like I tell people, my bedtime stories were true crime stories. So it's always been something that interested me.
So when I came across it and learned it, I would have access you know, pretty much unfettered access to the case files for, you know, 15 years or 20 years of big investigations. I was like, Yeah. Right. Let's do that. So that's how I became. And now, you know, I would say on the Biggie and Tupac murders, I'm top paid the number three or four leading expert in the world. Or number three. I cases. Well, behind the detectives, honestly, the detectives that have led the case.
Yeah. So I made the documentary Murder Rap, which came out in 2015, which was about to begin Tupac murder investigation and then a few years later we were contacted by a producer. He was a senior writer and producer on Suits, a guy named Kyle Long and he wanted to adapt it into a scripted series called Unsolved Crimes became the scripted series called Unsolved. Yeah, yeah. Over at NBC Universal. And we produced it for USA Network and Netflix, which is it's on Netflix now.
And that stars Josh Demil and Jimmy Simpson in booking would mine. And it's a fantastic cast. Yeah, it was honestly, it was good research for me. I typically like to read when I research stuff, but it was really nice to actually turn something like that on, to go for it another bit, not to not strict or ego too much, but you created a little bit of a YouTube series just a year ago, which has gotten a lot of views on YouTube. I'll link to it in the show notes, but it's fantastic.
And that's where you dove into some of the other things that I guess haven't gotten as much time or attention, right? Yeah, it's called Deep Dove, and I ended up doing it with Vlad TV which they are a nice big network or channel on YouTube. And yeah, it was all the ten gentle little interesting side stories that we never had time to get into in the other projects I did that always interested me and I was like, I want to put these out there. So it's, yeah, that's what it is.
It's really interesting. They're super entertaining and they're, they're short. They don't take a lot of time to get into, but they're very entertaining. And honestly, for people interested in this case, yeah, it was really kind of enlightening for someone like me that doesn't know him very well. Right. So what we'll do today, I'll give a little bit of background on the case. We're going to focus more on Biggie, but you can't talk about Biggie without talking about Tupac as well.
So we will dove into a little bit of that and then I'm just going to ask you questions and things that have you talk, because. Sure, I am I am not an expert on this case. In fact, I, I am I don't listen to hip hop like this is not really been in my orbit.
However, growing up in that era and being around when the hip hop sort of boom happened in the nineties, even me who doesn't listen to that and I was away studying theater and I was so far away from pop culture that like I didn't even I basically would watch reruns of Seinfeld later, but I didn't watch Friends.
I didn't like I wasn't into the current music, but even the West Coast, East Coast, West Coast rivalry, Biggie, Tupac, there's still on my radar, even though I didn't listen to him like these guys were so big and so important to pop culture. And so I was well aware of the rivalry. And when both of them both of them were were sadly murdered, but I still never knew much about it. So it is really interesting to kind of start to learn about these stories. And they are strange.
I mean, this is the study of strange after all. So I do want to ask you some of the more maybe not salacious isn't the right word. Sure. But some of the details of the case that are kind of conspiratorial in a way. Yeah, there's a lot of theories out there, a lot of people say, hey, these are these are solved. You just can't do anything about them. Right. An obvious place to start and at this moment is who is Biggie Smalls?
And he was born Christopher George Latour Wallace in 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. A very talented guy. I've seen his his mother interviewed and she seems really cool. Yeah, she's. Great. Yeah. Like his mom is so fat, fascinating and just lovely. And however Biggie got involved selling drugs at a very young age and he was like 12 or 13. Is that right? Yeah, something like, something like that. OK. And he signed his first foray into professional music. Is he signed with Puff Daddy?
I'm going to call him every name tonight. So I may just clarify Puffy a lot, but we all know who he is. He signed with Puffy at Uptown Records. Puffy, I think, was let go from Uptown Records, and Biggie followed him to Bad Boy Records. Which is really important to the bad boy death row rivalry here. So at one point in time, Biggie was friends with Tupac Shakur, but they had a falling out. Do you know much about their falling out?
Yeah, OK. So Tupac got famous before Biggie did and as a result of that. But then they became fast friends. And so Tupac was ahead of Biggie career wise and Tupac was helping him out. He was advising him. I think at one point Biggie supposedly went to park to manage him. Oh, wow. And and but Park would bring him up on stage at his own shows just to promote him and get him, you know, get him seen by other people. And and then, yeah, it was really trash.
That's one of the things that makes this this like a sixth period tragedy. Yeah. That these guys really were really good friends. Yeah. And the falling out they had was, was, had happened the first time Tupac was shot. Right? Right. Yeah. Tupac. Tupac blamed Biggie and I guess some of Biggie's friends, too, is sort of cruel for having knowledge of a shooting that that Tupac was obviously involved in and got hit like four or five times. Yeah, he was.
There was a quad studios recording studio in Times Square area of New York, and Tupac was going there to record track a track for somebody, for an artist. And as he was walking in, coincidentally, he looks up and he sees some Biggie's entourage, a little sees Biggie's cousin, who was one of his backup, backup guys who looked down and saw him like, oh, Tupac PA Cam. And they're still friends at this point. Yeah. And so Park's like, Oh, cool.
And in the lobby, two guys ambush him and he gets shot as a result. And survives. But he ends up blaming Bad Boy and the whole crew up there with begging them for either. I think initially he thought that they set them up and then later on, I think he just thought, well, they knew about it and didn't warn him. Right. I think the truth really is that Biggie did tried to warn him off of some of the people he was associating with in New York. The Biggie news or bad news.
And Tupac, for whatever reason, didn't heed those warnings. And he got you know, he got kind of got sent a message, I think, when he was shot. But that unfortunately, that permanently destroyed their their friendship. Yeah. And just as a as a side note to clarify is not everybody knows these guys as well as I just assume everybody does but Tupac Shakur, very famous rapper, artist, actor, actor.
He was he was an amazing actor. I thought and he was with at the time he was signed with Death Row Records, which is run by Sugar Knight. He was a bit of a legendary character, not only back. So even now. So he ended up signing with Death Row after he was shot. Oh, really? Yeah. Because he was in the middle of a court case at the time for which he went to prison. And it's while he was in prison and he's suing because he just he's been betrayed by he thinks by his friend.
And now he's in jail and he wants to get out. And that's when Sugar Night enters the picture. Yeah. And arranges gets the funds together to get him out of jail. Wow. OK.
And that's how that's and then and it's like but you got to do three albums for death row as a result and because shouldn't he had his own rivalry going with Puffy over the murder of his friend that it happened in the summer of 95 that he blamed on members of people that were associated with bad boy records he had his own feud with them and so now it's like two guys that have a common enemy basically are teaming. Up right. Which you know Tupac joining.
Him so who was Tupac signed with before death row. Well, Interscope, I believe. OK, so. He because you came out of he was a backup performer for a digital underground and then he released his first album to Apocalypse. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Which I've always. Loved. Leighton. Was it a great title? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So cool. Cool. And then that makes sense. Interscope, because Interscope is really big and Tupac was kind of exploding and. Yeah, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense.
So Tupac ended up getting shot himself. And the way that kind of went down again. We're going to focus more on Biggie, but these are intricately tied together on the night of September 7th. 1996, Tupac Shakur, he he was with Shug Night in Vegas and they went to the Mike Tyson versus Bruce Selden fight at the MGM Grand.
And after the fight in the lobby of the MGM Grand Tupac his crew they get in a fight with a guy named Orlando Bobby Layne Anderson, who was a member of the Compton South Side Credit. Baby Lane Yeah baby what did I say? He said Bobby. Oh man I'm sorry. Yes Orlando baby Layne Anderson and Compton Southside Crips for those geographically sort of unaware, Compton is in Los Angeles. So this is an L.A., L.A. gang.
And after the scuffle, Tupac and Shug and I'm kind of skipping over things, but these are just the basics. Tupac and Shug, they leave the MGM at around 11, 15 p.m. and while they're in a car, unless that Vegas Boulevard, the main the main strip in Vegas, they get stopped at a light and a white Cadillac pulls up next to them, window rolls down, shots rang out, and Tupac was hit four times. Shug was also hit in the head, I believe. Yeah. So the shooting happened after they turned off the Strip.
They were about a mile off. They were at Flamingo and Koval, which is kind of the next big street off the strip. That's interesting to hear because most people I just read. People say, Yeah, people will say It's on the strip. It wasn't. It was about a mile off to, Oh, wow, OK, I'm still, you know, strip ish. Yeah, strip adjacent. But they, they were hit. Yeah. Shug was hit possibly by a piece of shrapnel or something. He was nicked in the back of the head. Yeah. Yeah.
And on September 13th, which is six days later, Tupac died and he was only 25 years old. And so Biggie was 24. Hmm. Tupac 25. And that just that blows my mind that they were so young. Looking back now that we're older, right? You know how young that is now. Oh, man, they were just they were babies. They were just babies. And so, so talented. It's really sad. Sad. So, yeah, and much like Biggie's, Tupac case has never been solved or officially. Officially, yes.
Do you want to go into any of the theories for two bucks case? So should we just move on to the night a Biggie's murder? Do you want to are there any mentioning. There really aren't any good conspiracy theories with the Tupac case worth mentioning because it's so obvious that it was Orlando Anderson. Right.
And the mountain of evidence against Orlando Anderson is so and his his uncle has repeated Wright publicly stated that it was he does he tries not to say it was his nephew now, but he will say it was them. You know, his nephew was with them when that happened, but he confessed to Greg Kading and his task force this this uncle. Yeah. And said that in the task force in this what was called a proffer session, he told them, yeah, Orlando pulled the trigger.
So and it's what I always tell people what you think happened, who you think did it. You were right is basically because everybody in Orlando was the prime suspect from day one because the MGM site with him was on tape. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And he definitely seen it. And he's he was a legit gangster. Yeah. And had was suspected of committing other murders, you know, gun related murders.
And this is exactly how someone like that would respond to getting beat down in front of, you know, a bunch of people. Yeah. Like that. And it's look, I, I tend to drift into whenever something is quote unquote, unsolved, I tend to drift into whatever the, the simple explanation is, you tend to think all comes razor. Yeah, exactly. And yeah. Or Orlando he definitely seemed like the guy from the little bit. I know.
But I'll just maybe I'll mention just a few of the weird ones because a lot of people have it affects their belief on Biggie's death. Yeah. But like one theory is that Biggie was behind the murder, and there's this weird story that he's paid $1,000,000 and wanted to use his own gun to have Tupac shot, which I think is just bonkers. The biggie there's like, the biggie was in Vegas when that happened. That was one, right? Part of that theory. Yeah.
So now the uncle that confessed, he did say that, that there was a connection and there was money offered. It just it wasn't it wasn't from Biggie, OK? But it was not what made the, you know, it was not that, you know, why why why is it that night they were just there to have fun and party like everybody else was? Yes. Fight night in Vegas. It's Mike Tyson. It's you know, that's what you didn't do.
It just happened that you know, when Tupac punched Orlando Anderson, it instigated that it was going to happen that night. OK, well, cool. Well, let's if anybody is interested to see the theories behind Tupac's murder, maybe what I'll do is link some of them, some pages to them in the show notes because, I. Mean, the Tupac is alive is probably the most prominent counter theory. He was never murdered in the first place. Yeah.
And what's funny about that is I've gone down the rabbit hole and a little bit and like there's always there's there's claims that, well, people will make to back up their theory. And if you accept those claims as true and you're like, oh, well, that sounds kind of plausible. And like one of them one of the claims is that the coroner who did his autopsy disappeared or afterwards. Where did he hear that? And so that kind of sounds suspicious.
And then one day I was like, I'm going to look that up. And no, he did not. He was the coroner for Vegas for many many years. He continued to be the coroner for Vegas for years afterwards. There's, you know, a local newspaper articles about when he did finally retire. It was a you know, it was a big deal because he'd been the corner there for, I think, at least a couple of decades. And it's like that's the kind of thing where, like, you have to, you know, do your own research.
You need to look this up and like, people claim things. Yeah. You need to, like, make sure. Well, first of all, is what they're claiming, is that actual effect? Yeah. Yeah. And look, not to go on a tangent here, but this is why I love these kind of stories and the kind of stories that I want to tell in a podcast, which is research, especially the more time between when something happened and when people are diving into research now with the Internet, research means something entirely different.
But popular conspiracies, popular theory says they don't have to be conspiracies, word of mouth. It's like it changes what truth is. And so it's always fascinating to see that even with a current like this is not that long ago that this happened, you already start to see that of like, oh, well, you know, the guy in Vegas, he disappeared and it's. Like people just assumed. That. Yeah. Did you look him up because no, he did it.
It's like it's like, do your own research now is like jump to a conclusion and then find other people who have jumped to that same conclusion. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with each other. So let's get into Biggie's death. This was the night of March 8th, 1997, and Biggie, along with Puff Daddy, attended the soul Train Awards afterparty, which was hosted by Vibe, right? Vibe magazine. Yeah, yeah. Because the Vibe, the Soul Train Music Awards have been the night before on the seventh.
So this was even though it was the next night it was still billed as an after party. And a lot of people that were at the Soul Train Awards were. At the party. Party, yeah. And the party was at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard, which I know intimately well. There are many. Many times which happens to be close by death row records office, which is, I mean, maybe a mile away if that like. It was just west of there. Yeah. Yeah.
After midnight the morning is now is that March 9th? Is that when they claim it is now? So in March nineties was on his death certificate because he was declared dead at like 115 because you know, technically it was down the ninth. The party was on the eighth. Right. So the morning now of the ninth, the fire marshal actually shut down the party because it was too crowded, I guess. Too crowded. Too rowdy. Yeah. They just they they were not prepared for how many people showed up.
And security at the door was tough because people showed up without. You know, invitation invitations. And they were so there were people outside that were stuck that were mad that couldn't get in. They didn't leave. And yeah, it was it was a scene. Right. So so the party gets shut down and Biggie and his group, they make their way downstairs to the parking garage and the parking garage because I know this museum social well is basically the front door. So they go down to the parking garage.
They're waiting on their car, and they eventually they get into three cars. Biggie and his crew. Right. And all. Were they all blazers? No, they were. Biggie and Puff got into a pair of Suburbans, OK? And then there was a blazer, a follow that followed them with a security penny. Yeah. So Biggie gets in the passenger seat of the Suburban and they pull out there on Fairfax Boulevard and they're headed north and they get stopped at a stoplight and a black Chevy Impala.
Ooh, I'm already being to get in the look from Dorsey, so. Yeah. So tell. Me this. How you when you're in the conspiracy, you realize it. It's some described it as black. Others described it as dark green. Nice. So depends on which witness to it you see. Yeah. I think the closest witnesses to it said it was dark green. The ones that were farther away thought it was black. Oh, that's really interesting. Dark green was one of the stark colors that you could get that year. Impala.
And what year was it? I was it was described as mid nineties, OK? It was believed to be other a 95 or a 96. And so current at the. Yes, exactly. Wasn't a classic. Yeah. Impala, no. Great. So the again, Biggie is sitting in the passenger seat this car comes up on his right the Impala and shots ring out, shots ring out. And so if there's a second time I've said that today, but shots happen. Yes. And Biggie is shot how many times as he's had? Four times.
Four times and all survivable except the last shot. And that's the. Truth. Oh, man. Oh, so the last shot is a fatal one. A final shot hit like four major hands as hard as lung. Yeah, it was. And it was a nine millimeter pistol. Correct. And we can get into the details there. There is a detail about that that I learned from you. Yeah, about that. And witnesses claim the Impala driver was an African-American male dressed in a blue suit and bow tie. Is that correct?
So, yes, some thought he was dressed blue and some thought he was. And it was like a gray or cream colored. And it is night. So it's. Again, colors under the lights. Everything looks just like with the car color. You know, Biggie was rushed to the Cedars Sinai Hospital, but he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. and again, he was only 24 years old. So that is the the basic synopsis of you got it. Some Tupac in there, because they're tied together and connected in a lot of ways.
That's how Biggie was shot. And obviously, again, officially, this is not solved. So I'd love I don't have a specific thing I wanted to start with. Just ask you questions, but there are a couple of theories I'll just mention real quick. I won't even say the whole theories, but Shook Night, his name comes up in a lot of different theory, pretty. Much every theory somewhere. It kind of goes back to him. Yeah, yeah.
And Chuck Knight again is the head of death row records right down the street West Coast, you know, West Coast, East Coast Rivalry. Sugar is currently incarcerated, right? He is currently right now incarcerated. And he was also incarcerated at that time. Oh, man. Because coincidentally, the night the beat down of Orlando, Anderson, that preceded Tupac's murder by 2 hours, she got sent back to prison because of that, because on the video, you can see him giving a little kick. Yeah.
As you know, all the guys pile on and that violated his own. Is. Really terms at that point. And he got sent back to prison. Right. And so this is only six months or so. After almost exactly six months. Man. And there are some people that also think Puffy was involved himself, even though he was part of Biggie's team. What is that? I've never quite understood the Puffy. That's probably the most far out of the theories because why would you kill your own number?
One artist's album is about to come out. Yeah, I guess some people think that because his star as an artist rose in the aftermath of that missing girl ball, maybe people thought that he was a chance for him, but I think it's so ridiculous. Yeah, that one's super ridiculous. And then there are a lot of theories that these are the ones that actually intrigue me the most, which is how may have been corruption may not be the right word, but cops. Yeah, the dirty cops. The dirty cops theory.
I don't know. Which one do you want to start with? Is there any of these you want to dove into? What can you clarify for us? Well, the dirty cops theory has been done to death. That one was there was an investigator named Russell Poole who came along about a month after the murder happened. And originally the murder case was with Wiltshire. Division Homicide detectives, because that was their territory, right? It was their area.
But after, you know, a month of them, not, you know, solving it robbery homicide division, which is kind of the elite murder homicide division for L.A., really, it's more like they get the high profile cases. Yes. Of course, they came in and took over the case. Yeah. And Russell Poole was one of the junior detectives on that. He was fairly new to robbery homicide when that happened.
And he ended up developing a theory, gosh, by about nine months later where he he the whole basis of it is just so crazy to me. But he trying to remember the order of events that he found things out. So first what happened was, I think it was that summer there was a schizophrenic jailhouse informant named Mike definitely guy. You want to listen to Michael Robinson, Michael Cycle, Mike Robinson. He he said that he he was inside when it happened, when the murder happened. He was in prison.
So he's all he's repeating what he thinks are rumors or what he's hearing. And he heard that the the shooter was a guy named Amir or Ashmore or Kenny or Kiki, which Kenny or Kiki sounds like Keith. Orlando. Anderson's uncle, who confessed that Orlando killed Tupac. And it was also at the. At the party party. That night. He was at both places. Yeah. And Keith, he was actually. You want to talk about another theory, Keith? He was actually looked at. For a while.
And I actually highlighted on this screen right here. Kind of sound. So so what I think Michael Robinson was doing was he was throwing a bunch of names against the wall. Yeah. And, you know, hoping because he, he, he would snitch for money, basically. Yeah. And I think he had a son that was kind of, you know, he tried to provide for and that was how he made money. Oh, wow.
This informant, if you didn't have information, the money stopped, and now he's stuck in jail and hard for him to inform, be a street informant. He's not on the street anymore. Yeah. So he starts throwing all these to any he describes the guy as a as a bodyguard for the Crips, and the guy rolls around in a white limousine in Compton and he's got some very specific information on who this guy is. So I think Russell Paul kind of keeps that information in the back of his mind.
But the the detectives that went out and talked to Psycho Mike, they thought he was full of shit. All right, there's this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, so they didn't take him seriously. So then fast forward now, later that year, this cop named David Mack robs a bank in Philly, pick up, robs a bank, gets I think $722,000 major haul. Yeah. And it turns out his his girlfriend was in on it. She worked at the bank. Yeah. And she made sure that there was extra funds there that day.
And so because of that he gets busted, he gets taken down. And so that was not Russell Poole's case. He had nothing to do with the David Mack case, but he ended up making a going to jail for I think, about a decade a little more maybe. Yeah. And so but he but he checks the visitor logs for David Mack, and he sees a guy visiting him named Amir Muhammad. And so and David Mack, this cop who did the bank robbery, owned a black Impala. Yeah. And so this he starts putting two and two together.
Oh, my God. This Amir guy is the guy. The problem is, is that Amir Muhammad was a mortgage broker at the time. I think he was living in the Inland Empire. And then shortly thereafter, he moved down to, like, the San Diego area, and he's a mortgage broker. He's a professional yeah. He it's kind of silly. And he does not match all he's not from Compton probably knew nothing about Compton. The idea that he was rolling around Compton in a white limousine and providing bodyguard services for Crips.
Yeah. You know, and then, you know, like moonlighting doing that as a mortgage broker, it's just like it didn't match any of the stuff that Amir Muhammad or that psycho Mike said. Yeah, yeah. It's just the name Amir, one of five names he gave. He makes this kind of so. It's a coincidence. And then it's kind of like drawing a conclusion and then going working your way backwards and trying to find all the other. It's the confirmation bias that that happens to everybody. Yeah, exactly.
Although I don't fully trust mortgage brokers, so I should mention that. Well, what's ironic, you in talking about trust, one of the reasons that Amir that they turned on him, Amir, was that he when you log in to visit someone in jail, you to fill out a form with your information, your name your address, Social Security number, and his name and his address were correct from his DMV file, but his Social Security number, he put down a fake number and that oh, he's trying to hide who he is.
And Amir, he was later interviewed and he said that, no, it's this is a mortgage broker. He's had a lot of clients that have had their identity stolen, OK? And he was so he's mindful of it. And now he's like, I'm going into a jail that's full of criminals being visited by other criminals. And here's this log book that anybody can look at. I'm not putting all my personal information down, especially not putting my Social Security number down.
But all his other information was correct, which is why they were able to easily find him. So the idea that he was hiding his who he was is ridiculous. Yeah. And I'm already starting to get the sense of like Oliver Stone's JFK, where suddenly there's all these different people that are somehow connected to something that's like it's starting to get a little crazy already and you're crazy. It's like throw a bunch of things against the wall and see what sticks. Yeah. With this theory here.
But let me ask this, though, because one of the things I wanted to bring up with you is there's the wrongful the wrongful death or wrongful action case for that lawsuit. Yeah. So but didn't that have there was files released with some sort of police? They didn't do their job correctly or was it what was that?
No, there was one thing they made a big deal out of was that one when you know, when that lawsuit happens, the LAPD had to turn over a bunch of the case file discovery, basically to the lawyers who were suing the city. And there was apparently a tape found, a taped interview found in the drawer of one of the detectives that wasn't turned over and that got blown up into this big conspiracy. Got it. So so because the tape the cover is saying it's a cover up. The police are in on it.
They were part of this or some of them were part of it. OK, that actually makes sense to me now. Now, I kind of understand that world. Has that ever been resolved that that wrongful. Yeah. So what happened was when Greg Kading led his task force, he got a contract. He they first pursued the various a pool theory as if it was true because it was the most prominent theory at that time.
And they just because of the this just the ridiculousness of Michael Robinson's what he was saying and these other jailhouse informants, it was really built on the backs of jailhouse informants, all telling different stories, are all trying to communicate with each other and coordinate what story they were going to tell. They just quickly ruled it out as implausible.
And another thing they did was they said, you know, David Mack, when he got arrested for the bank robbery, you know, they said that there was a shrine to Tupac in his garage. It wasn't a shrine. It was like it was like a poster and some like CD inserts. Which at the time he was just. A fan. Yes. That was so norm. He was like his garage was like his little workout area. And, yeah, it was not anybody's locker.
We would have called a shrine back then based on that criteria, but it got turned into a shrine they also claimed that this special ammunition that was used is called gecko ammunition. Yeah. It was the nine millimeter ammo that was used to kill Biggie. It's actually submachine gun ammunition it's high powered. Oh, wow. You really you can shoot it in a handgun. Obviously, the the shooter used a handgun. If you use it too much on a handgun, it will start to beat the hardware up.
Yeah, it's very hard on your guns because it's really made for machine guns. Right. But it can be fired from a handgun. So they claim that this this special gecko ammunition was found in David Mack's house now, the actual detective on the case was contacted recently and said, no, it's just generic nine millimeter. And I have the report from the raid on David Mack's house, and it just says nine millimeter. It does not say gecko.
And they also claim that police radios were used to coordinate the shooting when it happened. And there are police and that police radios were found in David Mack's house. Also, they were you know, he wasn't supposed to have the truth was there was only one radio found which hard to communicate with only one. And it was reported missing months after. Wow. Two Biggie was killed. So it just it's these things.
It's again, if you only give people part of the information, if you put them all together, it sounds like a mountain of evidence. But when you start looking at each one individually. I mean, honestly, this is this is really interesting.
It's kind of boggling my mind a little bit because as someone who's only kind of I dove into this over the last week just to prepare to talk to you and not trying to solve anything or go crazy, but still reading a lot you're already making it sound way more simple.
And as I said earlier, I think simple explanations work and you're just clarifying that you're not making it simple because the way you're saying it, you're making it simple because you're clarifying a lot of these details that I didn't have. Right. And because I've been reading real trusted reviews and articles, it does make me realize, you know, even with good trusted sources, you are not getting all the information. It's just kind of impossible.
There's yeah, there's so much minutia with a case like this and a journalist writing about this typically doesn't know any more about it than you do, right? So they're just writing what they heard also. So and they in they will get little minor facts wrong sometimes or yeah. They just print something that I know is nonsense. But they I don't blame them. They don't write that because they aren't they haven't been living this case for the past eight years.
So so let me before I get into kind of your theory and what you've learned over all your years of working on this. What is what's another strange it doesn't have to be a theory but what are the some of the strange aspects of this case that can make it either hard to pinpoint or anything else that comes to mind? The reason that the both murders were so hard to solve was because drive by shootings are very hard to solve.
First of all, I think only like 40% of murders get solved to begin with and drive by shootings are really hard to solve because there's almost no evidence left behind. Even if someone gets a license plate, you still have to prove who was in the car. And, you know, a prominent gang member who was associated with death row around the same time, maybe a year or two later was murdered.
They actually found the van and the driver of the van, but they still couldn't prove who the actual gunmen were that got out of the van and shot the guys and the guy that, you know, that was the driver of the van. He only knew their street names or claim to and they couldn't. And he claimed he didn't know what they were going to do. They were just driving and they just happened to see this guy. And the two guys just got out and shot him. Yeah.
And he didn't know it was going to happen, so couldn't arrest him. And that's it. So to this day, that remains unsolved because drive by shootings are really, really hard to solve. And people say, oh, but they found, you know, the bullet casings at the scene, OK, he's thought to have a gun that you think was the murder weapon that you can try to compare it against. Yeah. And, you know, tons and tons of guns have been tested and they've, you know, reportedly never found a confirmed match. Right.
So and they happen so quickly, I would imagine. And also, even though it was a party and people were leaving the party, there's a lot of people around the Peterson Museum. It's Night Street lights make colors look weird already. Comments about the car in the suit. Yeah. And also just historically, witness testimony is not always the best piece of evidence. To have to try to solve a crime. If you talk to any law enforcement person, witness testimony is always like the worst.
Eyewitness accounts are always the worst evidence because people miss see things all the time. And misremember. To misremember them. Exactly. Yeah. OK, so there was the drive by aspect. But yeah, in terms of any other strange things you want to talk about, was that it? Or you know. What? What was interesting was there was a I think it was in America's Most Wanted episode or Unsolved Mysteries.
I think it was America's Most Wanted they did this case and just the calls they got in from people who were amazing. Oh, my goodness. Somebody somebody thought that an actor from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing looked a lot like the composite sketch of the killer. And they said, go talk to that guy. There were people that claim they did it, and it turns out they were actually in insane asylum thousands of miles away.
When that happened, there were people that called and said their college roommate did it just as a prank. There was it was it just shows how many how much evidence that that and, you know, the detectives have to follow up on every one of those things that come in. But one good thing came in from that episode. And that was somebody called in and said that their daughter was in L.A. And may have video tape of the shooting. Oh, wow.
And that's where the famous videotape of not the actual shooting itself, but the moments immediately before and after shot there on Fairfax. That videotape came to the police because of that episode of television that aired. So there was one really great piece of evidence that came out of, yeah, well, a thousand terrible leads.
But that also led to a few more, of course, strange theories or people commenting or trying to come up and solve it themselves, like the striped shirt guy, which you have an episode on your YouTube series about. So what did tell me about this striped shirt guy? So there were two suspicious individuals that Biggie security team clocked while they were inside the garage getting ready to leave. There was a guy dressed like Nation of Islam, Nation of Islam in a suit and bow tie.
And then there was but but that the Nation of Islam was it was common for them to do security, private security and events like this. And we do know that there were Nation of Islam members there, and we know that there was one guy in a blue suit and police talk to him. Yeah. And it wasn't Amir Mohammed. Right. But that a lot of times if you saw guys in suits and bow ties, an event like that, you would say, oh, Nation of Islam. So you're doing security.
But this one guy seemed just kind of set off Puffy's security guard, his own personal bodyguard who was named Eugene Deal. He spotted that guy and was a little unnerved by him. And after he pulled his gun out and kind of put it under his arm to be ready for something to happen. Yeah. And then but then he went over and told the other the Paul offered who was the head of security for Bad Boy. Hey, keep an eye on this guy. I think they're doing security but still keep an eye on this guy.
And Paul offers like, hey, you need to keep an eye on this other guy that's in this oversize striped pullover collared shirt. He kind of looks like a gang member. And he was, I think, he's kind of mad dogging them. And at one point, I think he deliberately walked through their group in kind of a masculine fashion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they in deal was like Oh yeah, I've seen him, too. So there were two guys out there and the striped shirt guy is on the home video.
You can't identify him, but he's definitely there. Oh, yeah. You can clearly see he's there. And one of the witnesses who had seen him pointed him out on the video and said, Yeah, that was the guy that we were talking about.
And then the striped shirt guy just happened to also be spotted when the shooting happened, but he was out on the street and was so crazy as I have this nine on one tape from these random people that were driving by the girl in the car said that there was a guy in a striped shirt. It looked like he was crouching down between the parked cars and he was pointing and she couldn't see a gun, but he was pointing like he had a gun. But we know the shooting wasn't done by someone on foot.
It was a drive by. So we don't know to this day what that guy's involvement, if any, was or if it was just yeah. You know, she he was pointing and she thought maybe it looked like a gun. But, yeah, you know, that's one of those weird little side coincident. Was he was he part of the team? Was he there to coordinate with the guy? Was he did he have a cell phone? Did you tell him he's, you know, big he's in the second Suburban. He's coming down the street right now.
And then was there is backup in case. Yeah. Anything else happened or was it just completely random? He had nothing to do with it. Yeah. And not to to go off course here, but you're making me think of that neighborhood at night. Which, again, I know very well. I used to live right around there as well. Yeah. And you think Los Angeles, you hear Wilshire Boulevard, which is a main thoroughfare. So it's Fairfax, the cross street. But at night, it's actually really quiet in that area of L.A.
Even there's a neighborhood right behind the museum. So if someone's waiting on that, that next sort of cross street just south of Wilshire. Yeah. Orange Grove. You just you just hang out there until you see somebody come out of the garage and come up after them. Yeah. And not many people are going to notice you because it is so quiet there. Right. You know, 1230 a night. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of those neighbors called the police, too, throughout the night and heard the gunshot heard.
And there was a random shooting that happened about half an hour before Biggie was shot aware. So on Orange Grove. Oh, quiet little residential street right outside the garage. Somebody else leaving the party got out of his car, and there were he had a gun kind of in the map pocket of his door, and it fell out. And he decides, Oh, no, I better make sure it still works. And shoots it shoots it off in the air.
Yeah. If I didn't go over every time I've done that, you know, I'd have I'd have so many. 911 calls are already coming in from the museum in the neighborhood, and then even more come in when that happens. Yeah. So people are one of the conspiracy theories was that that guy was part of the conspiracy, that he did that to draw police away or security away from, you know, the other side of the building, which is where the murder happened. Right.
It's first of all, it's a half hour before it happened. And also there were no police in the area at that point. They were trying to get the police to come down there and break the party up. And supposedly LAPD was like, no way, if we come down, I'll just make it worse. Yeah. So if anything, it brought police to the area, which is the opposite of what they would have wanted. And also what happened was those guys after the shooting happened, Biggie was shot.
They drove back around and police by that point had a description and a license plate number for their car and were like, wait a minute. And the rest of the guys. Yeah. And so they interviewed him and they and they were just they were unrelated to begin anyway. They just it was just random things. That nineties in Los Angeles just shoot. And gunshots go on. Exactly. All right. Well, let's let's get to it then. All right. What what do you think happened?
What have you learned after all these years? And honestly, if you could also let us know what has kind of changed too, even though you read the book and you've talked to people. But like, I'm sure your perspective has changed over the years. So. Yeah, yeah. Well, I through two things that you write, I apologize. No, they well, I think one of the reasons that the biggie Tupac's murder, the people that did that, they went home and told everybody.
Yeah, so within days of Tupac being killed, half of Compton knew who did it. It was the worst kept secret in Compton. And but Biggie's murder was the opposite. It was very close to the vest only maybe, you know, three or four people total knew anything about it. It was kept very, very close to the vest. And that's one of the reasons that it was so hard to solve, because there weren't people blabbing the streets, weren't hearing anything about it.
They were hearing, you know, it's crazy the amount of noise they heard around Tupac's murder was so much more than around Biggie. So, yeah. People it was everybody just guessing who did it with Biggie.
And what ended up happening was Greg Kading and his task force, they initially talked to the goal of Orlando Anderson originally because they thought he might have had something to do with it because there were rumors that they were owed money by South Side, which is that Crips, which is where that. Yeah, his gang, the Southside Crips, are owed money by Bad Boy Records, and that's that's where that theory came out about the biggie had offered the million dollars.
Hey, Tupac's murder. That's what the debt was. Yeah. Other people other rumors were that it was just about security they provided security and had not been paid for that security. And so that's why and the theory went that the Southside Crips go big in revenge because he what he refused to. Pay. And so that's why they zeroed in on after they ruled out Russell Pool, they zeroed in on Keefer because they're like, this guy knows something he was at. He's connected to Tupac's murder.
He was in Vegas and Tupac was killed. And he was at the Peterson Museum when Biggie was killed. Like, what are the odds of that? He has to know something. Even if he's not involved, he knows something. And wasn't he also associated with a black Impala as well? Yeah, he had he had an empire. Yeah, he had a black Impala. Same years. And another reason that they zero in on him was that Impala was found hidden in the backyard of his girlfriend's house in Compton under a tarp, you know.
And so that was like, oh, they're trying to hide it. Yeah. And good. What turns out was I think the payments were just behind, and there was the repossesses were after it, and it was just off the street for that reason. But but it shows how something can be made to seem malicious. Yeah. When you cast, you know, from this perspective of the of the Biggie case. So basically big, you know, keeping him in.
And what's really interesting is he would tell you he, he spoke very freely to the detectives about where he was being. He was killed. You know what he knew about it. He was very open about that because he knew he had nothing to do with it. And then the hide he was in the garage waiting for his car when the shooting happened.
You know, here he saw the people come running in all that whenever they would start to talk about how well he knew bad boy or anything about Vegas and Tupac, that's when he was like his attorney would kind of jump in and be like, we're not here to talk about that. Yeah. You know, he's putting us he's coming in as a favorite, you know, he's you know, he's putting his life at risk by even talking to you guys. Like, you know, that's not what he's here for. Stick to it. The Biggie murder.
So so I really strongly believe that he had nothing to do with Biggie's murder. Get it or get it. In fact, he minutes before the murder happened, before Biggie and then left the party, he walked up to Biggie's table and security kind of stopped him. And Biggie looked up and said, he's cool. I know him. And they let him through. And he came over, and there was a discussion about, you know, Biggie had all these champagne bottles that were given gifted to him by the party, and he wants weed.
So there was a trade was kind of worked out, you know, champagne for weed. And and then also Kesey had a bad vibe at that party, no pun intended. Yeah. He felt like he just he recognized some shady characters that were there. There were associated with the Bloods and death row records. And he just had a bad feeling about that night. And he offered he talked to Puff also at that table, and he offered extra security like, do you want us to walk with you out of here?
And he was told, stay away from us, because the coincidentally, the feds had been had them under surveillance the night before and bad boy had caught them looking at them over and spied on the night before, which started this whole rumor that the feds had been there the night of the big murder and had witnessed it. And he hadn't said anything, which I went into my Deep Dove series. Yeah, there's all these tangents. But anyways, so and they said, no, you know, basically, no, don't help us.
And then, you know, Biggie got shot. Yeah. OK, so I said, that's it. I am the, the source of going into that tangent but it was a, it's a really good one because I did want to talk to you more about QED, but yeah, so, so what actually happened? And you know.
They zero Greg Kading in his task force they ended up zeroing in on one of sugar baby mamas, one of his ex-girlfriends he had a kid with and she was someone who had been involved like his businesses would kind of be under her name sometimes to kind of keep things, you know, away from him.
And she was involved in, you know, white collar stuff and basically, they she she had been arrested at her house for some things and they offered to get her out of trouble, basically, if she would cooperate with them and tell them what they knew. And they did kind of a Hail Mary pass. But there was this guy named Poochie Wardell Fowles, who his nickname was Poochie. He was an enforcer from Compton. And he was he was serious about that business.
He was he didn't like being photographed. His pictures of him. He always has that sunglasses on or he's covering his face. He was not one to party with all the other gangsters. He was about the business of being. An enforcer, business being. An enforcer. Which means killing people primarily and
and supposedly had done hits before. And so the theory was to she she came out and ultimately confessed that she that she was instructed to go to him and to arrange payment and for him to do the hit on Biggie. And it was that simple. It was between sugar to her. To Poochie. Yeah. And she supposedly posed as a member of Sugar's legal team as like a paralegal or illegal secretary. Oh. So that she could meet with him.
And in the prison, in the attorney client privilege area of the prison which was not monitored. And I think that was in like there was like an episode of Breaking Bad. I think where that happens, where they go in to meet with somebody in the shady lawyer goes down in the shady lawyers like sits off to the side and puts headphones on so you can't hear what they're talking about. But that's basically kind of it.
It's, it's, it's a way for him to talk about his street business basically without the law enforcement knowing about it. OK, so suge's behind it to some extent. Then why hasn't this led to an arrest of some kind? Because that's as far as it went. They trying to remember how it got wound down. Basically, I think what happened was the LAPD was not interested in anything that involved
Puffy. For starters. They didn't want to get into anything with any thing that might implicate him with it, which was where I think because the Greg Kading task force was simultaneously investigating Tupac because they realized that they were connected I think murders were OK.
And when Greg Keating's task force started going in the direction of maybe Bad Boy having some involvement in and also in the Tupac case, yeah, that kind of put the brakes on that and like, ll, he's like, no, no, no, we're not doing that. And then also, why wasn't Sugar ever prosecuted? That is a good. Question because he had a lot of other things on it. So the problem is, is that even if you even when you have a confession from someone like that, you still need cooperating.
Evidence. Evidence to go with it. And they they're poochie was dead by this point. He was killed and he was killed in his own drive by shooting. He was the victim of. So so it's kind of like, well, the shooter is dead. So who are you going to try to go after, sugar? How are you going to build a case on him? He's, you know. OK, and you just. He's not going to he's not going to confess to anything. OK? And I want to just clarify for myself and for the audience here.
But so so Poochie is the one that actually pulled the trigger. He wasn't like behind somebody else in the car. He's the guy. It was. Yeah, it was. It was a there was a single person who pulled off the big emergency. The driver was also the gunman. There was no one else in the car with him. And supposedly we have a couple of different witnesses who claimed that that Poochie did own an Impala. That should bottom one because Sugar would get the guys cars. Yeah, the homeboys.
That was kind of a perk for being part of his circle. It makes. Sense. And so and so they Shug and Poochie both got Impalas. So sugar also in the Impala of this the same make and model. Yeah. Yeah. OK, interesting. So I mean that it's still as much as no one was ever prosecuted or anything, it still seems weird, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I yeah. It's just simple. Yeah. Here, go kill him. Here's the money and he's dead, and that's it. That's the that's the case.
Do you think anything will ever happen to since Tuesday? I do think anything ever happened to Shug in this case. I don't know. I mean, look, I think they're pretty happy with Shug being in prison. Yeah, possibly for the rest of his life, you know, depending on how long he lives here. So he's doing a long story. Yeah. For that, for for that incident in Compton a few years ago. And for Terry Carter, a murder. And he.
Yeah, I feel like hey, it's kind of like when, you know, like when when when O.J. went to jail for a long for he got that long jail sentence for, you know, the whole memorabilia thing. In Vegas. Yeah. You know, and it was kind of like, OK, they got him for that at least, you know? Yeah. They get him for something. Yeah. I don't think the Biggie case will ever be officially closed probably unless the LAPD just decides it's we're no longer working. It was probably this it's we're considering it
what's called cleared other. Yeah. Which means, you know, even if it was Poochie, we can't prosecute him, and we're never going to get enough evidence to link Shug to it. Right? Right. Barring should confessing a deathbed confession from him. And I bet I bet it helps feed conspiracy theories and both the Tupac and Biggie case that someone like Poochie ends up being killed as well. Because I know in Tupac's case, I can't remember exactly, but we're in a few people that may have been suspects
or may have been involved. Also died just soon. Yeah. Well, Orlando Anderson was killed 18 months later in a shootout over a drug deal, but he instigated the shoot out. So it wasn't like he was targeted he just he just died.
And and then a few years later, DeAndre Smith, who was supposedly in the backseat with him when the shooting happened, also died from health health related issues now and then in I want to say 20, 15 I think Terrance Brown, who was supposedly the driver of the getaway car, the white Cadillac in Vegas, he died he was murdered in a marijuana dispensary in Compton and part of a double murder. Him and the shop's owner were killed yeah. And that's remains unsolved also.
Yes but also conspiracy theory. But also he had previously been shot multiple times in another incident. His nickname was Lotto because he survived being shot like ten times. So it's like so the problem is, is that people live with that gang street lifestyle. Like those guys who are really about the business. They have short lifespans. Most of them, the ones that survived are the ones to get out of it quickly.
Yeah. So. Yeah. And is that something also, I never said this upfront, but you and I got to work a little bit on autobiography and autobiography. Cold Cases. Discovery. Yeah. For and that is Mysteries with Cars. I'm sure the audience has heard me mentioned something about another episode. Tim was on Separate. But tell me about the status of the vehicles at least as much as you know both the, the, the, the blazer sorry suburban that Biggie was shot in and and Tupac's so.
This the Tupac was shot in a seven series BMW that was leased to death row records and should was driving that one was processed by Las Vegas police and then returned to death row and then it was returned to a leasing company and that one I don't know what happened to it in the years subsequent years but it is now for sale by a car dealership in Vegas but it's been repaired.
So I think it was repaired and then sold off, you know, possibly at auction or something with the people that bought it, never having any idea. Yeah. It's history later. And but but so you know, as a the Bonnie and Clyde car is worth a lot because it's still shot up. Yeah. These guys are trying to sell Tupac's death car for like $1.7 million. But it just looks like a seven series BMW. The bullet holes have been repaired.
So it's I mean, it's interesting, but it's like I think and they keep raising the price tag. And so I kind of feel like it's more there to get people to come in. Yeah. And to their store and look at what else they have. Yeah. And then Biggie Suburban is an interesting one. So this is not a well-known story. But after after the car was returned, somehow the door with all the bullet holes in it ended up at a body shop like in Van Nuys.
And there was and it got back to one of the detectives on the case that it was going to be sold and they're like, No, we're not letting that happen or, you know, we're not letting that happen to Biggie's mom and his family. They know. And so they went down to that body shop and they took the door into evidence and I believe to this day the door is in LAPD. Yeah. Yeah. People, I think, have gone down and seen it. Yeah.
And then the Suburban was left there, but they put another door on it, and there was sold off. It was auctioned and again, the people that bought it, this family, they had no idea the history until a few years ago. LAPD contacted them, tracked them down and said, you know, we we've been looking at the case again and we may need the car back. We need you. And they were like and they were like, for way they're like, you have the car that Biggie was writing when he was killed.
And supposedly there is damage to the passenger front passenger seat seatbelt that they think may be. Because of some of the. Bullets. I mean, it could be it's a tear. So who knows? But, you know, they've always wondered what did that. Yeah. And that's that they think that's. It could be. So and they they also recently tried to sell the car for a lot of money. Yeah. I don't think they got a buyer. I can't remember. Yeah, but that's interesting.
So your take away on this whole thing, why why are people still enthralled with the biggie murder excuse me, with Biggie and Tupac murders? And why do you think it's going to kind of live on? Because I think this isn't going to end. I think there's going to be podcast and movies and she'll never tenuously. I just saw I think I think affects is doing another Tupac documentary really called Dear Mama from the perspective of his mother. Yeah. And their relationship yeah.
And so it's it will never and I think it's because to have two icons murdered within six months of each other and for them to be still officially unsolved and so many theories and and and the and the fact that they're related you know the cases are related that's I think that's why it's like black dolls. Yeah it's just will never there always be people fascinated with it.
And what's interesting to you is, you know, like with the big in Tupac cases, there are different camps of, you know, theories and the camps constantly bickering with each other and don't like each other. Yeah. And I know I've noticed the same thing with the Black Dahlia case. Yeah. Yeah, same thing. They have different camps and they don't like each other. Yeah. And Manson murders and they have their you know, it's any you take any case. The similarities are pretty striking.
Yes. And to the outsiders, the bickering seems very petty. And why don't you all just get along and work together? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's that's. So coincidentally, the Tupac case is being looked into again. Oh, wow. Now, by Las Vegas police. That's and that's that came out a couple of months ago, so. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Breaking news, but I can confirm that. Yeah, they are. They are actually. Look, is someone someone's putting. Some of his. Work into it. Yeah.
You know, that's interesting. Well, I kind of I hope they solve it. I mean, I do, too. The sake of it was a crime. I hope it is solved. Well, I mean, he's talked about it, so many times. And he put a book out. Yeah. A couple of years ago called Compton Street Legend or something like that. And it's like and again, it's 225 pages of. Yeah. We did it. Yeah. But even then a lot of other people have written things that like you can't, you know,
as a police officer you can't just go, well, he said it in. Yes. But I mean, how many times does one person have to say, yeah, it was us? Yeah. Before you're like, Oh, yeah, it was them. Yeah. But I guess you got to build that. You got to still build a case. And you know, another reason that these haven't been solved officially is because, you know, people always say, Oh, well, Justin Bieber was killed on the Strip. They would solve that stuff right away.
I'm like, Yeah, if Justin Bieber's security team knew the murder was they would race each other to the police department to tell. Yeah. Who did it. Yeah. But in, you know, when you're surrounded by, you know, gang members and there's a street code, you don't cooperate with police. Yeah. And they didn't. Well, didn't some of that given that a cop showed up when Tupac was shot and didn't eat, the cop was like, who shot you? And he just said, fuck you to the cops. That's what the cop has claimed.
Yeah. His Vegas bike bike police officer was the first on scene and helped pull Tupac out of the car. Yeah. After the shooting. Yeah. He claims that that's, what, two months against stayed true to the code, you know, till the very end. Man, Tupac was such a talented dude, and so was Biggie. I just know Tupac's work a little bit better and he was also an art school guy. I went to art school. I went to art school. So I mean, Tupac was in the performing arts school with Jada.
Jada Pinkett. Yeah, that's right. They were friends. Yeah, it's. Crazy. Yeah. Which some people have tied, you know, try to tie ended Will Smith's whole slapping incident. Oh, yeah. Well, because he slapped Chris Rock, he definitely had something to do with the murder. I know. Yeah. No, just did like that. It was kind of this, like, had to prove he's always felt like he had to prove himself because there was kind of maybe a thing. With. Her and Tupac in high school. At least they were friends.
And, you know, Tupac's the gangster icon. And, you know, I got a preview of, I don't know, the night. Yeah, yeah. That deep. Yeah, that is that's pretty crazy. And I think I feel like we're kind of done talking on. Yeah. Will Smith. It's been done. Yeah, it has been. And as well, honestly, thank you so much for this. I, I know I learned a lot from this because again, I've been a little removed from this case. I haven't studied it, but I've always been fascinated with it.
It's two icons, like you said, and sort of pop culture, history and murder mystery all wrapped up into this. Yeah, and it's always fascinated me. And I honestly, you simplified it for me. I feel like I learned it. I feel like you've affected my point of view on the case. Sure. But I still listening to you talk to I mentioned it earlier, but you're making me think of Oliver Stone's JFK because there's all this, like, quick, witty, good dialog scenes.
They're introducing all these various people that coincidentally may have been associated with whatever. And there's some, like, shadowy underworld figures involved with it and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think what I my point is, Oliver Stone, friend of a friend of the podcast, I'm just assuming, but I'm sure he listens. Yeah, but Oliver Stone, I think your next project is right here. There you go. The biggie, Biggie Smalls, Mega. Well, let's look.
I didn't want to plug all your stuff up front, but I do want to mention everybody should check out a murder rap unsolved. They should watch your YouTube videos on the subject. Yeah. Also, Ghost Adventures House calls a discovery plus. Yeah. And what else do you have? Because I feel like you're always working on stuff.
I think Murder Rap is on iTunes now and to Rent, and I know it's on Peacock oh, I can actually stream it for free on the Peacock streaming app as part of, like, the free, you know, just sign up for a free account. You can watch it there. I just found out about that.
I also just finished up a documentary on the Parkland School shooting that I was a part of that I came in, I joined it late and basically reedit the documentary, you know, polish it up and and that comes out in early September and it's called Code Red. And where's it going to be? Is there self distributing? So it will be a, you know, pay per view on all that. Yeah, sure. iTunes and Google Play and Amazon. And all the. Ways you can rent things.
And it's an interesting one because they've really focused on everything that went wrong that day specifically with like the police response and, and the way the school reacted. And unfortunately it was happened again with evolve. Yeah. Same mistakes were made all over again. Yeah. So they're kind of that's where they decided to put their focus on for the doc. So it's an interesting angle. Do they interview any of the students like Dave Hogg or anybody?
None of the March for Our Lives. Yeah. Guys. But they they interviewed two survivors and they interviewed a survivor, a teacher who survived, who was in the building where the shooting happened, and they interviewed at least three police officers who responded that day. So they got really good access. And a big thing is they got all the sheriff's department body cam footage. Oh, wow. It shows what the police were doing you know, we didn't we don't show any victims.
Yeah. That, but you see mainly outside them trying to organize and figure out what to do. It's pretty enlightening. How was it editing that project? Because I don't know if I could sit down. It was really rough. Yeah, it was rough. And I actually reached out to our friend Tim about maybe color grading and I was like, I can't. Oh, man, touch that. Yeah. Anybody with kids, I don't have kids. So maybe it's not quite as rough for me. Yeah, but it was still hard going. Yeah.
Going through all that body cam footage, which I didn't see anything, you know, bad but still hearing, you know, the urgency and the panic and everything, it was it was a the first month I'm working that was pretty dark. And then once I kind of found everything and I got acclimated to it now, yeah, I can be feel more objective about it. But yeah, it was. But I mean, good for you because it's important these things get made. So I'm glad I'm glad you can do it.
You know what's interesting is when surviving Sugarman, you know that director of that film, he won the Oscar and then he killed himself. I didn't know that he actually jumped in front of a train. Yeah. And he jumped in front of train like a year or two after he won the Oscar. And you would think you if you win the Oscar, especially for something like that, you can write your own ticket, whatever you want to do next. You can do like anybody. Anybody wants to work with you.
And you would think the guy's on cloud. Nine. And I think what was reminded and what I got reminded of when that happened was it's a very solitary job. You're in a dark room by yourself all day, every day, especially reading with rough subject matter. And I did start it made me more cognizant of my own mental toll that it takes on me. Yeah. And I don't have any issues with depression or anything like that, but I can see how if you did in which he I think he had a history of it.
It's a tough lifestyle. Yeah, it is a tough career to pick. Yeah. And look, in winning, winning an award like the Academy Awards I've I actually know Academy Award winners. I'm in the entertainment industry. And I have to tell you, I think both of them that I know that have won Oscars have said that the phone calls actually stopped like a week after. It was like. Because people think, oh, you're too big. You're too big. I think it's a combination of a lot of things.
I think one is especially if you're not if you're not like Tom Cruise, if you're not a big actor. Yeah. If you're one if you're an editor, if you're a sound designer, you're still just, you know, the hired hand person. Correct. And it kind of just you get kind of forgotten about. And so it plays it plays tricks on a mind because everybody thinks this is everything I've won and now I can do anything I want. And then a week later, it's just like back to normal.
You're stuck in your body, Jennifer, where you have to play just as hard for your name as everybody else's. I a friend of mine, won the Oscar for sound for record sound recording for Whiplash. Yeah. And I remember I went he had a, you know, touch times Oscar party. Yeah. Yeah. Read the whole last year and get our picture taken. And but I asked him afterwards and a few months later, I said, about how long did that the glow from the people treat you differently from that? He goes about two weeks.
Yeah. Yeah. And then it was. Guy back back to normal. Yeah. Yeah I know the less well I look, I'm going to bug you later on because you and I share interest in things like Hollywood stories and the history of Hollywood. Oh, your podcast. That was the other thing I was going to mention and tell everybody about. Oh yeah. I do a podcast called The Dearly Departed Podcast. You've been doing it now. For like three and a half years with Scott.
Michael Scott runs Dearly Departed Tours, which was in Hollywood and Find It Netcom, and he has a big following and we do. Yeah, we do a show like about once a month. Yeah, all on Dark, the dark side of Hollywood history. We usually pick a story and yeah, run with it. It's awesome. Everybody should check it out. It's obviously a topic that I love. So I want to get you on to talk about some sort of Hollywood Scott Ritter encyclopedia. Oh, I can't get him to you. Be amazing. Absolutely.
I would absolutely love to you. And I never got to do The Black Dahlia together, an autobiography, which we spent a lot of time filming. We filmed it and we went out to the spot where her body was found and filmed in the Reagan one and yeah. And you guys never met in an episode. That's so sad because I felt like we did a really. Good we did. We did a released. Our. Dorff. Yeah. And we got to we got to do Valerie Morris, which we were going to tie together in a one story.
Yeah, but a Black Dahlia. I feel like so many people have done it. I like to find the stories not everybody has done. So we'll find something else. But also because of your work on Ghost Adventures, I'm not really focused on paranormal stories at all, but it will come up. This is a study of strange, so it might be nice to have you on for something. I mean, I just. I love the unknown. Me too. True crime or whatever. Me too. Yeah. Mysteries, man. Well, cool.
Well, thank you so much. And we'll talk soon. All right. Thank you. And thank you, the listeners, for tuning into what I think. I think this is a very special episode we did today. I got to learn something. I could talk about these topics all day long, which is why I have a podcast. I did not do any housekeeping at the beginning of the episode. Forgive me, I'm new to this. I'm going to forget things from time to time.
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And next week we have the Binnington Triangle, a story I have been wanting to talk about to somebody for many years, and I finally put together enough information that I think will make it different than any other sort of podcast or videos that you all might have seen about this subject. I'm really looking forward to it. I hope you enjoy. Thank you.