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You are now listening to True Murder, The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them. Many books of them have been written about the Black Gangster. They have been, for the most part, lengthy tomes focusing on the kingpins of the gang land scene, gangster with names like Nicky Burns, Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas, Lorenzo, Fat
Cat Nichols, and Kenneth's Supreme mc gift. Yet there are many stories about the Black Gangster that have not received much breast coverage or have simply been ignored or missed by the media. They indeed reveal a lot about the history of the Hood. Straight from the Hood is a compilation of some of those fascinating stories. You will find tales featuring drug kingpins, entertainers, hit men, street gangs, con men, corrupt cops, and reform gang bangers. Read about the most
feared man in the entertainment industry. The love story between Fran a former heroin addict, and David, a reformed gangster, both of whom have become celebrities. The unlikely alliance between an ambitious black gangster and a violent, indeed crazy, white Italian American mobster. The terrorist plot involving the Chicago Streak Kang, and more. Learn about al Capone's impact on Chicago's African American community and what Alcatraz has to do with Harlem's
most famous godfather. Why is Denzel Washington in this book? Who is a modern day desperado who died by the gun but managed to live on through rap music? How did a stick up artist from Brooklyn become hip hop's answer to Lee Harvey Oswald. Each of the following stories are amazing and all of them are true. The book feature this evening is Straight from the Hood with my special guest Ron Chepsik and Scott Wilson. Welcome back to
the program, Ron, and welcome to the program. Scott, and thank you for green to this interview.
Thank you. This is Ron Chepsick. I'm happy to be back on the program with you.
Dan.
Thank you very much, Ron for appearing and welcome to the program, Scott Wilson.
Oh, thanks, I'm very happy to be on this program. I'm happy to share this time and talk with you about the book.
Well.
Great, thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have a great program for the folks. Now, I always ask this question because I'm always curious, and I'm sure the audience is a little bit too.
Ron.
I'll start with you. You've written quite a few books about black organized crime. What made you come to the decision to write this book in particular short true organized crime stories, many involving well known names in hip hop music. And the second part of that is what did Scott Wilson bring to this book project, specifically Straight from the Hood?
Well, I decided to do this book because I've been writing, you know, books that deal with really in depth stories, and I've been collecting a lot of these mid tales about gangsters in the hood. A lot of these talers don't warn books in themselves, but are interesting, interesting stories, and uh, I thought that they would, uh you know, serve as a basis for the book. And uh, I've met Scott a couple of years ago. He approached me after reading one of my books, and we developed the
friendship and a relationship. And I knew Scott was a was a an excellent writer, and he has his own blog. He's also expert in hip hop culture, and I knew a lot of these stories, you know, related to the hip hop culture. And I'm not an expert in hip hop culture, although I listened to the music. And uh, so we we am more of a historian, a traditional you know type historian, and so I thought that if we put our backgrounds together, we we could, uh you know,
come up with a good book. And we did. Scott drew a lot of stories that he had been collecting or heard about, and and added him to the book. And then I went through through the history and uh pulled out some interesting stories. Uh some of them appear in some of my previous books, but a lot of them we're original.
Right now, What I wanted to ask, was you talked we talked about in the introduction, or at least I mentioned in the introduction read about the most feared man in the entertainment industry. Maybe we can start with some of the more important stories. I mean, there's a number of short stories in this book and all of them are pretty incredible and a lot of information I had no idea about it all, and a lot of big names. So you've met you threw out a few big names
in here. So let's let's start about with why why is Denzel Washington in this book? And maybe you can answer that question ron.
Everybody, everybody, I always ask that question, so you know that always grabs people's attention on that. Actually Scott dug this story out and it's a very interesting story, as Scott could probably talk a little bit about Phil Scott.
Okay, Well, back in about two thousand and one, I came across a documentary called Welcome to Death Row. It was produced by a friend of mine, a writer by the name of Alan Scott Gordon. He used to be the editor in chief at Rat Pages, it was a prominent hip hop magazine that's now defunct. He also wrote for The Source magazine. He was part of their mind squad, what they called the Source mind Squad back at that time. He produced this documentary along with Lydia Harris, which is
Michael Harris's wife. Michael Harris was a prominent cocaine dealer in the LA area in the early nineteen eighties. He was affiliated with the blood set known as the Bounty Hunters. He began to diversify into other areas mostly I think he was really aiming for entertainment, but he began to invest in a lot of legitimate businesses. That seemed to be his goal, a crossover into the legitimate world. He
produced a play play called Checkmates. He has the distinction of being the first African American to ever produce a Broadway play.
Uh.
It was Denzel Washington's first ever Broadway play. By that time, Denzel has already had a reputation. He was on Saint Elsewereth with TV, the hospital drama Saint Elseworth, So he already came to the table with something of a you know, a good resume.
Right.
That's very interesting, And it's interesting about Michael Harris because I had I had a friend and he's a he's actually a friend of Michael Harrison and Michael Harris been in jail since the late eighties, and he just was happening to talk with him on the phone because he called from prison, uh to this mutual friend, And so mutual friend called me put us on a freeway, and Harris was sort of girning me about about you know, you know, why was he in our book Straight for
the Hood and all that, and ex claimed was just you know, just a profile, you know, about fifteen hundred words and because he was actually doing his own books. And I said, you know, this was just a really short story and all that, so you know, it was quite interesting, and he said he was getting out. I think he's probably out of jail now. But this guy was had a very promising career as an entrepreneur and entertain an entrepreneur, and you know, lost it because of a variety of factors.
Now let's keeping with this, Let's talk about al Capone's impact on Chicago's African American community, it says, and also what Alcatraz has to do with Harlem's most famous godfather.
Well, al Capone, I guess you could say he was ahead of his ahead of his time, and in terms of his relationships with the black community in Chicago, although he wasn't you know, a raving civil rights advocate. But I think that the Times back in nineteen twenty he was. And of course al Capone had come to Chicago about nineteen nineteen from New York and quickly established himself in
the rackets. And you know, by the mid mid nineteen twenties, nineteen twenties, he was one of the most powerful gangsters in America. And he had a liking for half American music lose jazz, et cetera. And he had a bar
nightclub called Plantation Cafe. And actually, in those days it was hard for musicians to get gigs in white owned clubs, even up in the North, not just the South, and so he sort of allowed a lot of the lot of a lot of the black musicians to play in his club, and other gangsters would come and uh he eventually uh stuck up a relationship with Fats Waller, you know, the famous musician, right, And I have it in my book where Fats Waller uh one one night was summarily
picked up by two beefy gangsters, white gangsters from al Capone's mob and taken to this house and fast Waller thought it was the end of his days, but actually all that was was the birthday party for Capone, and he ended up playing music and staying up late, had champagne for the first time in his life, and h went home with his He recalled with his pockets bulging and with money and uh evidently, you know, Capone worked out a deal with the with the black community where uh,
you know, he stayed out of out of the other numbers and they bought his booze. So it was interesting story and at a different h angle on the Al Capone legend.
Right, and with that as well as what does Alcatraz itself have to do with Harm's most famous godfather, Well.
That's Bumpy Johnson, of course, and Scott wrote that story found it a very interesting story and he could probably explain a little bit more about that. Give you a little background on Bumpy Johnson. If you've seen the movie Hoodlums, he was in that movie, which was ostensibly depicting nineteen
thirties Harlem gangster life. And he was also a big character in American Gangster, the movie that came out in two thousand and seven, and he was a gentleman that had a heart attack in this store, and evidently that led to the rise of Frank Lucas, which, of course, as I pointed out in my book was a complete lie. We could talk about that later, but uh, Scott did. Scott wrote the story and he dug out the information.
It's a really interesting story. So maybe Scott can give you some background the story.
Yeah, I give Scott tell us a little bit about Alcatraz.
Well, yeah, there was a you know, Alcatraz reputedly the escape proof prison or so so people you know, Bumpy Johnson among others. I think even al Capone spent some time the Bumpy Johnson had spent time. How Bumpy like Michael Harris was You know, he was a very He was a very intelligent guy. That's why he made it so far in his criminal enterprises. He was a renaissance man. He was. He was a writer and I think even a poet. I think he had some of his work published.
He want a poetry contest while he was in prison, Yes, yes.
He want a poetry contest. Supposedly, while he was there, he helped with what is believed to be I think the only successful or nearly successful break prison break from Alcatraz. He provided a boat for the men who were trying to escape that night day. These guys, I mean, they were really detailed oriented they left, like I think paper mache busts of themselves in their beds after they left to simulate someone actually being in the in the prison
better sleep. But you know, Bumpy Johnson supposedly made it so that they had a boat waiting on them to sail, to sail over to San Francisco. From what I understand,
the boat nor the men were ever found. There's no way to there's no way to know for sure if this prison break was ever successful, and every not everyone believes that Bumpy was powerful enough at the time to actually aid in something like that because with him being in prison, I mean, he wasn't able to be out on the streets making money and a lot of his savings savings were probably depleted. But you know it's I think even his widow cooperated the story.
Right, and Unsolved Mysteries. Unsolved Mysteries had a segment on it, right, Scott, Yes they did, Yes.
They did. That's what I think. I think that episode of Unsolved Mysteries has a lot to do with the spreading of that story, right.
And you know, I was on the watching TV the other day and I was serving the channels. There was actually a movie made about a prison break from anothetized.
With fun Eastwood.
Wasn't there, Oh yes, I didn't, right, well, yeah, it was a breakout from it was that the same story.
I'm not sure. I never I've never actually seen the films, Like, I can't really answer that.
Yeah, yeah, well I've never seen the film in there because the film was at a time that I couldn't watch it, But I was thinking about renting it on DVD just to see if there was any any connection, uh, you know, or to the story where it was based on this story.
Now another story found interesting and and hopefully I haven't got this confused. When you talk about the most feared man in the entertainment industry, is this the story about Griffin? And and uh and Riley Teddy Riley.
Right right, Geen Griffin. And I was amazed because, uh, he's in my my research, I met a lot of ex gangsters, a lot of them, you Gene Riley and uh and uh he was a legend, uh in the in the in the underworld, and also in entertainment industry. He was rumored to be a hit man drug theyan and uh, you know, and uh they knew that if
he messed with Teddy Riley. You know you're really uh, you'd really uh have some problems on that and uh he developed a relationship with Teddy Riley, became one of the super talents of of of the US the industry and supported the Riley's godfather. And here when Riley was starting out, he evidently provided financials report that helped him even though the two guys you know came from UH
came from a different background. And so I, you know, I talk about this, this relationship, and oh, Teddy Riley became, you know, a big big name in the UH in the industry the help of h with the help of King Riley, I mean, excuse me. And but what happened was they got into a country.
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Actual disagreement over money and uh, you know, Riley was expecting that Griffin was ripping him off. And the figures you know, were reported to be in the in the millions, and he wasn't making a lot of money even though he wrote a number of uh, you know, pop hits that became very lucrative, right, excuse me on that, And so they ended up splitting and it didn't really, it didn't really hurt Rowley's career, you know, he went on
to become even a bigger star. But Griffin's musical career of fizzle and he disappeared as a big name in the music industry and he died in early two thousand and nine for the Alzheimer's Well.
I found was interesting about that story too, is the is the amount of well you talk about Bobby Brown's huge hit prerogative and if people go back a little bit in history, they know how big that tune was. And I found it interesting. And just like you make the conclusion at the end of the story that despite having financial problems and disputes with Griffin, that nothing ever
happened to Teddy Riley and his career went unabated. But what he talked about was that, for example, that Griffin had signed himself on for the royalty that ended up giving him eight hundred thousand dollars, where Teddy Riley said, there's no way that Griffin had anything to do with writing the.
Song at all, trying to be a co writer of that song, right it came to be a co writer a song, Yeah, Yeah, he was very he was very shady and you know, I don't know, you know, you can't make the accusation because he never was brought to trial for the wrongdoing. But he just had this reputation. You know, I was sort of working in the shadows and not everything being about work. And of course, when you have this type of reputation and you know, a lot of people come to really be wary of you
and even fear you. And I guess it's to Riley's credit that it really didn't bother him in terms of his ambition's career. You know, he went on to record a whole bunch of songs with Duck Dray, Queen Ten's Role, and munch of other by like your other musicians.
Uh to to interject, I also want to say that the relationship between Teddy Riley and Gen Griffin is actually pretty common when you look at a lot of the other dynasties and pop music. For instance, the relationship between Sue Knight and Doctor Dre. You know, Doctor Dre was the creative force. You know, he was a you know,
he's a gifted producer. He had he had a new sound at the time and him and him and Shook Knight formed Death Row Records and Shoode Knight was kind of the muscle behind the scenes, you know, if at first most people didn't know who he was. And I think those relationships proved beneficial for both people at first because the guy who's the muscle, he's able to get he's able to make rooms so that the creative person can do what he does and they can both make money.
But I think eventually the relations the relationship sours because the guy who's the muscle will eventually try to even muscle in on the creative person's territory.
Well, you know, I found it interesting too, and you guys don't talk about it, but for those people that don't know that, the record business has always employed some form of organized crime to be able to get some of these records played. And there's I've read quite a few books about how important some of these guys have
been to make or break a record. And when the record companies have back in back quite a few years ago, one of the record companies decided not to use these guys to be able to get some of the records played, and they showed them how powerful they really were. And we're talking we're not talking about chicken feed in terms of money, either we're talking about real serious money for getting this sort of done so. And in your book it's it's numerous stories.
It's going to say that Dan that the probably was famious. Example is Frank Sinatra, right right? If you never if you never got a boost from the mob, he might not have made a comeback what he did.
Sure. Sure, Now you talk about a stick up artist from Brooklyn who became hip hop's answer to Lee Harvey Oswald. Maybe he couldn't. One of you can tell him. Tell me what you're speaking to and what the story is involving that.
Oh, yes, you're talking about. Walter Johnson aka cut Well. Walter was largely unknown until Tupac mentioned his name in a song called Against All Odds and that was a that was a diss record on his posthumous album uh Don Caluminati The Seven Day Theory that he recorded recorded under the pseudonym Machavelli. That album was released shortly after Tupac was killed, and in the song he said that tut was the trigger man or one of the trigger men in the Quad Studios robbery, which kind of touched
off the East Coast West Coast War right. Uh. Supposedly Tupac was put on that information while he was in prison in upstate New York. And I think even when he was in Rikers Island, just kind of there in the holding pens, you know, he really seemed to believe that Tutt was behind that. Tutt already had a reputation as one of Brooklyn's most famous stick up artists. But Tutt has always maintained his innocince. He's always maintained that
he had nothing to do with that. And uh, there is something to that story because recently, with a lot of the developments in the case of Jimmy Henchman. You know, there's a guy named Dexter Isaac who's already a federal prisoner. He claimed that Jimmy Henchman paid him to perform the Quad Studios robbery and assault on Tupac. And he said he even has one of Tupac's goal chains to prove it if I'm not mistaken.
Wow.
Uh yeah, And that's that. That information has actually been out there for a while, but law enforcement never really picked up on it. There were there were quite a few inmates well in the same federal penitentiary as this guy back to Isaacs, and they claim that he's been bragging that he did the Quad Studio his job for quite a while.
Right, And Scott ended up corresponding with Tutty talk about that, Scott, Oh, yeah.
I corresponded. I corresponded with Cut via email. But he was very, very cordial. You know, he was very cautious. And I can understand why, because I mean, Tupaca is the most revered rap artist of all time. He's also the biggest killing rap artist of all time. I think he sold like seventy five million records worldwide, and so
his fans are very His fans are ravenous. They defend his legacy to the death, and they really seemed in anything that he says a lot of times they kind of accepted, and they really seemed to believe that Tutt had something to do with the Quad Studio shooting, and some of them even seemed to believe that he had something to do with Tupac's ultimate murder. I taught to Cut, you know, Like I said, he came up very cautious.
He came off very cordially, even came off regretful about his legacy and not even anything related to Tupac, but just his legacy as a known stick up artist. My personal opinion. You know, I'm not saying that my word is law. My personal opinion. I don't think that he had anything to do with Quad Studios.
Why is that.
For me?
It's just for me, it's gut instinct. And it's also the fact that the Dexter Isaacs thing was never properly looked into by the authorities because they had I think they may have had an agenda against Tut because he he shot a police officer in a barbershop and the police officer failed to identify himself, and because of that, Tut was acquitted of what they were trying to charge him with. So I think that, you know, there probably was just kind of an agenda on law enforcement to
not really look into that case. They probably figured, well, he's a stick up artist anyway, he's a known back on the streets, so who cares if you know something else is pinned on him?
Right right?
Hipox Murder is going into one of the biggest mysteries in entertainment history. In fact, there's a movie coming out pretty soon that's in production. I think it's finished, and a lot of people are waiting for that, waiting for that movie to come out, and people are people are really fascinated by by his death because there's so many unsolved questions, unanswered questions that you know that the really people are looking for answers.
Right now, I'll ask who is who is the modern day desperado who died by the gun that managed to live on through hip hop music?
Okay, that would be now, that would be Kelvin Martin. Kelvin Martin also went by the nickname of the street name. He had that nickname long before the rapper fifty Center picked it up and began to use it as his rapping name. Kelvin Martin. Both him and Touch they operated during the nineteen eighties. And during the nineteen eighties, especially
in New York City, the crack trade was exploding. So you had a lot of like younger hustlers in the street who were coming into some very relatively big money, you know, and they would they would show this money off. They would buy goudy jewelry, they would buy cars, they would you know, they would they would hang out in their old neighborhoods and they became targets for a lot
of the local stickup kids. Right, the contrary to popular belief, just because you're selling drugs, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a tough guy or that you're able to defend yourself when somebody brings violence to your doorstep. Kelvin Martin was a very small guy. I think he would hit. Reportedly he weighed like one hundred and twenty some odd towns. But he was just he was fearsome and he had,
you know, he carried two long bottle revolvers. He he pretty much would rob anybody that came across his path. He had been shot numerous times. He was set to have robbed stolen big gold chains from Okolja and from and from a rapper named rock Kim, who are you know? Rock Him is one of the most respected rappers ever in ll of course is one of the biggest rap stars ever. And you know that's never been really substantiated approven.
Kelvin did appear on a photo on the back of the cover of Rock Him's debut album with Eric be called Peyton Full fifty Cent appeared in a photo on the back of that, right, and he was just kind of a you know, his name kind of rang out in the streets. I mean the a lot of local drug dealers hated him. A lot of the more prominent
drug dealing crews hated him. You know, he was one of those guys that he prayed on those kinds of people, right, And you know, like the when the rapper fifty cent kind of adopted his name, which is which is kind of funny and of itself, because of course is from
south side Queens. Kelvin is from Brooklyn. Kelvin is from Brooklyn, and there's kind of a especially back in the eighties, the boroughs kind of had a lot of the neighborhoods within the five Boroughs kind of had rivalries with each other. So it's kind of interesting to see that, you know, someone from Queen's would take on the name of a famous outlaw from Brooklyn. But you know, fifty cent took on the name and he became more more famous than
Kelvin Martin ever had been. But fifty cent has always been forthcoming about where that name came from and what it means.
You can see why I recruited Scott. Absolutely, he's I maybe Scott explain a little bit about his background. He writes a very popular hip hop blog and at personal and also one from Planet Oh. Maybe talk a little bit about your background, Scott, where you're from?
Very interesting?
Okay?
Yeah, Well I got my start as a call on a site called Planet ill I still write for. It's owned and run by a colleague of mine named oh Diesel. He also is one of the probably the chief contributor to that site. He writes a lot of the articles and then probably about in April twenty ten, I branched out and I started my own blog, Scott's Introspection section. And that blog is a little bit more specialized at a little bit more tailored to my own personal interests.
Planet iill is a little bit more broad. It covers kind of a broad hip hop spectrum, but from a more mature perspective, because, you know, believe it or not, people don't realize it, but there's a lot of guys like me in their thirties. You know, we've been listening to rap music for the past twenty years. It's the main music we listened to, and as we've grown and matured, our perspective on the music has changed. But a lot of the blogs and hip hop siteside they don't reflect
that kind of change. They're still geared towards the teenagers, they're still geared towards the twenty somethings. The Planet Ill and my blog we kind of try to step it up a little bit, you know, we kind of address hip hop as more or less a fact of life and not just a fat you go through when you're a teacher.
So the lifestyle in the background rather than the music so much.
Well, it's the music. The music is always the chief focus. But it's just you know, we won't just cover whoever the latest star is that's appealing to fifteen year old We'll still talk. We'll still talk to the guys who will still talk to the from public enemy even though he's not necessarily relevant to the younger kids. Now, that sort of thing, right.
The guys that you feel are the most important guys in hip hop from a historical point of view as well.
Yes, and we also and we also don't limit it to because ever since Gangster Rap came out, there's this assumption on this on the part of the mainstream that that's all that hip hop is, right, and that's that's never been from from seventy nine when the Sugar Hill Gang came out. Up until now, that's never been the case, and we try we try to shed light on that as well.
One of the interesting things about Scott is he has a background that gives him insight into crime. He was a corrections officer as well, so which is kind of interesting, which I found out. I found out it was kind of interesting and maybe to talk about about that, Scott and hardly impacted on your view and interest in crime, crime history and stories.
Oh well, I became a New York State correction officer in March of two thousand and six, is when I enter the academy. I worked at Fishkill, I worked at and then I spent most of my time at sing Thing from about June two thousand and six to August. August two thousand and eight, I worked. I worked the graveyard ship. I worked at midnight, the overnight shift, frombout eleven pm to seven am in the morning, so the inmates were mostly asleep. But you know, my my career
wasn't that eventful. But you know, there were things that I did learn, things that I did find out. I kind of I more or less I saw the less glamorous side of crime. I saw, you know, I saw where those guys kind of end up, and a lot of it is just kind of like you begin to see, Okay, where one story is uh. In the case of I don't know if you've ever heard of him, I'm a guy named Larry Davis.
I don't know. I don't think so.
Well, Okay, the long story short, Larry Davis was kind of a He's another kind of prominent street figure. He was supposedly selling drugs and the police came to bust him one day and he had this like amazing shootout with these cops and he put all of them in the hospital, but like wounded them pretty badly. I mean, it was really like when you when you read the story, it's like like a Western the surgeon Sogeon Leon Flick. Almost this was in the Bronx. He kind of became
a folk hero in the hood, he claims. He claimed that these cops, like a lot of the narcotic squads then in the mid to late eighties, in order to make busts, they were getting black kids off the street and forcing them to sell drugs and feed them information. At the same time, he said these cops were in his pockets and they were crooked and they realized he had a lot of information on it, so that's why
they wanted him killed. Well, a couple of years ago Larry Davis was killed at Shawanak and just through the grape line. I had heard that, you know, at larger. He seemed larger than life on the streets. But then when you see these guys in jail, they're kind of, you know, not that special. You know, they kind of they tend to be kind of a holes to their fam Even their families don't like them. You know. The the other inmates can't stand them. You know, they're they're
very hard to get along with. They're kind of old and broke down kind of like it. It was kind of like when you again in westerns you see the old, broke down gunfighters, you know, and it's just coming because the rappers never telling that part of the story.
Sure, but I think it's you're saying our book, you know, if there is as a message, crime doesn't pay, because if you read our stories, uh, you know, all the characters haven't have unhappy ending uh in the story. And that and then and I think that, uh, you know, the life is glamorous, the stories are exciting, but eventually it ends in failure. And uh, I think one of
the missed uh conceptions about criminalisms that they're smart. I really don't think criminals are smart because they keeps making the same mistakes again and again. And you're a smart person, you would not you would not do that.
I would tend to agree with I would tend to agree with Lana and that I think. I think a lot of them actually may be smart, but I don't even I don't think even a smart person can hold up in that lifestyle for too long because I think it goes beyond, it goes, it goes beyond simply being smart, in my opinion.
Well, extep for you know when one character you know may have we have book in our our generalization in the book, we talk about him. You've probably read that story. But Frank Matthews, which I think Scott would agree, is probably our most fascinating character in the book because.
Tell us about her.
Yeah, he's well, he's very timely now because you know what he Bosuer, famous Irish gangster from Boston was captured and people were all excited about that and he was on the run since nineteen ninety five. Frank Matthews has been you know, well, we don't know what happened to been on the run. Let's say he's been on the
run since nineteen seventy four. And if you read the story that I have that we have in the book, he disappeared off the face of the earth and he here's an alpha pone for black ansters, he would be hit. He was the first first after answer to Establis, which international connection. He operated outside the hood, and he had operations twenty one states. And when he led, he reportedly had something like fifteen million dollars to help him in
his flight. And I ended up, in fact, I'm doing a book on him, a documentary, and I'm working on that now. But I've talked to a lot of the Marshalls and d agents that attract him. When he fled in seventy four, they put a twenty five thousand dollars
reward on him. Doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it was the biggest reward since John Billinger was on the loose in the nineteen thirty four and they assumed that they would catch him, you know, because the good guys always pitched their man, and they had a special unit that tracked Matthews and irrigating sightings in more than fifty countries. Believe it or not, they checked out every lead and they absolutely found nothing, absolutely nothing. And
I've been researching the book and it's just incredible. It's more than a gangster story, the mystery story. And I think, you know, anybody that's interested in a good mystery story, whether they like bangster stories, will probably find the story really fascinating. If he's still alive, he's quite you know, he's young still, he's only he's only sixty seven years old, so there's you know, but there's absolutely no picture of him, no,
no credible sighting of him, nothing. He just vanished. And the only comparison I can make maybe is like Jimmy Hoffa, and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, but eventually they found what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. And but there's no credible theory at all, because and the marshals that have tracked him will admit that, because I've interviewed them and the case is still open, and they said they told me that, you know, if if some kind of credible league came in, they would
probably go go look it up. But it's not not really active, so it's you know, it's an incredible spury and one of the big probably the biggest mystery in the history of organized crime.
One thing I want to say about it, one little quick thing is Ron likens Frank Matthews to alcopoone. But in my mind, Frank Matthews is much closer to a fictional gangster and that's Kaiser Sos from the movie The Usual Suspect. Right. Yeah, if you see that movie and you see how they portray the character of kaisass whereas like, you know, it's a real guy, but they kind of play around with it. Is has he done all these things they say he's done? Is this guy real? Because
he does all these larger than life things? And he realized at the end of the movie, Yeah, he was real. He was right at the cops news the whole time. That's kind of when I think of Frank Matthews. That's what comes to mind.
Right. I can tell you, like matt usually become such an incredible legend. Uh, I can tell you some stories. I don't know. I can't call if here in the book or not, because I've done I've done a lot of research on him. But one of the things of Matthews, I've never had a cocaine habit before he fled. And the Marshall's got a word that he was in Houston. Uh.
This was in the late seventies. He was in Houston at a hospital there and he was fun to undergo a heart and of course you know they were they were sort of like skeptical of this and it was given them by uh by Uh I foun him as white woman that same she knew Matthews from back to New York. So evidently they went out to Houston checked it out. I couldn't find anything. I met one guy in Durham, He's from Durham, North Carolina, claimed he showed
up at a funeral just as a woman. You know, one of his I can't remember who died, but he showed up with a woman. These are some of the stories that have circulated and uh, you know there some of them are really incredible, and but you know, none of them that really really checked out. And there's actually no picture. When Bojer disappeared, there was a picture in an ATM machine in in Europe which indicated that you know, he
was alive, but Matthews. There's been no no pictures at all, nothing, absolutely nothing.
Incredible. You know, a lot of these stories do involve drugs. Just you know, not to say and make any conclusion out of that, but a lot of these stories involved drugs, and I found one of the more interesting stories was the Henry Marzette Junior, the the arcotics cop dealing heroin in Detroit. So maybe if you could tell us about Henry Marzette Junior.
Right, oh, okay, you're talking tell you go ahead.
Oh yeah, Henry Marsett Jr. Well, I came across him. There's a there's a very talented documentary film maker that I that I interviewed a while back. I'm trying to remember his name escapes me, escapes me at the moment, but he did a documentary. He specializes in doing documentaries about Detroit, about the crime scene in Detroit. And one of them had a quick segment about this about that guy,
Henry Henry Marsette Jr. And basically Henry Marsette. You know, he emerged at a time where our prophet there, that's his name, Al Prophet, documentary filmmaker named Al Prophet. He has he's done a few uh documentaries about Detroit and that he mentions Henry Marsette Junr. And Henry Marsette Junr was one of the first narcotic cops I think in Detroit, if not the first. Uh. The Detroit p D was trying to kind of get a line on some of the some of the black gangsters and some the drug business.
And it's kind of hard to do that when you have, you know, when you have only white cops and put on your payroll. Sure you know, they can't believe penetrate those circles. And Henry Marzette did. But you know, in training day fashion, he turned rogue after after a stint in prison, I think he got hooked up with some with some Italian mobsters and he turned rogue and according to legend, he grew to rule over the narcotics trade in the black sections of Detroit. There's very scant information
on this guy, very scant. I contracted many people, including Barry Michael Cooper, who wrote the script for the movie New Jack City. He had mentioned Henry Morzette and in a story he did years and years and years ago. And you know, there's very little information on this guy.
If I'm not mistaken. I think that he has a relative that's still refute the claims made about him, that still says that he was not a dirty cop, and that a lot of these a lot of these allegations of faults, but I mean the folklore says otherwise, right, right, right.
We actually have two stories in there in the book. We have another story about Chester Campbell, who was one of the most notorious hitman's in the US history, very low keyed a guy, and so, like Scott says, a lot of these stories, we barely got enough information to do, you know, a profile of them, you know, fifteen hundred and two thousand words, because the information is so scant. And I think that the Chester Campbell's story is an
example of that. You know, I squeeze everything I could get, you know, going to the Detroit newspapers and trying to find, you know, information that could make for an interesting story.
I'm you know, I'm a little concused on one of the stories. But it was interesting what you had written that one of these one of these gangsters, these prominent black gangsters, was so powerful that that there was no interference from the Italian mafia in their area. And and said to them, if something happens to one of my men, then uh, there's gonna be a lot of dead.
Yeah, if something happens to one of my men, I'm going to go down Mulberry Street and kill quote every wop I find. That's that's actually Frank Matthews. That's that's uh, you know the part of his character, you know, his brashness and why he's so he's such a legend and evidently you know that's you know, he didn't have a really good relationship. Well he actually in those days you really had to to go to the Italians if you wanted to break into the drug trade. And uh and uh,
Matthews was very ambitious, you know. He came from Durham and spent some time until out went to New York, got to start in the numbers. But he saw the opportunities, you know, as a gangster. He saw the opportunities that were opening up with the heroin trade in the late sixties, you know, during the Vietnam War and the early seventies, and he wanted to get in, but you had to
go to the Italians. And the story is, which I haven't been able to verify yet in my research, and he went to the Italians and they turned him down for whatever reason, and he went to a Cuban drug dealer named Orlando Gonzalez, and Gonzalez was being indicted for heroin trafficking, but he fled to Venezuela, and evidently Gonzalez gave him his start by showing him some of his heroin before he fled, and then Gonzalez became his big contact in Venezuela, and that's how he became an international
drug trade So when I say he's you know, he's the first international African American international established an action. Actually the book I did on Sergeant Smack Atkinson was there at the same time, but I'm talking about within the United States out to outside the United States. Ike was in in Thailand when he set up his ring.
If I could chime in, if I could chime in on that, just this for one second, not to cut not to cut round off. The funny thing about that particular instance you're talking about when he challenges the openly challenges the Italian mafia in that way, if you look at a lot of the old black exploitation films from the seventies, like Superfly, like Black Caesar.
Right.
Even some of the more current black movies like New Jack City, there is at sugar Hill. There is a kind of a running theme about a prominent black gangster or a prominent black crew that starts out underneath the wing of the Italian mafia and then at some point outgrows outgrows that relationship or wants to kind of take the throne for themselves, And that's kind of in the seventies. Frank Matthews was kind of one of the one of the first, that's not the first, to kind of establish
that trend. I think because Frank Matthews was originally from North Carolina. Unlike a lot of the other black gangsters that had been established in New York for many, many years, who had who had been accustomed to being underneath the rule of the Italian mob, I don't think Frank Matthews really took to that too well. He had more of a rebellious spirit.
Right right, That's I think that's very true about Frank. And like like a lot of gangsters, he came from North Carolina. There were a lot of famous gangsters that came that came from the South and went went to North Yeah.
I found that very interesting that, you know, I had no idea but to to see so many gangsters from like you say, South Carolina, North Carolina.
Well, I'll give you example, Dan, you had Buddy Johnson, he was born in Charleston. Yeah, you got you know, Frank Frank Matthews Houst from Durham, and of course the Frank Lucas. You know, the famous American gangster was from uh, it was from North Carolina as well. I can name a lot of other gangsters that aren't in the book but came from the North. You know. It was like they were part of the migration, you know, the African American migration north looking for a better life, better jobs.
And of course gangsters went north to you know, starting in the nineteenth before World War before World War One it began, and they went north looking for for opportunities, and of course their opportunity was on the other side of the law, right.
Yeah, you know it was interesting too, is that I'm obviously you're the true crime expert and written quite a few books, but I think people have a general impression that the organized crime is is mostly white Americans and an Italian in heritage, but also some other nationalities. Obviously were involved in crewise maybe weren't initiated in the mafia per se. But you really don't read much in these mafia mafia books about the uncomfortable or comfortable or relationship
with black gangsters whatsoever. So it's interesting in your books and especially in a straight from the Hood to hear some of these stories. And there was another interesting story again involving mobster, was the you talk about the indeed crazy Joe Gallo and his alliance with with black gangsters. So maybe if you could tell us about crazy Joe Gallo.
Crazy Joe Gallo was crazy. You asked any any detectives that that I investigated him, And he was a mobster that with you know, kills anybody if he was slighted, and he had a short temper, you know, he had a short fuse. He was tough, he was wiry, fair haired, and uh and but he was also very very smart and very educated and uh, you know, he read all kinds of uh great books, uh, you know, of literature
and philosophy and all that. And uh he spuck up a relationship with with Nicky Barnes, who became known as mister Untouchable. And he was a prominent African American gangster uh in the seventies. But this happened in the sixties, and Bill Gallo took him under his wing. Uh. He was serving a long sentence in jail and uh and uh Unette Nicky Barnes, and they struck up along uh friendship, and uh they would have discussions, you know, to pass
the time and and uh. You know, Gallo knew a lot about the mob, you know, Uh, and also about the gangster life and uh and how to operate a drug traffic enterprise. And of course Nicky Barnes, even though he was in jail, uh, you know, was a true gangster. He was going to aspire for the gangster life after he got out. So you know, they they talked about this. And Nicky Barnes, who for fun would read legal tombs in prison. This is the kind of guy he was.
He was very brainy as well, and so they so they got along and UH they had this wild idea about establishing some kind of super syndicate, you know, uh of of African American drug dealers and Gallo Nicky Barnes would sort of run it and Gallo would be the
guy behind the scenes. Uh, doing all that, uh, And what happened was that Gallo initiated a mob work famous mob war and against Joe Profossi, who was a really powerful gangster, and Gallilean kidnapped several members of Profossi's family and demanding more money, you know, from his drug trafficking enterprise. And so this led to a war and he was eventually killed in a restaurant. But Nicky Barnes really didn't need him because this is when the drug trade was
opening up. The Italians are losing their grip. If you've seen the movie French Connection with Gene Hackman, that talks about the demise of the French Connection, which is kind of a Misknowner because it was actually run by the Italians. There was a French Connection because the heroin was processed in Marseilles and from there they would shipped through montrealer
to New York. But with the breakdown, with the breakup of the French Connection, it opened up opportunities for other ethnic groups and the Italians lost their mob and Nicky Barnes was there at this time and it allowed him, yeah to use his contacts UH where he was a very diplomatic type of person. He knew how to you know, how to operate very smooth, and he did establish a relationship with the Italian mafia, but he was able to
develop his career. So this story, you know, it's sort of a vignette taken from from from gangster history, and I thought it was interesting because she had these two really contrasting personalities that that developed this relationship. And of course Barnes went on to become one of the biggest
UH informants in US history. He spent about thirty years in prison and he got out, uh because he became become an informant and they eventually had to let him out and he's still in the Federal Witness Protection program.
Let me ask this question. In UH, the mafioso has had a general rule that was broken and by members of the mob. But that was that they didn't want to be involved in any drugs. Is the line for me?
That's the biggest myth sure you know, in in in mafia history. I mean, they were dealing in drugs all the way back you know, to the to the to the twenties, and UH as part of the hypocrisy that existed, uh, you know with you know, with the mafia where you know, they're they're they were like good gangsters. They didn't get their hands, uh, you know, dirty by getting involved in the drug trade, but they were, you know, a lot
of them were doing it. And uh in fact, that's what you know, that's what got uh led to uh John Gotti becoming such a big head because he was secretly dealing in in drugs and he was afraid that Paul Castellana, who was who was the godfather of the Gambinos at that time, would find out then that would be the end of him. So you know, he did a hit on uh in on Castellano. So this was going on for a long time, and you know, you see this this myth uh perpetrated in Hollywood films and in common legend.
What I was I was asking is that of course that that is a big myth and and they obviously they dealt drugs, but is there was was the relationship that they that they cultivated with black organized crime. It wasn't a result of them realizing that they would have a difficult time going into these neighborhoods that were predominantly black, and that they knew that these guys were not hesitant to deal drugs. It seems that there never was any
code among black gangsters not the deal drugs. So is there am I getting this wrong or is there something that point? I don't know.
I think that's a that's a good point because you know, and Scott can addressed this too. But you know, in the nineteen sixties, the Civil rights movement, the Black power movement, you know, black communities began to take you know, the black uh uh communities began to take over their own communities, you know, away uh uh and become more more uh South reliant. And I think this this sort of happened
to in in the criminal aspect too as well. You know, the the white mafia lost their their power and communities. I think you see that in Harlem, especially uh and uh and this led to, you know, the rise of the of the black anster.
Well.
I also I also think on another side of that is I also think that especially heroin was largely something that like the like the Italian mafia would kind of set what kind of deal in the black communities it was. You know, they they would get it, they would wholesale it, and they would sell it to blacks to to sell to other blacks, And I think that what happened was I don't think anybody really counted on the first but like Ron said, uh, the French connection kind of crumbling
and the Times kind of losing their grip. Because once that happened, you know, I think that just opened the door for like Ike Atkinson and Frank Matthews and a lot of other factors that allowed black gangsters to really capitalize on the drug trade in a way that they hadn't in a way that they hadn't before. Because once the mafia was out of the way, black gangsters kind of, you know, they were able to get direct connections to
you know whoever. You know, like in the in the eighties, you had you had black gangsters that dealt directly who were selling cocaine and who dealt directly with the Columbian cartels. You know, so that so you had that kind of I don't think it was something that was really intended to happen.
I don't.
I don't think that Nicky Barnes or Frank Matthews or or even going into modern day a freeway Ricky Ross was supposed to ever exist. I think it was just kind of a side effect.
But my point is, and I try to do this in my books, is to give a lot of background, is you can't divorce gangster history from the societal forces that are in play at the time. Sure, and there was a big change, you know, and I think, you know Matthew's attitude, uh, you know, we talk about him, uh, you know, and his attitude, his arrogance partially reflects that.
And uh, you know a lot of these people, for example, Matthews was was a very big admirer of Malcolm X and uh, you know, his his his message of black self alliance and all that, and uh, you know these criminals, you know, we're super aware was going around them. And I think that they absorbed a lot of it. And I think that's one of the you know. So my point is, you can really, you know, treat criminal history
is something separate from society. It's a part of the society and the various forces that work at a particular moment in time. Yeah.
I think when you when you talk about Crack two, not to stereotype or anything, but you could see that even the penalties for the powdered version of cocaine reflected socioeconomic situation you know, the white people, people with more economics. Means we're not, you know, not reverting to crack, but
we're doing the powder and maybe even freebasing. But certainly crack seems to be the drug that was created for the average person that didn't have a lot of money, and and so you do, it did reflect sort of a classism of sorts, the difference between people and their socioeconomic situation.
Well, that's what's interesting about that phenomenon. And something I've always personally found funny is it seems that the powers that they think that they can always corral these things or control them. And one thing I've noticed, and of course I don't have the extensive knowledge that Ron has on the history of crime and the drug trade, but one thing I've noticed what the drug trade is, it's very volatile by nature. Nobody can have control of it
for very long. You know, it passes through many different hands, and you know, when you you know, as I said, before, the rise of the Black Agster, I don't think was something that was ever really intended to happen. The Italian mob probably figured they would maintain control of the drug
trade forever. M you know, but the but you know, various factors such as the Vietnam War, such as the civil rights movements, such as the FBI cracking down on them, you know, forcing more than the turn snitch brought it into that rain and opened the door for others to step in.
Right, and unlike maybe some people's perceptions, these black guys were very savvy, very powerful, very determined, connected and like you say, it was maybe been a surprise to many many people, but certainly they established themselves very well in their own communities and went on to uh fame and infamy.
Really right, I think one of the that started a trend because one of the one of the most noticeable characteristic of the drug trade today is diversity. I mean, you've got all kinds of ethnic groups, everything from Chinese to the Vietnamese, to the Dominicans, you know, to the African Americans, the Jamaicans. You can go on and on. But you know, i'll play in a powerful role in
in the drug. Drug trade today is as big as it's ever been, even given all the money that's convent to trying to stamp out the legal drug trade.
Sure certainly, Uh now I've We've only got a few minutes here so I want to just make sure that everybody knows, uh, some of the programs, some of the blog sites, and where we can get this book. Maybe Scott, you can talk about just mention again the blog site that you have and where we can maybe read some of your work. And then after that, maybe Ron can tell us about a couple of his books and where is the best place to get a copy of Straight from the Hood.
Okay, well, my personal blog site is Scott's Introspection section. That's kind of a long name, but the domain name is relatively short. The domain name is www dot Scott's mind field dot com. That's s C O T T S M I N D f I E L D. I also write for planet ill dot com. That's w w W w W dot planet iill dot com. And I'm a frequent contributor with don Diva magazine.
Right on, right, this is your first part, Scott. Sorry, is this your first book published?
Yes, it is my first book. Yeah, this Straight from the Hood is my first This is my first time as a published author.
Oh, great work.
Okay, go ahead, run sorry, yeah, right, I'll just say that, as far as the book is concerned, Straight from the Hood true an amazing gangster tales. They can go. Probably the best best thing to do is go to Strategic Media Books dot com website Www. Strategic s t r A uh G I C Strategic Media Books.
Uh.
And there's a summer sale going on, so you could probably get it cheaper in Amazon. And of course the book's sold in Barnes and Noble and Amazon and all that. And uh so again Www. Strategic Media Books dot com.
Is there an e book version uh available?
Yes, the e book version, they could get it from the website or or Amazon, and uh, yes, the ebook version is available.
And you're also co host of a great show.
Excuse me, Dan, I was just uh, I just spoke on that e book is coming uh soon. We came out with the print folks first, but it'll be coming out soon. But by going to the website to keep the breast of elements.
And also I just want you to mention too, you're on a You're on a great crime show called crime Beat with Will Herb. Maybe tell us just a little bit about that mentioned that for us.
Wow, and one of our best guests is Dan Dan Supanski. We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Yes, crime Beat on the Artists First Worldwide Radio Network. Go to www dot artist First dot com crime Beat click on the crime
Beat tomorrow. We're on Thursdays at eight pm. We've got one of the worldwide renowned experts on serial killers, doctor Michael Stone, who's gonna be talking about his research and he's interviewed a lot of the other the big name serial killers, so that should be a real fascinating show.
Absolutely, yeah, Yeah, a great program, Ron, and again another great book. And I wanted to thank both of you, gentlemen for coming onto the program. You guys are born storytellers. I wanted to tell people that been listening to the program, and we listened. The book featured is Straight from the Hood, amazing but true gangsters Tales. Ron Chepsick and Scott Wilson again, thank you very much, gentlemen for a great interview and a great book. And I wish you the best with
this project. And I'm sure I'll be hearing from both of you again real soon with another incredible and interesting and unknown some of a lot of this stuff is just comes from such a different perspective and I think the audience is really going to appreciate that. And of course the readers will as well. Just something totally different from what you might read and what you see. So great interesting stories are not so well known, but fascinating tales.
So thank you, Thank you Dan. We appreciate being on the show.
Well, thank you very much. If you guys have a great evening.
Thank you very much.
Bye, my pleasure.
You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that have written about it.
Good night then, yes, are you there?
Yeah, we gotta go, good night.
Yeah,