With the 14th anniversary of The Notorious B.I.G.’s unsolved murder approaching in March, a special task force is claiming new leads have emerged in the case.
None of the new details have been disclosed, but a confidential source informed CNN that the investigation was “reinvigorated” several months ago. The task force is comprised of a partnership between three agencies: the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and the L.A. Country District Attorney’s Office.
In March 1997, B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was killed in Los Angeles, six months after the slaying of his former friend turned rival Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. Both men were shot execution-style via drive-by shootings. Each rapper was at the apex of their popularity, and died at the ages of 24 (Wallace) and 25 (Shakur).
Despite several publicized suspects, no arrests have ever been made in either killing. A suspect in Shakur’s murder, Orland Anderson, was killed in 1998. David Mack, a corrupt former L.A. policeman with ties to Death Row Records and the Bloods, was named by former retired detective Russell Poole, who worked on the Biggie case, as a strong suspect in that crime. Mack was released from prison in May 2010, after serving 13 years for a bank robbery conviction.
Beats, Boxing & Mayhem will follow this story as more information becomes available.
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“If you want to get away with murder, kill a rapper”
KRS-One
The above quote sums up my feelings on this matter. After over a decade passing, I’m not convinced we’ll ever get an official conviction in either case. With Pac, I believe it was Orlando Anderson and his crew in retaliation from their earlier fight inside the MGM Grand. Biggie’s situation is a little more convoluted between the two most popular theories. Was it renegade, Blood-affiliated cops tied to Death Row, or Crips in retaliation for B.I.G. not paying protection money? I lean towards the former, based on a trusted member of Biggie’s entourage, Damien “D-Roc” Butler, identifying David Mack in attendance the night of his friend’s murder.
Although Afeni Shakur doesn’t have an official conviction, she says she knows who killed her son, and has peace about it. It would be great to see Voletta Wallace get similar closure.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 