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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, The Most Shocking
Speaker 5: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 6: program True Murder, The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime
Speaker 6: History and the authors that have written about them. Many
Speaker 6: books of them have been written about the Black Gangster.
Speaker 6: They have been, for the most part, lengthy tomes focusing
Speaker 6: on the kingpins of the gang land scene, gangster with
Speaker 6: names like Nicky Burns, Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas, Lorenzo, Fat
Speaker 6: Cat Nichols, and Kenneth's Supreme mc gift. Yet there are
Speaker 6: many stories about the Black Gangster that have not received
Speaker 6: much breast coverage or have simply been ignored or missed
Speaker 6: by the media. They indeed reveal a lot about the
Speaker 6: history of the Hood. Straight from the Hood is a
Speaker 6: compilation of some of those fascinating stories. You will find
Speaker 6: tales featuring drug kingpins, entertainers, hit men, street gangs, con men,
Speaker 6: corrupt cops, and reform gang bangers. Read about the most
Speaker 6: feared man in the entertainment industry. The love story between
Speaker 6: Fran a former heroin addict, and David, a reformed gangster,
Speaker 6: both of whom have become celebrities. The unlikely alliance between
Speaker 6: an ambitious black gangster and a violent, indeed crazy, white
Speaker 6: Italian American mobster. The terrorist plot involving the Chicago Streak Kang,
Speaker 6: and more. Learn about al Capone's impact on Chicago's African
Speaker 6: American community and what Alcatraz has to do with Harlem's
Speaker 6: most famous godfather. Why is Denzel Washington in this book?
Speaker 6: Who is a modern day desperado who died by the
Speaker 6: gun but managed to live on through rap music? How
Speaker 6: did a stick up artist from Brooklyn become hip hop's
Speaker 6: answer to Lee Harvey Oswald. Each of the following stories
Speaker 6: are amazing and all of them are true. The book
Speaker 6: feature this evening is Straight from the Hood with my
Speaker 6: special guest Ron Chepsik and Scott Wilson. Welcome back to
Speaker 6: the program, Ron, and welcome to the program. Scott, and
Speaker 6: thank you for green to this interview.
Speaker 7: Thank you. This is Ron Chepsick. I'm happy to be
Speaker 7: back on the program with you.
Speaker 4: Dan.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much, Ron for appearing and welcome to
Speaker 6: the program, Scott Wilson.
Speaker 4: Oh, thanks, I'm very happy to be on this program.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to share this time and talk with you
Speaker 4: about the book.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 6: Great, thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have a
Speaker 6: great program for the folks. Now, I always ask this
Speaker 6: question because I'm always curious, and I'm sure the audience
Speaker 6: is a little bit too.
Speaker 7: Ron.
Speaker 6: I'll start with you. You've written quite a few books about
Speaker 6: black organized crime. What made you come to the decision
Speaker 6: to write this book in particular short true organized crime stories,
Speaker 6: many involving well known names in hip hop music. And
Speaker 6: the second part of that is what did Scott Wilson
Speaker 6: bring to this book project, specifically Straight from the Hood?
Speaker 7: Well, I decided to do this book because I've been writing,
Speaker 7: you know, books that deal with really in depth stories,
Speaker 7: and I've been collecting a lot of these mid tales
Speaker 7: about gangsters in the hood. A lot of these talers
Speaker 7: don't warn books in themselves, but are interesting, interesting stories,
Speaker 7: and uh, I thought that they would, uh you know,
Speaker 7: serve as a basis for the book. And uh, I've
Speaker 7: met Scott a couple of years ago. He approached me
Speaker 7: after reading one of my books, and we developed the
Speaker 7: friendship and a relationship. And I knew Scott was a
Speaker 7: was a an excellent writer, and he has his own blog.
Speaker 7: He's also expert in hip hop culture, and I knew
Speaker 7: a lot of these stories, you know, related to the
Speaker 7: hip hop culture. And I'm not an expert in hip
Speaker 7: hop culture, although I listened to the music. And uh,
Speaker 7: so we we am more of a historian, a traditional
Speaker 7: you know type historian, and so I thought that if
Speaker 7: we put our backgrounds together, we we could, uh you know,
Speaker 7: come up with a good book. And we did. Scott
Speaker 7: drew a lot of stories that he had been collecting
Speaker 7: or heard about, and and added him to the book.
Speaker 7: And then I went through through the history and uh
Speaker 7: pulled out some interesting stories. Uh some of them appear
Speaker 7: in some of my previous books, but a lot of
Speaker 7: them we're original.
Speaker 6: Right now, What I wanted to ask, was you talked
Speaker 6: we talked about in the introduction, or at least I
Speaker 6: mentioned in the introduction read about the most feared man
Speaker 6: in the entertainment industry. Maybe we can start with some
Speaker 6: of the more important stories. I mean, there's a number
Speaker 6: of short stories in this book and all of them
Speaker 6: are pretty incredible and a lot of information I had
Speaker 6: no idea about it all, and a lot of big names.
Speaker 6: So you've met you threw out a few big names
Speaker 6: in here. So let's let's start about with why why
Speaker 6: is Denzel Washington in this book? And maybe you can
Speaker 6: answer that question ron.
Speaker 7: Everybody, everybody, I always ask that question, so you know
Speaker 7: that always grabs people's attention on that. Actually Scott dug
Speaker 7: this story out and it's a very interesting story, as
Speaker 7: Scott could probably talk a little bit about Phil Scott.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, back in about two thousand and one, I
Speaker 4: came across a documentary called Welcome to Death Row. It
Speaker 4: was produced by a friend of mine, a writer by
Speaker 4: the name of Alan Scott Gordon. He used to be
Speaker 4: the editor in chief at Rat Pages, it was a
Speaker 4: prominent hip hop magazine that's now defunct. He also wrote
Speaker 4: for The Source magazine. He was part of their mind squad,
Speaker 4: what they called the Source mind Squad back at that time.
Speaker 4: He produced this documentary along with Lydia Harris, which is
Speaker 4: Michael Harris's wife. Michael Harris was a prominent cocaine dealer
Speaker 4: in the LA area in the early nineteen eighties. He
Speaker 4: was affiliated with the blood set known as the Bounty Hunters.
Speaker 4: He began to diversify into other areas mostly I think
Speaker 4: he was really aiming for entertainment, but he began to
Speaker 4: invest in a lot of legitimate businesses. That seemed to
Speaker 4: be his goal, a crossover into the legitimate world. He
Speaker 4: produced a play play called Checkmates. He has the distinction
Speaker 4: of being the first African American to ever produce a
Speaker 4: Broadway play.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: It was Denzel Washington's first ever Broadway play. By that time,
Speaker 4: Denzel has already had a reputation. He was on Saint
Speaker 4: Elsewereth with TV, the hospital drama Saint Elseworth, So he
Speaker 4: already came to the table with something of a you know,
Speaker 4: a good resume.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: That's very interesting, And it's interesting about Michael Harris because
Speaker 7: I had I had a friend and he's a he's
Speaker 7: actually a friend of Michael Harrison and Michael Harris been
Speaker 7: in jail since the late eighties, and he just was
Speaker 7: happening to talk with him on the phone because he
Speaker 7: called from prison, uh to this mutual friend, And so
Speaker 7: mutual friend called me put us on a freeway, and
Speaker 7: Harris was sort of girning me about about you know,
Speaker 7: you know, why was he in our book Straight for
Speaker 7: the Hood and all that, and ex claimed was just
Speaker 7: you know, just a profile, you know, about fifteen hundred
Speaker 7: words and because he was actually doing his own books.
Speaker 7: And I said, you know, this was just a really
Speaker 7: short story and all that, so you know, it was
Speaker 7: quite interesting, and he said he was getting out. I
Speaker 7: think he's probably out of jail now. But this guy
Speaker 7: was had a very promising career as an entrepreneur and
Speaker 7: entertain an entrepreneur, and you know, lost it because of
Speaker 7: a variety of factors.
Speaker 6: Now let's keeping with this, Let's talk about al Capone's
Speaker 6: impact on Chicago's African American community, it says, and also
Speaker 6: what Alcatraz has to do with Harlem's most famous godfather.
Speaker 7: Well, al Capone, I guess you could say he was
Speaker 7: ahead of his ahead of his time, and in terms
Speaker 7: of his relationships with the black community in Chicago, although
Speaker 7: he wasn't you know, a raving civil rights advocate. But
Speaker 7: I think that the Times back in nineteen twenty he was.
Speaker 7: And of course al Capone had come to Chicago about
Speaker 7: nineteen nineteen from New York and quickly established himself in
Speaker 7: the rackets. And you know, by the mid mid nineteen twenties,
Speaker 7: nineteen twenties, he was one of the most powerful gangsters
Speaker 7: in America. And he had a liking for half American
Speaker 7: music lose jazz, et cetera. And he had a bar
Speaker 7: nightclub called Plantation Cafe. And actually, in those days it
Speaker 7: was hard for musicians to get gigs in white owned clubs,
Speaker 7: even up in the North, not just the South, and
Speaker 7: so he sort of allowed a lot of the lot
Speaker 7: of a lot of the black musicians to play in
Speaker 7: his club, and other gangsters would come and uh he
Speaker 7: eventually uh stuck up a relationship with Fats Waller, you know,
Speaker 7: the famous musician, right, And I have it in my
Speaker 7: book where Fats Waller uh one one night was summarily
Speaker 7: picked up by two beefy gangsters, white gangsters from al
Speaker 7: Capone's mob and taken to this house and fast Waller
Speaker 7: thought it was the end of his days, but actually
Speaker 7: all that was was the birthday party for Capone, and
Speaker 7: he ended up playing music and staying up late, had
Speaker 7: champagne for the first time in his life, and h
Speaker 7: went home with his He recalled with his pockets bulging
Speaker 7: and with money and uh evidently, you know, Capone worked
Speaker 7: out a deal with the with the black community where uh,
Speaker 7: you know, he stayed out of out of the other
Speaker 7: numbers and they bought his booze. So it was interesting
Speaker 7: story and at a different h angle on the Al
Speaker 7: Capone legend.
Speaker 6: Right, and with that as well as what does Alcatraz
Speaker 6: itself have to do with Harm's most famous godfather, Well.
Speaker 7: That's Bumpy Johnson, of course, and Scott wrote that story
Speaker 7: found it a very interesting story and he could probably
Speaker 7: explain a little bit more about that. Give you a
Speaker 7: little background on Bumpy Johnson. If you've seen the movie Hoodlums,
Speaker 7: he was in that movie, which was ostensibly depicting nineteen
Speaker 7: thirties Harlem gangster life. And he was also a big
Speaker 7: character in American Gangster, the movie that came out in
Speaker 7: two thousand and seven, and he was a gentleman that
Speaker 7: had a heart attack in this store, and evidently that
Speaker 7: led to the rise of Frank Lucas, which, of course,
Speaker 7: as I pointed out in my book was a complete lie.
Speaker 7: We could talk about that later, but uh, Scott did.
Speaker 7: Scott wrote the story and he dug out the information.
Speaker 7: It's a really interesting story. So maybe Scott can give
Speaker 7: you some background the story.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I give Scott tell us a little bit about Alcatraz.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, there was a you know, Alcatraz reputedly the
Speaker 4: escape proof prison or so so people you know, Bumpy
Speaker 4: Johnson among others. I think even al Capone spent some
Speaker 4: time the Bumpy Johnson had spent time. How Bumpy like
Speaker 4: Michael Harris was You know, he was a very He
Speaker 4: was a very intelligent guy. That's why he made it
Speaker 4: so far in his criminal enterprises. He was a renaissance man.
Speaker 4: He was. He was a writer and I think even
Speaker 4: a poet. I think he had some of his work published.
Speaker 7: He want a poetry contest while he was in prison, Yes, yes.
Speaker 4: He want a poetry contest. Supposedly, while he was there,
Speaker 4: he helped with what is believed to be I think
Speaker 4: the only successful or nearly successful break prison break from Alcatraz.
Speaker 4: He provided a boat for the men who were trying
Speaker 4: to escape that night day. These guys, I mean, they
Speaker 4: were really detailed oriented they left, like I think paper
Speaker 4: mache busts of themselves in their beds after they left
Speaker 4: to simulate someone actually being in the in the prison
Speaker 4: better sleep. But you know, Bumpy Johnson supposedly made it
Speaker 4: so that they had a boat waiting on them to sail,
Speaker 4: to sail over to San Francisco. From what I understand,
Speaker 4: the boat nor the men were ever found. There's no
Speaker 4: way to there's no way to know for sure if
Speaker 4: this prison break was ever successful, and every not everyone
Speaker 4: believes that Bumpy was powerful enough at the time to
Speaker 4: actually aid in something like that because with him being
Speaker 4: in prison, I mean, he wasn't able to be out
Speaker 4: on the streets making money and a lot of his
Speaker 4: savings savings were probably depleted. But you know it's I
Speaker 4: think even his widow cooperated the story.
Speaker 7: Right, and Unsolved Mysteries. Unsolved Mysteries had a segment on it, right, Scott,
Speaker 7: Yes they did, Yes.
Speaker 4: They did. That's what I think. I think that episode
Speaker 4: of Unsolved Mysteries has a lot to do with the
Speaker 4: spreading of that story, right.
Speaker 7: And you know, I was on the watching TV the
Speaker 7: other day and I was serving the channels. There was
Speaker 7: actually a movie made about a prison break from anothetized.
Speaker 4: With fun Eastwood.
Speaker 7: Wasn't there, Oh yes, I didn't, right, well, yeah, it
Speaker 7: was a breakout from it was that the same story.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I never I've never actually seen the films, Like,
Speaker 4: I can't really answer that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, well I've never seen the film in there
Speaker 7: because the film was at a time that I couldn't
Speaker 7: watch it, But I was thinking about renting it on
Speaker 7: DVD just to see if there was any any connection, uh,
Speaker 7: you know, or to the story where it was based
Speaker 7: on this story.
Speaker 6: Now another story found interesting and and hopefully I haven't
Speaker 6: got this confused. When you talk about the most feared
Speaker 6: man in the entertainment industry, is this the story about Griffin?
Speaker 6: And and uh and Riley Teddy Riley.
Speaker 7: Right right, Geen Griffin. And I was amazed because, uh,
Speaker 7: he's in my my research, I met a lot of
Speaker 7: ex gangsters, a lot of them, you Gene Riley and
Speaker 7: uh and uh he was a legend, uh in the
Speaker 7: in the in the underworld, and also in entertainment industry.
Speaker 7: He was rumored to be a hit man drug theyan
Speaker 7: and uh, you know, and uh they knew that if
Speaker 7: he messed with Teddy Riley. You know you're really uh,
Speaker 7: you'd really uh have some problems on that and uh
Speaker 7: he developed a relationship with Teddy Riley, became one of
Speaker 7: the super talents of of of the US the industry
Speaker 7: and supported the Riley's godfather. And here when Riley was
Speaker 7: starting out, he evidently provided financials report that helped him
Speaker 7: even though the two guys you know came from UH
Speaker 7: came from a different background. And so I, you know,
Speaker 7: I talk about this, this relationship, and oh, Teddy Riley became,
Speaker 7: you know, a big big name in the UH in
Speaker 7: the industry the help of h with the help of
Speaker 7: King Riley, I mean, excuse me. And but what happened
Speaker 7: was they got into a country.
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Speaker 7: Actual disagreement over money and uh, you know, Riley was
Speaker 7: expecting that Griffin was ripping him off. And the figures
Speaker 7: you know, were reported to be in the in the millions,
Speaker 7: and he wasn't making a lot of money even though
Speaker 7: he wrote a number of uh, you know, pop hits
Speaker 7: that became very lucrative, right, excuse me on that, And
Speaker 7: so they ended up splitting and it didn't really, it
Speaker 7: didn't really hurt Rowley's career, you know, he went on
Speaker 7: to become even a bigger star. But Griffin's musical career
Speaker 7: of fizzle and he disappeared as a big name in
Speaker 7: the music industry and he died in early two thousand
Speaker 7: and nine for the Alzheimer's Well.
Speaker 6: I found was interesting about that story too, is the
Speaker 6: is the amount of well you talk about Bobby Brown's
Speaker 6: huge hit prerogative and if people go back a little
Speaker 6: bit in history, they know how big that tune was.
Speaker 6: And I found it interesting. And just like you make
Speaker 6: the conclusion at the end of the story that despite
Speaker 6: having financial problems and disputes with Griffin, that nothing ever
Speaker 6: happened to Teddy Riley and his career went unabated. But
Speaker 6: what he talked about was that, for example, that Griffin
Speaker 6: had signed himself on for the royalty that ended up
Speaker 6: giving him eight hundred thousand dollars, where Teddy Riley said,
Speaker 6: there's no way that Griffin had anything to do with
Speaker 6: writing the.
Speaker 7: Song at all, trying to be a co writer of
Speaker 7: that song, right it came to be a co writer
Speaker 7: a song, Yeah, Yeah, he was very he was very
Speaker 7: shady and you know, I don't know, you know, you
Speaker 7: can't make the accusation because he never was brought to
Speaker 7: trial for the wrongdoing. But he just had this reputation.
Speaker 7: You know, I was sort of working in the shadows
Speaker 7: and not everything being about work. And of course, when
Speaker 7: you have this type of reputation and you know, a
Speaker 7: lot of people come to really be wary of you
Speaker 7: and even fear you. And I guess it's to Riley's
Speaker 7: credit that it really didn't bother him in terms of
Speaker 7: his ambition's career. You know, he went on to record
Speaker 7: a whole bunch of songs with Duck Dray, Queen Ten's Role,
Speaker 7: and munch of other by like your other musicians.
Speaker 4: Uh to to interject, I also want to say that
Speaker 4: the relationship between Teddy Riley and Gen Griffin is actually
Speaker 4: pretty common when you look at a lot of the
Speaker 4: other dynasties and pop music. For instance, the relationship between
Speaker 4: Sue Knight and Doctor Dre. You know, Doctor Dre was
Speaker 4: the creative force. You know, he was a you know,
Speaker 4: he's a gifted producer. He had he had a new
Speaker 4: sound at the time and him and him and Shook
Speaker 4: Knight formed Death Row Records and Shoode Knight was kind
Speaker 4: of the muscle behind the scenes, you know, if at
Speaker 4: first most people didn't know who he was. And I
Speaker 4: think those relationships proved beneficial for both people at first
Speaker 4: because the guy who's the muscle, he's able to get
Speaker 4: he's able to make rooms so that the creative person
Speaker 4: can do what he does and they can both make money.
Speaker 4: But I think eventually the relations the relationship sours because
Speaker 4: the guy who's the muscle will eventually try to even
Speaker 4: muscle in on the creative person's territory.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I found it interesting too, and you
Speaker 6: guys don't talk about it, but for those people that
Speaker 6: don't know that, the record business has always employed some
Speaker 6: form of organized crime to be able to get some
Speaker 6: of these records played. And there's I've read quite a
Speaker 6: few books about how important some of these guys have
Speaker 6: been to make or break a record. And when the
Speaker 6: record companies have back in back quite a few years ago,
Speaker 6: one of the record companies decided not to use these
Speaker 6: guys to be able to get some of the records played,
Speaker 6: and they showed them how powerful they really were. And
Speaker 6: we're talking we're not talking about chicken feed in terms
Speaker 6: of money, either we're talking about real serious money for
Speaker 6: getting this sort of done so. And in your book
Speaker 6: it's it's numerous stories.
Speaker 7: It's going to say that Dan that the probably was famious.
Speaker 7: Example is Frank Sinatra, right right? If you never if
Speaker 7: you never got a boost from the mob, he might
Speaker 7: not have made a comeback what he did.
Speaker 6: Sure. Sure, Now you talk about a stick up artist
Speaker 6: from Brooklyn who became hip hop's answer to Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 6: Maybe he couldn't. One of you can tell him. Tell
Speaker 6: me what you're speaking to and what the story is
Speaker 6: involving that.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, you're talking about. Walter Johnson aka cut Well.
Speaker 4: Walter was largely unknown until Tupac mentioned his name in
Speaker 4: a song called Against All Odds and that was a
Speaker 4: that was a diss record on his posthumous album uh
Speaker 4: Don Caluminati The Seven Day Theory that he recorded recorded
Speaker 4: under the pseudonym Machavelli. That album was released shortly after
Speaker 4: Tupac was killed, and in the song he said that
Speaker 4: tut was the trigger man or one of the trigger
Speaker 4: men in the Quad Studios robbery, which kind of touched
Speaker 4: off the East Coast West Coast War right. Uh. Supposedly
Speaker 4: Tupac was put on that information while he was in
Speaker 4: prison in upstate New York. And I think even when
Speaker 4: he was in Rikers Island, just kind of there in
Speaker 4: the holding pens, you know, he really seemed to believe
Speaker 4: that Tutt was behind that. Tutt already had a reputation
Speaker 4: as one of Brooklyn's most famous stick up artists. But
Speaker 4: Tutt has always maintained his innocince. He's always maintained that
Speaker 4: he had nothing to do with that. And uh, there
Speaker 4: is something to that story because recently, with a lot
Speaker 4: of the developments in the case of Jimmy Henchman. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a guy named Dexter Isaac who's already a federal prisoner.
Speaker 4: He claimed that Jimmy Henchman paid him to perform the
Speaker 4: Quad Studios robbery and assault on Tupac. And he said
Speaker 4: he even has one of Tupac's goal chains to prove
Speaker 4: it if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, And that's that. That information has actually been
Speaker 4: out there for a while, but law enforcement never really
Speaker 4: picked up on it. There were there were quite a
Speaker 4: few inmates well in the same federal penitentiary as this
Speaker 4: guy back to Isaacs, and they claim that he's been
Speaker 4: bragging that he did the Quad Studio his job for
Speaker 4: quite a while.
Speaker 7: Right, And Scott ended up corresponding with Tutty talk about that, Scott, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4: I corresponded. I corresponded with Cut via email. But he
Speaker 4: was very, very cordial. You know, he was very cautious.
Speaker 4: And I can understand why, because I mean, Tupaca is
Speaker 4: the most revered rap artist of all time. He's also
Speaker 4: the biggest killing rap artist of all time. I think
Speaker 4: he sold like seventy five million records worldwide, and so
Speaker 4: his fans are very His fans are ravenous. They defend
Speaker 4: his legacy to the death, and they really seemed in
Speaker 4: anything that he says a lot of times they kind
Speaker 4: of accepted, and they really seemed to believe that Tutt
Speaker 4: had something to do with the Quad Studio shooting, and
Speaker 4: some of them even seemed to believe that he had
Speaker 4: something to do with Tupac's ultimate murder. I taught to Cut,
Speaker 4: you know, Like I said, he came up very cautious.
Speaker 4: He came off very cordially, even came off regretful about
Speaker 4: his legacy and not even anything related to Tupac, but
Speaker 4: just his legacy as a known stick up artist. My
Speaker 4: personal opinion. You know, I'm not saying that my word
Speaker 4: is law. My personal opinion. I don't think that he
Speaker 4: had anything to do with Quad Studios.
Speaker 6: Why is that.
Speaker 7: For me?
Speaker 4: It's just for me, it's gut instinct. And it's also
Speaker 4: the fact that the Dexter Isaacs thing was never properly
Speaker 4: looked into by the authorities because they had I think
Speaker 4: they may have had an agenda against Tut because he
Speaker 4: he shot a police officer in a barbershop and the
Speaker 4: police officer failed to identify himself, and because of that,
Speaker 4: Tut was acquitted of what they were trying to charge
Speaker 4: him with. So I think that, you know, there probably
Speaker 4: was just kind of an agenda on law enforcement to
Speaker 4: not really look into that case. They probably figured, well,
Speaker 4: he's a stick up artist anyway, he's a known back
Speaker 4: on the streets, so who cares if you know something
Speaker 4: else is pinned on him?
Speaker 6: Right right?
Speaker 7: Hipox Murder is going into one of the biggest mysteries
Speaker 7: in entertainment history. In fact, there's a movie coming out
Speaker 7: pretty soon that's in production. I think it's finished, and
Speaker 7: a lot of people are waiting for that, waiting for
Speaker 7: that movie to come out, and people are people are
Speaker 7: really fascinated by by his death because there's so many
Speaker 7: unsolved questions, unanswered questions that you know that the really
Speaker 7: people are looking for answers.
Speaker 6: Right now, I'll ask who is who is the modern
Speaker 6: day desperado who died by the gun that managed to
Speaker 6: live on through hip hop music?
Speaker 4: Okay, that would be now, that would be Kelvin Martin.
Speaker 4: Kelvin Martin also went by the nickname of the street name.
Speaker 4: He had that nickname long before the rapper fifty Center
Speaker 4: picked it up and began to use it as his
Speaker 4: rapping name. Kelvin Martin. Both him and Touch they operated
Speaker 4: during the nineteen eighties. And during the nineteen eighties, especially
Speaker 4: in New York City, the crack trade was exploding. So
Speaker 4: you had a lot of like younger hustlers in the
Speaker 4: street who were coming into some very relatively big money,
Speaker 4: you know, and they would they would show this money off.
Speaker 4: They would buy goudy jewelry, they would buy cars, they
Speaker 4: would you know, they would they would hang out in
Speaker 4: their old neighborhoods and they became targets for a lot
Speaker 4: of the local stickup kids. Right, the contrary to popular belief,
Speaker 4: just because you're selling drugs, that doesn't necessarily mean you're
Speaker 4: a tough guy or that you're able to defend yourself
Speaker 4: when somebody brings violence to your doorstep. Kelvin Martin was
Speaker 4: a very small guy. I think he would hit. Reportedly
Speaker 4: he weighed like one hundred and twenty some odd towns.
Speaker 4: But he was just he was fearsome and he had,
Speaker 4: you know, he carried two long bottle revolvers. He he
Speaker 4: pretty much would rob anybody that came across his path.
Speaker 4: He had been shot numerous times. He was set to
Speaker 4: have robbed stolen big gold chains from Okolja and from
Speaker 4: and from a rapper named rock Kim, who are you know?
Speaker 4: Rock Him is one of the most respected rappers ever
Speaker 4: in ll of course is one of the biggest rap
Speaker 4: stars ever. And you know that's never been really substantiated approven.
Speaker 4: Kelvin did appear on a photo on the back of
Speaker 4: the cover of Rock Him's debut album with Eric be
Speaker 4: called Peyton Full fifty Cent appeared in a photo on
Speaker 4: the back of that, right, and he was just kind
Speaker 4: of a you know, his name kind of rang out
Speaker 4: in the streets. I mean the a lot of local
Speaker 4: drug dealers hated him. A lot of the more prominent
Speaker 4: drug dealing crews hated him. You know, he was one
Speaker 4: of those guys that he prayed on those kinds of people, right,
Speaker 4: And you know, like the when the rapper fifty cent
Speaker 4: kind of adopted his name, which is which is kind
Speaker 4: of funny and of itself, because of course is from
Speaker 4: south side Queens. Kelvin is from Brooklyn. Kelvin is from Brooklyn,
Speaker 4: and there's kind of a especially back in the eighties,
Speaker 4: the boroughs kind of had a lot of the neighborhoods within
Speaker 4: the five Boroughs kind of had rivalries with each other.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of interesting to see that, you know,
Speaker 4: someone from Queen's would take on the name of a
Speaker 4: famous outlaw from Brooklyn. But you know, fifty cent took
Speaker 4: on the name and he became more more famous than
Speaker 4: Kelvin Martin ever had been. But fifty cent has always
Speaker 4: been forthcoming about where that name came from and what
Speaker 4: it means.
Speaker 7: You can see why I recruited Scott. Absolutely, he's I
Speaker 7: maybe Scott explain a little bit about his background. He
Speaker 7: writes a very popular hip hop blog and at personal
Speaker 7: and also one from Planet Oh. Maybe talk a little
Speaker 7: bit about your background, Scott, where you're from?
Speaker 6: Very interesting?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well I got my start as a call on
Speaker 4: a site called Planet ill I still write for. It's
Speaker 4: owned and run by a colleague of mine named oh Diesel.
Speaker 4: He also is one of the probably the chief contributor
Speaker 4: to that site. He writes a lot of the articles
Speaker 4: and then probably about in April twenty ten, I branched
Speaker 4: out and I started my own blog, Scott's Introspection section.
Speaker 4: And that blog is a little bit more specialized at
Speaker 4: a little bit more tailored to my own personal interests.
Speaker 4: Planet iill is a little bit more broad. It covers
Speaker 4: kind of a broad hip hop spectrum, but from a
Speaker 4: more mature perspective, because, you know, believe it or not,
Speaker 4: people don't realize it, but there's a lot of guys
Speaker 4: like me in their thirties. You know, we've been listening
Speaker 4: to rap music for the past twenty years. It's the
Speaker 4: main music we listened to, and as we've grown and matured,
Speaker 4: our perspective on the music has changed. But a lot
Speaker 4: of the blogs and hip hop siteside they don't reflect
Speaker 4: that kind of change. They're still geared towards the teenagers,
Speaker 4: they're still geared towards the twenty somethings. The Planet Ill
Speaker 4: and my blog we kind of try to step it
Speaker 4: up a little bit, you know, we kind of address
Speaker 4: hip hop as more or less a fact of life
Speaker 4: and not just a fat you go through when you're
Speaker 4: a teacher.
Speaker 6: So the lifestyle in the background rather than the music
Speaker 6: so much.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the music. The music is always the chief focus.
Speaker 4: But it's just you know, we won't just cover whoever
Speaker 4: the latest star is that's appealing to fifteen year old
Speaker 4: We'll still talk. We'll still talk to the guys who
Speaker 4: will still talk to the from public enemy even though
Speaker 4: he's not necessarily relevant to the younger kids. Now, that
Speaker 4: sort of thing, right.
Speaker 6: The guys that you feel are the most important guys
Speaker 6: in hip hop from a historical point of view as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, and we also and we also don't limit it
Speaker 4: to because ever since Gangster Rap came out, there's this
Speaker 4: assumption on this on the part of the mainstream that
Speaker 4: that's all that hip hop is, right, and that's that's
Speaker 4: never been from from seventy nine when the Sugar Hill
Speaker 4: Gang came out. Up until now, that's never been the case,
Speaker 4: and we try we try to shed light on that
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 7: One of the interesting things about Scott is he has
Speaker 7: a background that gives him insight into crime. He was
Speaker 7: a corrections officer as well, so which is kind of interesting,
Speaker 7: which I found out. I found out it was kind
Speaker 7: of interesting and maybe to talk about about that, Scott
Speaker 7: and hardly impacted on your view and interest in crime,
Speaker 7: crime history and stories.
Speaker 4: Oh well, I became a New York State correction officer
Speaker 4: in March of two thousand and six, is when I
Speaker 4: enter the academy. I worked at Fishkill, I worked at
Speaker 4: and then I spent most of my time at sing
Speaker 4: Thing from about June two thousand and six to August.
Speaker 4: August two thousand and eight, I worked. I worked the
Speaker 4: graveyard ship. I worked at midnight, the overnight shift, frombout
Speaker 4: eleven pm to seven am in the morning, so the
Speaker 4: inmates were mostly asleep. But you know, my my career
Speaker 4: wasn't that eventful. But you know, there were things that
Speaker 4: I did learn, things that I did find out. I
Speaker 4: kind of I more or less I saw the less
Speaker 4: glamorous side of crime. I saw, you know, I saw
Speaker 4: where those guys kind of end up, and a lot
Speaker 4: of it is just kind of like you begin to see, Okay,
Speaker 4: where one story is uh. In the case of I
Speaker 4: don't know if you've ever heard of him, I'm a
Speaker 4: guy named Larry Davis.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I don't think so.
Speaker 4: Well, Okay, the long story short, Larry Davis was kind
Speaker 4: of a He's another kind of prominent street figure. He
Speaker 4: was supposedly selling drugs and the police came to bust
Speaker 4: him one day and he had this like amazing shootout
Speaker 4: with these cops and he put all of them in
Speaker 4: the hospital, but like wounded them pretty badly. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was really like when you when you read the story,
Speaker 4: it's like like a Western the surgeon Sogeon Leon Flick.
Speaker 4: Almost this was in the Bronx. He kind of became
Speaker 4: a folk hero in the hood, he claims. He claimed
Speaker 4: that these cops, like a lot of the narcotic squads
Speaker 4: then in the mid to late eighties, in order to
Speaker 4: make busts, they were getting black kids off the street
Speaker 4: and forcing them to sell drugs and feed them information.
Speaker 4: At the same time, he said these cops were in
Speaker 4: his pockets and they were crooked and they realized he
Speaker 4: had a lot of information on it, so that's why
Speaker 4: they wanted him killed. Well, a couple of years ago
Speaker 4: Larry Davis was killed at Shawanak and just through the
Speaker 4: grape line. I had heard that, you know, at larger.
Speaker 4: He seemed larger than life on the streets. But then
Speaker 4: when you see these guys in jail, they're kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, not that special. You know, they kind of
Speaker 4: they tend to be kind of a holes to their
Speaker 4: fam Even their families don't like them. You know. The
Speaker 4: the other inmates can't stand them. You know, they're they're
Speaker 4: very hard to get along with. They're kind of old
Speaker 4: and broke down kind of like it. It was kind
Speaker 4: of like when you again in westerns you see the old,
Speaker 4: broke down gunfighters, you know, and it's just coming because
Speaker 4: the rappers never telling that part of the story.
Speaker 7: Sure, but I think it's you're saying our book, you know,
Speaker 7: if there is as a message, crime doesn't pay, because
Speaker 7: if you read our stories, uh, you know, all the
Speaker 7: characters haven't have unhappy ending uh in the story. And
Speaker 7: that and then and I think that, uh, you know,
Speaker 7: the life is glamorous, the stories are exciting, but eventually
Speaker 7: it ends in failure. And uh, I think one of
Speaker 7: the missed uh conceptions about criminalisms that they're smart. I
Speaker 7: really don't think criminals are smart because they keeps making
Speaker 7: the same mistakes again and again. And you're a smart person,
Speaker 7: you would not you would not do that.
Speaker 4: I would tend to agree with I would tend to
Speaker 4: agree with Lana and that I think. I think a
Speaker 4: lot of them actually may be smart, but I don't
Speaker 4: even I don't think even a smart person can hold
Speaker 4: up in that lifestyle for too long because I think
Speaker 4: it goes beyond, it goes, it goes beyond simply being smart,
Speaker 4: in my opinion.
Speaker 7: Well, extep for you know when one character you know
Speaker 7: may have we have book in our our generalization in
Speaker 7: the book, we talk about him. You've probably read that story.
Speaker 7: But Frank Matthews, which I think Scott would agree, is
Speaker 7: probably our most fascinating character in the book because.
Speaker 6: Tell us about her.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's well, he's very timely now because you know
Speaker 7: what he Bosuer, famous Irish gangster from Boston was captured
Speaker 7: and people were all excited about that and he was
Speaker 7: on the run since nineteen ninety five. Frank Matthews has
Speaker 7: been you know, well, we don't know what happened to
Speaker 7: been on the run. Let's say he's been on the
Speaker 7: run since nineteen seventy four. And if you read the
Speaker 7: story that I have that we have in the book,
Speaker 7: he disappeared off the face of the earth and he
Speaker 7: here's an alpha pone for black ansters, he would be hit.
Speaker 7: He was the first first after answer to Establis, which
Speaker 7: international connection. He operated outside the hood, and he had
Speaker 7: operations twenty one states. And when he led, he reportedly
Speaker 7: had something like fifteen million dollars to help him in
Speaker 7: his flight. And I ended up, in fact, I'm doing
Speaker 7: a book on him, a documentary, and I'm working on
Speaker 7: that now. But I've talked to a lot of the
Speaker 7: Marshalls and d agents that attract him. When he fled
Speaker 7: in seventy four, they put a twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 7: reward on him. Doesn't sound like a lot of money,
Speaker 7: but it was the biggest reward since John Billinger was
Speaker 7: on the loose in the nineteen thirty four and they
Speaker 7: assumed that they would catch him, you know, because the
Speaker 7: good guys always pitched their man, and they had a
Speaker 7: special unit that tracked Matthews and irrigating sightings in more
Speaker 7: than fifty countries. Believe it or not, they checked out
Speaker 7: every lead and they absolutely found nothing, absolutely nothing. And
Speaker 7: I've been researching the book and it's just incredible. It's
Speaker 7: more than a gangster story, the mystery story. And I think,
Speaker 7: you know, anybody that's interested in a good mystery story,
Speaker 7: whether they like bangster stories, will probably find the story
Speaker 7: really fascinating. If he's still alive, he's quite you know,
Speaker 7: he's young still, he's only he's only sixty seven years old,
Speaker 7: so there's you know, but there's absolutely no picture of him, no,
Speaker 7: no credible sighting of him, nothing. He just vanished. And
Speaker 7: the only comparison I can make maybe is like Jimmy Hoffa,
Speaker 7: and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, but eventually they found what happened
Speaker 7: to Jimmy Hoffa. And but there's no credible theory at all,
Speaker 7: because and the marshals that have tracked him will admit that,
Speaker 7: because I've interviewed them and the case is still open,
Speaker 7: and they said they told me that, you know, if
Speaker 7: if some kind of credible league came in, they would
Speaker 7: probably go go look it up. But it's not not
Speaker 7: really active, so it's you know, it's an incredible spury
Speaker 7: and one of the big probably the biggest mystery in
Speaker 7: the history of organized crime.
Speaker 4: One thing I want to say about it, one little
Speaker 4: quick thing is Ron likens Frank Matthews to alcopoone. But
Speaker 4: in my mind, Frank Matthews is much closer to a
Speaker 4: fictional gangster and that's Kaiser Sos from the movie The
Speaker 4: Usual Suspect. Right. Yeah, if you see that movie and
Speaker 4: you see how they portray the character of kaisass whereas like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's a real guy, but they kind of
Speaker 4: play around with it. Is has he done all these
Speaker 4: things they say he's done? Is this guy real? Because
Speaker 4: he does all these larger than life things? And he
Speaker 4: realized at the end of the movie, Yeah, he was real.
Speaker 4: He was right at the cops news the whole time.
Speaker 4: That's kind of when I think of Frank Matthews. That's
Speaker 4: what comes to mind.
Speaker 7: Right. I can tell you, like matt usually become such
Speaker 7: an incredible legend. Uh, I can tell you some stories.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I can't call if here in the
Speaker 7: book or not, because I've done I've done a lot
Speaker 7: of research on him. But one of the things of Matthews,
Speaker 7: I've never had a cocaine habit before he fled. And
Speaker 7: the Marshall's got a word that he was in Houston. Uh.
Speaker 7: This was in the late seventies. He was in Houston
Speaker 7: at a hospital there and he was fun to undergo
Speaker 7: a heart and of course you know they were they
Speaker 7: were sort of like skeptical of this and it was
Speaker 7: given them by uh by Uh I foun him as
Speaker 7: white woman that same she knew Matthews from back to
Speaker 7: New York. So evidently they went out to Houston checked
Speaker 7: it out. I couldn't find anything. I met one guy
Speaker 7: in Durham, He's from Durham, North Carolina, claimed he showed
Speaker 7: up at a funeral just as a woman. You know,
Speaker 7: one of his I can't remember who died, but he
Speaker 7: showed up with a woman. These are some of the stories
Speaker 7: that have circulated and uh, you know there some of
Speaker 7: them are really incredible, and but you know, none of
Speaker 7: them that really really checked out. And there's actually no picture.
Speaker 7: When Bojer disappeared, there was a picture in an ATM
Speaker 7: machine in in Europe which indicated that you know, he
Speaker 7: was alive, but Matthews. There's been no no pictures at all, nothing,
Speaker 7: absolutely nothing.
Speaker 6: Incredible. You know, a lot of these stories do involve drugs.
Speaker 6: Just you know, not to say and make any conclusion
Speaker 6: out of that, but a lot of these stories involved drugs,
Speaker 6: and I found one of the more interesting stories was
Speaker 6: the Henry Marzette Junior, the the arcotics cop dealing heroin
Speaker 6: in Detroit. So maybe if you could tell us about
Speaker 6: Henry Marzette Junior.
Speaker 7: Right, oh, okay, you're talking tell you go ahead.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Henry Marsett Jr. Well, I came across him.
Speaker 4: There's a there's a very talented documentary film maker that
Speaker 4: I that I interviewed a while back. I'm trying to
Speaker 4: remember his name escapes me, escapes me at the moment,
Speaker 4: but he did a documentary. He specializes in doing documentaries
Speaker 4: about Detroit, about the crime scene in Detroit. And one
Speaker 4: of them had a quick segment about this about that guy,
Speaker 4: Henry Henry Marsette Jr. And basically Henry Marsette. You know,
Speaker 4: he emerged at a time where our prophet there, that's
Speaker 4: his name, Al Prophet, documentary filmmaker named Al Prophet. He
Speaker 4: has he's done a few uh documentaries about Detroit and
Speaker 4: that he mentions Henry Marsette Junr. And Henry Marsette Junr
Speaker 4: was one of the first narcotic cops I think in Detroit,
Speaker 4: if not the first. Uh. The Detroit p D was
Speaker 4: trying to kind of get a line on some of
Speaker 4: the some of the black gangsters and some the drug business.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of hard to do that when you have,
Speaker 4: you know, when you have only white cops and put
Speaker 4: on your payroll. Sure you know, they can't believe penetrate
Speaker 4: those circles. And Henry Marzette did. But you know, in
Speaker 4: training day fashion, he turned rogue after after a stint
Speaker 4: in prison, I think he got hooked up with some
Speaker 4: with some Italian mobsters and he turned rogue and according
Speaker 4: to legend, he grew to rule over the narcotics trade
Speaker 4: in the black sections of Detroit. There's very scant information
Speaker 4: on this guy, very scant. I contracted many people, including
Speaker 4: Barry Michael Cooper, who wrote the script for the movie
Speaker 4: New Jack City. He had mentioned Henry Morzette and in
Speaker 4: a story he did years and years and years ago.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's very little information on this guy.
Speaker 4: If I'm not mistaken. I think that he has a
Speaker 4: relative that's still refute the claims made about him, that
Speaker 4: still says that he was not a dirty cop, and
Speaker 4: that a lot of these a lot of these allegations
Speaker 4: of faults, but I mean the folklore says otherwise, right, right, right.
Speaker 7: We actually have two stories in there in the book.
Speaker 7: We have another story about Chester Campbell, who was one
Speaker 7: of the most notorious hitman's in the US history, very
Speaker 7: low keyed a guy, and so, like Scott says, a
Speaker 7: lot of these stories, we barely got enough information to do,
Speaker 7: you know, a profile of them, you know, fifteen hundred
Speaker 7: and two thousand words, because the information is so scant.
Speaker 7: And I think that the Chester Campbell's story is an
Speaker 7: example of that. You know, I squeeze everything I could get,
Speaker 7: you know, going to the Detroit newspapers and trying to find,
Speaker 7: you know, information that could make for an interesting story.
Speaker 6: I'm you know, I'm a little concused on one of
Speaker 6: the stories. But it was interesting what you had written
Speaker 6: that one of these one of these gangsters, these prominent
Speaker 6: black gangsters, was so powerful that that there was no
Speaker 6: interference from the Italian mafia in their area. And and
Speaker 6: said to them, if something happens to one of my men,
Speaker 6: then uh, there's gonna be a lot of dead.
Speaker 7: Yeah, if something happens to one of my men, I'm
Speaker 7: going to go down Mulberry Street and kill quote every
Speaker 7: wop I find. That's that's actually Frank Matthews. That's that's uh,
Speaker 7: you know the part of his character, you know, his
Speaker 7: brashness and why he's so he's such a legend and
Speaker 7: evidently you know that's you know, he didn't have a
Speaker 7: really good relationship. Well he actually in those days you
Speaker 7: really had to to go to the Italians if you
Speaker 7: wanted to break into the drug trade. And uh and uh,
Speaker 7: Matthews was very ambitious, you know. He came from Durham
Speaker 7: and spent some time until out went to New York,
Speaker 7: got to start in the numbers. But he saw the opportunities,
Speaker 7: you know, as a gangster. He saw the opportunities that
Speaker 7: were opening up with the heroin trade in the late sixties,
Speaker 7: you know, during the Vietnam War and the early seventies,
Speaker 7: and he wanted to get in, but you had to
Speaker 7: go to the Italians. And the story is, which I
Speaker 7: haven't been able to verify yet in my research, and
Speaker 7: he went to the Italians and they turned him down
Speaker 7: for whatever reason, and he went to a Cuban drug
Speaker 7: dealer named Orlando Gonzalez, and Gonzalez was being indicted for
Speaker 7: heroin trafficking, but he fled to Venezuela, and evidently Gonzalez
Speaker 7: gave him his start by showing him some of his
Speaker 7: heroin before he fled, and then Gonzalez became his big
Speaker 7: contact in Venezuela, and that's how he became an international
Speaker 7: drug trade So when I say he's you know, he's
Speaker 7: the first international African American international established an action. Actually
Speaker 7: the book I did on Sergeant Smack Atkinson was there
Speaker 7: at the same time, but I'm talking about within the
Speaker 7: United States out to outside the United States. Ike was
Speaker 7: in in Thailand when he set up his ring.
Speaker 4: If I could chime in, if I could chime in
Speaker 4: on that, just this for one second, not to cut
Speaker 4: not to cut round off. The funny thing about that
Speaker 4: particular instance you're talking about when he challenges the openly
Speaker 4: challenges the Italian mafia in that way, if you look
Speaker 4: at a lot of the old black exploitation films from
Speaker 4: the seventies, like Superfly, like Black Caesar.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Even some of the more current black movies like New
Speaker 4: Jack City, there is at sugar Hill. There is a
Speaker 4: kind of a running theme about a prominent black gangster
Speaker 4: or a prominent black crew that starts out underneath the
Speaker 4: wing of the Italian mafia and then at some point
Speaker 4: outgrows outgrows that relationship or wants to kind of take
Speaker 4: the throne for themselves, And that's kind of in the seventies.
Speaker 4: Frank Matthews was kind of one of the one of
Speaker 4: the first, that's not the first, to kind of establish
Speaker 4: that trend. I think because Frank Matthews was originally from
Speaker 4: North Carolina. Unlike a lot of the other black gangsters
Speaker 4: that had been established in New York for many, many years,
Speaker 4: who had who had been accustomed to being underneath the
Speaker 4: rule of the Italian mob, I don't think Frank Matthews
Speaker 4: really took to that too well. He had more of
Speaker 4: a rebellious spirit.
Speaker 7: Right right, That's I think that's very true about Frank.
Speaker 7: And like like a lot of gangsters, he came from
Speaker 7: North Carolina. There were a lot of famous gangsters that
Speaker 7: came that came from the South and went went to
Speaker 7: North Yeah.
Speaker 6: I found that very interesting that, you know, I had
Speaker 6: no idea but to to see so many gangsters from
Speaker 6: like you say, South Carolina, North Carolina.
Speaker 7: Well, I'll give you example, Dan, you had Buddy Johnson,
Speaker 7: he was born in Charleston. Yeah, you got you know,
Speaker 7: Frank Frank Matthews Houst from Durham, and of course the
Speaker 7: Frank Lucas. You know, the famous American gangster was from uh,
Speaker 7: it was from North Carolina as well. I can name
Speaker 7: a lot of other gangsters that aren't in the book
Speaker 7: but came from the North. You know. It was like
Speaker 7: they were part of the migration, you know, the African
Speaker 7: American migration north looking for a better life, better jobs.
Speaker 7: And of course gangsters went north to you know, starting
Speaker 7: in the nineteenth before World War before World War One
Speaker 7: it began, and they went north looking for for opportunities,
Speaker 7: and of course their opportunity was on the other side
Speaker 7: of the law, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know it was interesting too, is that I'm
Speaker 6: obviously you're the true crime expert and written quite a
Speaker 6: few books, but I think people have a general impression
Speaker 6: that the organized crime is is mostly white Americans and
Speaker 6: an Italian in heritage, but also some other nationalities. Obviously
Speaker 6: were involved in crewise maybe weren't initiated in the mafia
Speaker 6: per se. But you really don't read much in these
Speaker 6: mafia mafia books about the uncomfortable or comfortable or relationship
Speaker 6: with black gangsters whatsoever. So it's interesting in your books
Speaker 6: and especially in a straight from the Hood to hear
Speaker 6: some of these stories. And there was another interesting story
Speaker 6: again involving mobster, was the you talk about the indeed
Speaker 6: crazy Joe Gallo and his alliance with with black gangsters.
Speaker 6: So maybe if you could tell us about crazy Joe Gallo.
Speaker 7: Crazy Joe Gallo was crazy. You asked any any detectives
Speaker 7: that that I investigated him, And he was a mobster
Speaker 7: that with you know, kills anybody if he was slighted,
Speaker 7: and he had a short temper, you know, he had
Speaker 7: a short fuse. He was tough, he was wiry, fair haired,
Speaker 7: and uh and but he was also very very smart
Speaker 7: and very educated and uh, you know, he read all
Speaker 7: kinds of uh great books, uh, you know, of literature
Speaker 7: and philosophy and all that. And uh he spuck up
Speaker 7: a relationship with with Nicky Barnes, who became known as
Speaker 7: mister Untouchable. And he was a prominent African American gangster
Speaker 7: uh in the seventies. But this happened in the sixties,
Speaker 7: and Bill Gallo took him under his wing. Uh. He
Speaker 7: was serving a long sentence in jail and uh and
Speaker 7: uh Unette Nicky Barnes, and they struck up along uh friendship,
Speaker 7: and uh they would have discussions, you know, to pass
Speaker 7: the time and and uh. You know, Gallo knew a
Speaker 7: lot about the mob, you know, Uh, and also about
Speaker 7: the gangster life and uh and how to operate a
Speaker 7: drug traffic enterprise. And of course Nicky Barnes, even though
Speaker 7: he was in jail, uh, you know, was a true gangster.
Speaker 7: He was going to aspire for the gangster life after
Speaker 7: he got out. So you know, they they talked about this.
Speaker 7: And Nicky Barnes, who for fun would read legal tombs
Speaker 7: in prison. This is the kind of guy he was.
Speaker 7: He was very brainy as well, and so they so
Speaker 7: they got along and UH they had this wild idea
Speaker 7: about establishing some kind of super syndicate, you know, uh
Speaker 7: of of African American drug dealers and Gallo Nicky Barnes
Speaker 7: would sort of run it and Gallo would be the
Speaker 7: guy behind the scenes. Uh, doing all that, uh, And
Speaker 7: what happened was that Gallo initiated a mob work famous
Speaker 7: mob war and against Joe Profossi, who was a really
Speaker 7: powerful gangster, and Gallilean kidnapped several members of Profossi's family
Speaker 7: and demanding more money, you know, from his drug trafficking enterprise.
Speaker 7: And so this led to a war and he was
Speaker 7: eventually killed in a restaurant. But Nicky Barnes really didn't
Speaker 7: need him because this is when the drug trade was
Speaker 7: opening up. The Italians are losing their grip. If you've
Speaker 7: seen the movie French Connection with Gene Hackman, that talks
Speaker 7: about the demise of the French Connection, which is kind
Speaker 7: of a Misknowner because it was actually run by the Italians.
Speaker 7: There was a French Connection because the heroin was processed
Speaker 7: in Marseilles and from there they would shipped through montrealer
Speaker 7: to New York. But with the breakdown, with the breakup
Speaker 7: of the French Connection, it opened up opportunities for other
Speaker 7: ethnic groups and the Italians lost their mob and Nicky
Speaker 7: Barnes was there at this time and it allowed him,
Speaker 7: yeah to use his contacts UH where he was a
Speaker 7: very diplomatic type of person. He knew how to you know,
Speaker 7: how to operate very smooth, and he did establish a
Speaker 7: relationship with the Italian mafia, but he was able to
Speaker 7: develop his career. So this story, you know, it's sort
Speaker 7: of a vignette taken from from from gangster history, and
Speaker 7: I thought it was interesting because she had these two
Speaker 7: really contrasting personalities that that developed this relationship. And of
Speaker 7: course Barnes went on to become one of the biggest
Speaker 7: UH informants in US history. He spent about thirty years
Speaker 7: in prison and he got out, uh because he became
Speaker 7: become an informant and they eventually had to let him
Speaker 7: out and he's still in the Federal Witness Protection program.
Speaker 6: Let me ask this question. In UH, the mafioso has
Speaker 6: had a general rule that was broken and by members
Speaker 6: of the mob. But that was that they didn't want
Speaker 6: to be involved in any drugs. Is the line for me?
Speaker 7: That's the biggest myth sure you know, in in in
Speaker 7: mafia history. I mean, they were dealing in drugs all
Speaker 7: the way back you know, to the to the to
Speaker 7: the twenties, and UH as part of the hypocrisy that existed, uh,
Speaker 7: you know with you know, with the mafia where you know,
Speaker 7: they're they're they were like good gangsters. They didn't get
Speaker 7: their hands, uh, you know, dirty by getting involved in
Speaker 7: the drug trade, but they were, you know, a lot
Speaker 7: of them were doing it. And uh in fact, that's
Speaker 7: what you know, that's what got uh led to uh
Speaker 7: John Gotti becoming such a big head because he was
Speaker 7: secretly dealing in in drugs and he was afraid that
Speaker 7: Paul Castellana, who was who was the godfather of the
Speaker 7: Gambinos at that time, would find out then that would
Speaker 7: be the end of him. So you know, he did
Speaker 7: a hit on uh in on Castellano. So this was
Speaker 7: going on for a long time, and you know, you
Speaker 7: see this this myth uh perpetrated in Hollywood films and
Speaker 7: in common legend.
Speaker 6: What I was I was asking is that of course
Speaker 6: that that is a big myth and and they obviously
Speaker 6: they dealt drugs, but is there was was the relationship
Speaker 6: that they that they cultivated with black organized crime. It
Speaker 6: wasn't a result of them realizing that they would have
Speaker 6: a difficult time going into these neighborhoods that were predominantly black,
Speaker 6: and that they knew that these guys were not hesitant
Speaker 6: to deal drugs. It seems that there never was any
Speaker 6: code among black gangsters not the deal drugs. So is
Speaker 6: there am I getting this wrong or is there something
Speaker 6: that point? I don't know.
Speaker 7: I think that's a that's a good point because you know,
Speaker 7: and Scott can addressed this too. But you know, in
Speaker 7: the nineteen sixties, the Civil rights movement, the Black power movement,
Speaker 7: you know, black communities began to take you know, the
Speaker 7: black uh uh communities began to take over their own communities,
Speaker 7: you know, away uh uh and become more more uh
Speaker 7: South reliant. And I think this this sort of happened
Speaker 7: to in in the criminal aspect too as well. You know,
Speaker 7: the the white mafia lost their their power and communities.
Speaker 7: I think you see that in Harlem, especially uh and
Speaker 7: uh and this led to, you know, the rise of
Speaker 7: the of the black anster.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 4: I also I also think on another side of that
Speaker 4: is I also think that especially heroin was largely something
Speaker 4: that like the like the Italian mafia would kind of
Speaker 4: set what kind of deal in the black communities it was.
Speaker 4: You know, they they would get it, they would wholesale it,
Speaker 4: and they would sell it to blacks to to sell
Speaker 4: to other blacks, And I think that what happened was
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody really counted on the first but
Speaker 4: like Ron said, uh, the French connection kind of crumbling
Speaker 4: and the Times kind of losing their grip. Because once
Speaker 4: that happened, you know, I think that just opened the
Speaker 4: door for like Ike Atkinson and Frank Matthews and a
Speaker 4: lot of other factors that allowed black gangsters to really
Speaker 4: capitalize on the drug trade in a way that they
Speaker 4: hadn't in a way that they hadn't before. Because once
Speaker 4: the mafia was out of the way, black gangsters kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, they were able to get direct connections to
Speaker 4: you know whoever. You know, like in the in the eighties,
Speaker 4: you had you had black gangsters that dealt directly who
Speaker 4: were selling cocaine and who dealt directly with the Columbian cartels.
Speaker 4: You know, so that so you had that kind of
Speaker 4: I don't think it was something that was really intended
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think that Nicky Barnes or Frank Matthews or
Speaker 4: or even going into modern day a freeway Ricky Ross
Speaker 4: was supposed to ever exist. I think it was just
Speaker 4: kind of a side effect.
Speaker 7: But my point is, and I try to do this
Speaker 7: in my books, is to give a lot of background,
Speaker 7: is you can't divorce gangster history from the societal forces
Speaker 7: that are in play at the time. Sure, and there
Speaker 7: was a big change, you know, and I think, you
Speaker 7: know Matthew's attitude, uh, you know, we talk about him, uh,
Speaker 7: you know, and his attitude, his arrogance partially reflects that.
Speaker 7: And uh, you know a lot of these people, for example,
Speaker 7: Matthews was was a very big admirer of Malcolm X
Speaker 7: and uh, you know, his his his message of black
Speaker 7: self alliance and all that, and uh, you know these criminals,
Speaker 7: you know, we're super aware was going around them. And
Speaker 7: I think that they absorbed a lot of it. And
Speaker 7: I think that's one of the you know. So my
Speaker 7: point is, you can really, you know, treat criminal history
Speaker 7: is something separate from society. It's a part of the
Speaker 7: society and the various forces that work at a particular
Speaker 7: moment in time. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think when you when you talk about Crack two,
Speaker 6: not to stereotype or anything, but you could see that
Speaker 6: even the penalties for the powdered version of cocaine reflected
Speaker 6: socioeconomic situation you know, the white people, people with more economics.
Speaker 6: Means we're not, you know, not reverting to crack, but
Speaker 6: we're doing the powder and maybe even freebasing. But certainly
Speaker 6: crack seems to be the drug that was created for
Speaker 6: the average person that didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 6: and and so you do, it did reflect sort of
Speaker 6: a classism of sorts, the difference between people and their
Speaker 6: socioeconomic situation.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what's interesting about that phenomenon. And something I've
Speaker 4: always personally found funny is it seems that the powers
Speaker 4: that they think that they can always corral these things
Speaker 4: or control them. And one thing I've noticed, and of
Speaker 4: course I don't have the extensive knowledge that Ron has
Speaker 4: on the history of crime and the drug trade, but
Speaker 4: one thing I've noticed what the drug trade is, it's
Speaker 4: very volatile by nature. Nobody can have control of it
Speaker 4: for very long. You know, it passes through many different hands,
Speaker 4: and you know, when you you know, as I said, before,
Speaker 4: the rise of the Black Agster, I don't think was
Speaker 4: something that was ever really intended to happen. The Italian
Speaker 4: mob probably figured they would maintain control of the drug
Speaker 4: trade forever. M you know, but the but you know,
Speaker 4: various factors such as the Vietnam War, such as the
Speaker 4: civil rights movements, such as the FBI cracking down on them,
Speaker 4: you know, forcing more than the turn snitch brought it
Speaker 4: into that rain and opened the door for others to
Speaker 4: step in.
Speaker 6: Right, and unlike maybe some people's perceptions, these black guys
Speaker 6: were very savvy, very powerful, very determined, connected and like
Speaker 6: you say, it was maybe been a surprise to many
Speaker 6: many people, but certainly they established themselves very well in
Speaker 6: their own communities and went on to uh fame and infamy.
Speaker 7: Really right, I think one of the that started a
Speaker 7: trend because one of the one of the most noticeable
Speaker 7: characteristic of the drug trade today is diversity. I mean,
Speaker 7: you've got all kinds of ethnic groups, everything from Chinese
Speaker 7: to the Vietnamese, to the Dominicans, you know, to the
Speaker 7: African Americans, the Jamaicans. You can go on and on.
Speaker 7: But you know, i'll play in a powerful role in
Speaker 7: in the drug. Drug trade today is as big as
Speaker 7: it's ever been, even given all the money that's convent
Speaker 7: to trying to stamp out the legal drug trade.
Speaker 6: Sure certainly, Uh now I've We've only got a few
Speaker 6: minutes here so I want to just make sure that
Speaker 6: everybody knows, uh, some of the programs, some of the
Speaker 6: blog sites, and where we can get this book. Maybe Scott,
Speaker 6: you can talk about just mention again the blog site
Speaker 6: that you have and where we can maybe read some
Speaker 6: of your work. And then after that, maybe Ron can
Speaker 6: tell us about a couple of his books and where
Speaker 6: is the best place to get a copy of Straight
Speaker 6: from the Hood.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, my personal blog site is Scott's Introspection section.
Speaker 4: That's kind of a long name, but the domain name
Speaker 4: is relatively short. The domain name is www dot Scott's
Speaker 4: mind field dot com. That's s C O T T
Speaker 4: S M I N D f I E L D.
Speaker 4: I also write for planet ill dot com. That's w
Speaker 4: w W w W dot planet iill dot com. And
Speaker 4: I'm a frequent contributor with don Diva magazine.
Speaker 6: Right on, right, this is your first part, Scott. Sorry,
Speaker 6: is this your first book published?
Speaker 4: Yes, it is my first book. Yeah, this Straight from
Speaker 4: the Hood is my first This is my first time
Speaker 4: as a published author.
Speaker 6: Oh, great work.
Speaker 7: Okay, go ahead, run sorry, yeah, right, I'll just say that,
Speaker 7: as far as the book is concerned, Straight from the
Speaker 7: Hood true an amazing gangster tales. They can go. Probably
Speaker 7: the best best thing to do is go to Strategic
Speaker 7: Media Books dot com website Www. Strategic s t r
Speaker 7: A uh G I C Strategic Media Books.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: And there's a summer sale going on, so you could
Speaker 7: probably get it cheaper in Amazon. And of course the
Speaker 7: book's sold in Barnes and Noble and Amazon and all that.
Speaker 7: And uh so again Www. Strategic Media Books dot com.
Speaker 6: Is there an e book version uh available?
Speaker 7: Yes, the e book version, they could get it from
Speaker 7: the website or or Amazon, and uh, yes, the ebook
Speaker 7: version is available.
Speaker 6: And you're also co host of a great show.
Speaker 7: Excuse me, Dan, I was just uh, I just spoke
Speaker 7: on that e book is coming uh soon. We came
Speaker 7: out with the print folks first, but it'll be coming
Speaker 7: out soon. But by going to the website to keep
Speaker 7: the breast of elements.
Speaker 6: And also I just want you to mention too, you're
Speaker 6: on a You're on a great crime show called crime
Speaker 6: Beat with Will Herb. Maybe tell us just a little
Speaker 6: bit about that mentioned that for us.
Speaker 7: Wow, and one of our best guests is Dan Dan Supanski.
Speaker 7: We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Yes, crime Beat on
Speaker 7: the Artists First Worldwide Radio Network. Go to www dot
Speaker 7: artist First dot com crime Beat click on the crime
Speaker 7: Beat tomorrow. We're on Thursdays at eight pm. We've got
Speaker 7: one of the worldwide renowned experts on serial killers, doctor
Speaker 7: Michael Stone, who's gonna be talking about his research and
Speaker 7: he's interviewed a lot of the other the big name
Speaker 7: serial killers, so that should be a real fascinating show.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yeah, Yeah, a great program, Ron, and again another
Speaker 6: great book. And I wanted to thank both of you,
Speaker 6: gentlemen for coming onto the program. You guys are born storytellers.
Speaker 6: I wanted to tell people that been listening to the program,
Speaker 6: and we listened. The book featured is Straight from the Hood,
Speaker 6: amazing but true gangsters Tales. Ron Chepsick and Scott Wilson again,
Speaker 6: thank you very much, gentlemen for a great interview and
Speaker 6: a great book. And I wish you the best with
Speaker 6: this project. And I'm sure I'll be hearing from both
Speaker 6: of you again real soon with another incredible and interesting
Speaker 6: and unknown some of a lot of this stuff is
Speaker 6: just comes from such a different perspective and I think
Speaker 6: the audience is really going to appreciate that. And of
Speaker 6: course the readers will as well. Just something totally different
Speaker 6: from what you might read and what you see. So
Speaker 6: great interesting stories are not so well known, but fascinating tales.
Speaker 7: So thank you, Thank you Dan. We appreciate being on
Speaker 7: the show.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you very much. If you guys have a
Speaker 6: great evening.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Bye, my pleasure.
Speaker 6: You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most
Speaker 6: shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that
Speaker 6: have written about it.
Speaker 7: Good night then, yes, are you there?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we gotta go, good night.
Speaker 7: Yeah,