The Crime Book

257

second studio album and film a

music video for the album’s lead

single, “Hypnotize”. On 7 March,

Smalls appeared at the Soul Train

Music Awards to present an award

to singer Toni Braxton, but was

booed by some members of the

audience due to his feud with the

late Tupac Shakur.

On 8 March, Smalls, with

record producer Sean Combs and

an entourage, attended a party

hosted by Vibe magazine and

Qwest Records at the Petersen

Automotive Museum on Wilshire

Boulevard, Los Angeles. Smalls

told his mother he had cancelled

a flight to London so that he could

attend the party.

A fire marshal closed the party

early due to overcrowding, and

at 12:30am, Smalls and his

entourage left the museum in two

GMC Suburbans. Smalls sat in the

front passenger seat. When his

SUV stopped at a red light behind

Combs’s vehicle at the corner of

Wilshire Boulevard and South

Fairfax Avenue, a Chevrolet Impala

drove up alongside.

The events that unfolded

mirrored the fate that had befallen

Shakur. A man in a button-down

shirt and bow tie rolled down the

driver’s window of the Impala and

fired at Smalls with a 9 mm blue-

steel pistol, hitting him four times.

The driver of the Impala sped

away, while Smalls’s entourage

rushed him to hospital. Despite the

doctors’ efforts, Smalls was

pronounced dead 30 minutes later.

Unsolved crime

Police investigations into Shakur’s

death did not lead to any formal

murder charges. In his affidavit

chronicling the investigation,

Detective Timothy Brennan of the

Compton Police Department’s gang

unit named Anderson as Shakur’s

likely killer. However, Anderson

was killed in an unrelated shootout

in Compton in 1998 and could not

be charged. Brennan was also

assigned to the taskforce working

to find Smalls’s killer. There, too,

the police were unable to bring the

killer to justice.

Multiple conspiracy theories

surround the murders of both

rappers, but none have been

substantiated. Rumours persist

that Smalls had Shakur killed, but

there is no evidence to back up the

theory. Investigators also found no

proof that the murder of Biggie

Smalls was linked to the East

Coast-West Coast rap war. Still,

some claimed that Sean Combs

hired Anderson to take out Shakur,

and others said Suge Knight

ordered the hit on Smalls.

The most plausible theory, said

the Los Angeles police, was that

Smalls was shot over a financial

dispute with Crips members who

had acted as his bodyguards – and

that it was unrelated to the murder

of Shakur. Nonetheless, new books,

biopics, and theories continue to

flourish, with even the police

assigned to the cases now writing

about the mysterious deaths of

Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. ■

MURDER CASES

Smalls’s

Suburban stops at a red

light near the museum;

a Chevrolet Impala

pulls up alongside

9 March 12:30am

Biggie Smalls and his

entourage leave the

Petersen Automotive

Museum in Los Angeles

The driver of the Impala

fires four shots into

Smalls’s chest at

close range

Smalls is rushed to the

Cedars-Sinai Medical

Center in Los Angeles

1:15am

Biggie Smalls is

pronounced dead

as a result of his

gunshot wounds

I don’t think my son’s death

was connected to Tupac.

And I don’t think Christopher

had anything to do with

Tupac’s death.

Voletta Wallace

254-257_Biggie_Tupac.indd 257 02/12/2016 15:04