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FBI releases 'secret' reports on hip-hop's

Notorious murder caseAgency investigated links between killings of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur

By David Usborne in New York

Friday, 8 April 2011

REX FEATURES

Biggie Smalls, pictured, and Tupac Shakur were shot dead in their prime

Even at the time it seemed like a conspiracy theory of the highest order, but a trove of

documents released by the FBI yesterday shows that the agency took seriously the suggested

link between the 1990s murders of two of hip hop's biggest stars

Posted on an FBI website in response to a Freedom of Information request, the papers show

that the agency was engaged at the outset of its investigation in searching for links between the

death in the 1997 of Brooklyn's Notorious B.I.G, also known as Biggie Smalls, whose real name

was Christopher Wallace, and the murder just a few months earlier in Las Vegas of another hip

hop star, Tupac Shakur. Almost a decade and a half later neither the Los Angeles murder of

Wallace or of Shakur has been solved and the twin mysteries of their violent deaths continue to

grip the hip-hop scene.

The papers also confirm that the FBI received tip-offs from informants pointing to an officer

with the Los Angeles Police Department. They describe what appears to be solid ballisticevidence linking the killing to the officer, whose name, like many other identifying details, was

redacted from the documents before their posting.

Even if the FBI long ago closed its investigation leaving the case cold, the new information will

again shift the spotlight on the LAPD officer. Other passages in the documents, when cross-

referenced with information already in the public domain, make clear he is David Mack, who

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soon after the Wallace slaying was convicted and sent to prison for a bank heist. He was

unsuccessfully targeted in a wrongful death civil suit by the Wallace estate in 2007.

The documents, 400 pages of typed reports, subpoenas, surveillance logs and emails, do not

appear to offer any entirely new information. But they do add fresh details and context,

including confirmation that the bullets used to kill Wallace were extremely rare metal-piercingbullets manufactured in Germany and only available from two US suppliers, in California and in

New Jersey.

The FBI also followed leads suggesting that Wallace may have been killed in retaliation for the

slaying of Shakur, or that his murder was inspired by a bitter rivalry between the East and West

Coast rapper camps or even between the two main record labels on each side of the country,

Death Row Records in Los Angeles founded by Marion "Suge" Knight and P. Diddy's New York-

based Bad Boy Entertainment.

Wallace had just left a music industry event at a Los Angeles museum in March 1997 and had

settled in the back seat of a car waiting outside when someone in a black Chevrolet Impala

drew up alongside and opened fire, the documents say. The rapper was declared dead at the

scene.

Mack has always denied any involvement in the Wallace case as have both Knight and P. Diddy.

Yet the documents serve as a reminder of the many leads that at least appeared to cast his

protestations in doubt. Bullets of the same kind used in the slaying Gecko 9mm were found

his home. He had known ties to Marion Knight and had a shrine to Tupac Shakur in his home.

He also owned a black Chevrolet Impala.

The FBI said there was nothing significant about the timing of the release of the documents andthe LAPD confirmed that for now it has no new leads. "We have followed up on all of the leads

we have at this time to the best of our ability," noted Captain Kevin McClure. "If anything new

comes along we will certainly look at it."