“Yafeu Fula was the only one who gave us an indication in the [initial] interview he could identify the gunman,” then-homicide Lieutenant Wayne Petersen said. “His statement was, ‘Yeah, I might be able to recognize him.’”

  But in the aftermath of the shooting, detectives were frustrated by not being able to schedule an interview with Kadafi. Once Fula left Las Vegas, detectives were referred to Death Row attorney David Kenner, one of the lawyers they’d dealt with in their attempt to interview Suge Knight.

  Before a meeting could be arranged, Fula was murdered.

  On Sunday, November 13, 1996, at 3:48 a.m., Fula was fatally shot in the face at point-blank range with a handgun while in a hallway of a federal housing project on Mechanic Street in Orange, New Jersey, where his girlfriend lived. Found slumped against a hallway wall on the third floor, he was taken by ambulance to University Hospital in Newark. Efforts to save his life were futile and he was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. Yafeu Fula was born on a Sunday, and he died on a Sunday.

  There were reports that Fula had been wearing a flak jacket when he was shot. Bruce “Fatal” Washington, a fellow rapper in the Outlawz, told reporters that Fula and the other members of the group frequently wore bullet-resistant vests for protection, especially in the wake of Tupac’s murder.

  Like Tupac, Fula was shot following a Tyson heavyweight prize fight, slain just hours after a Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight in Las Vegas.

  Within two days of the murder, Orange police arrested and charged an Irvington, New Jersey, teenager in connection with the murder. A few hours later, on the afternoon of November 14, 1996, a second suspect surrendered to investigators working for the Essex County prosecutor’s office. Nine months later the teenagers’ identies were revealed as Kaseem Nadier Way and Rashad Clark. Their names weren’t released earlier because they were minors.

  Orange Police immediately claimed the Fula case was not related to Tupac’s murder. Publicly, Las Vegas investigators, too, insisted there was no link. LVMPD’s Sergeant Manning attributed Fula’s death, in part, to the general nature of being a young black male in this country today, with the odds against him.

  Another officer close to the case agreed, comparing it to Tupac’s murder. “Just because Tupac was famous,” he said, “does not mean we’re going to assign more detectives than usual [to the case]. Tupac was a young black man in America, and young black men get murdered.”

  Statistics show that black-on-black gun violence has been the leading cause of death for black youths 15 to 19 years old since 1969. From 1987 to 1989, the gun homicide rate for black males 15 to 19 increased 71 percent. Of the roughly 20,000 murders committed each year in the U.S. between 1991 and 1995, 50 percent were cases involving black victims.

  Privately, Las Vegas police say that while their sense is that the Fula case probably is related to Tupac’s, they have to go on the evidence, not a gut feeling. The criminal-justice system demands that when police submit a case to the district attorney’s office, the evidence must be strong enough for it to be approved for criminal prosecution. Manning said he couldn’t go on instinct and he couldn’t go on a gut feeling. Still, it’s hard to imagine that a possible star witness to a murder who gets gunned down just two months later isn’t in some way connected to the crime he witnessed.

  • • •

  Having been intimately involved with this story, I recognized the connection the minute I heard about it and broke the story.

  I was working on Monday, November 14, making my beat rounds on the phone as I did every morning. Since I was working at the time for an afternoon daily, I was on deadline each morning for that day’s edition. I made a routine phone call to homicide to see whether there was anything new in the Shakur investigation. I was told that detectives had sketchy information that a witness in the case had been murdered back East; homicide had gotten a message overnight on its answering machine. The investigator didn’t know how to spell Yafeu Fula’s name. He didn’t know the name of the city where the witness was murdered. He did know that it had happened somewhere in New Jersey.

  I hung up and immediately relayed what little I knew to the city desk and was told to see what I could get in 30 minutes. In the meantime, the news desk freed up space on the front page just in case the story panned out.

  I picked cities at random, phoned directory assistance for the numbers, and then, one by one, called about 10 police departments; the last one had heard there’d been a murder in Orange, New Jersey. I called the police department there and asked for the homicide division. An officer confirmed that there had been a murder the day before. The captain who could tell me about it, however, was in a meeting, unavailable to speak with me. No one else there was authorized to talk to the press. The officer invited me to attend an afternoon news conference. I told him that I was in Las Vegas and needed information for that day’s paper. He said he’d heard the homicide got a brief routine mention in one of the area’s newspapers, but he didn’t know which one. He also said that no mention was made that Fula was an eyewitness in Tupac’s murder or that Las Vegas police had been trying to schedule an interview with him. I called the papers. Within a few minutes, I reached a reporter at the Star-Ledger in Orange who faxed me a copy of a short article.

  The newspaper reported that Yafeu Fula had been shot to death. Wire services had not moved the story overnight.

  The connection had not been made—nor reported—that Fula was a key witness in Tupac’s murder and that now he, too, was dead.

  Orange Police Captain Richard Conte called me a few minutes later with the details. The captain told me he had not been made aware that Fula was a witness to a murder.

  My paper, the Las Vegas Sun, bannered the story on the front page, above the fold. The article began, “A key witness Metro Police have been trying to interview since the fatal shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur has been murdered in New Jersey.” The Associated Press picked up the piece and it was the lead story on local and national TV news programs that evening.

  Officially, Las Vegas and Orange police claimed that Fula’s murder was not connected to Tupac’s slaying. “It doesn’t appear at this time to be involved with the Tupac Shakur killing,” Captain Conte told reporters who followed up on the story.

  When I pressed him about a Las Vegas connection, Conte said Fula knew the two people who shot him and that it may have been drug-related.

  “From what we understand right now,” the captain said, “one has nothing to do with the other. I think it’s more or less a lifestyle-related homicide, as opposed to Death Row versus Biggie and all that. The availability that people have of drugs and guns—I think he died because of that, not because he saw Tupac Shakur killed. It was a lifestyle thing. [Fula] was going out with a girl there. He was at her apartment.”

  Conte noted, “In talking to California and Las Vegas detectives, I do not believe [Fula’s death] was related to either Tupac Shakur or gang affiliation. With the evidence at hand, I can say it’s not gang-related.”

  LVMPD’s Sergeant Kevin Manning, as well, maintained there was no evidence to link Fula’s killing with his being a witness in Shakur’s murder. “Based on the information we received from Orange Police, we don’t think there’s a connection,” Manning told me. Las Vegas homicide never went to New Jersey to interview the murder suspects. They based their opinions on Conte’s.

  Manning did, however, express defeat. “It just kind of adds to our frustration about this whole investigation,” he said. “It’s another dead end for us. He spoke to us the night of the shooting, and based on what we got from him that night, we wanted to speak to him again. We wanted to show him some photographs.”

  • • •

  Both suspects in Yafeu Fula’s murder pleaded not guilty. One of them was a blood cousin of Outlawz member Mutah Wasin Shabazz Beale, who uses the moniker “Napoleon.”

  Kaseem Nadier Way and Rashad Clark remained in custody at the Essex County Youth House until their cases were processed by the judicial system.

  After the arrests of Way and Clark, Captain Conte said, “Basically, the case is over.” Prosecutor Clifford Minor, however, said the investigation into Fula’s death was continuing and that it was too early to speculate on a motive.

  On Wednesday, October 14, 1998, according to Essex County court records, the indictment against Kaseem Nadier Way was dismissed by the court after a motion was filed by the prosecution. A court administrator said the dismissal was for lack of evidence. Kaseem was released from custody.

  Rashad Clark was offered a plea bargain to a lesser charge of manslaughter in the Fula case. He accepted it. On October 9, 1998, Rashad was sentenced by Judge Richard Camp to seven years in prison, with a three-year parole eligibility.

  A motive in the murder has never been made public.

  After four years of silence about the shooting, in 2001 members of the Outlawz talked about Yafeu’s death, in magazine interviews. They said that Napoleon’s cousin was playing with a gun when he exchanged words with Yafeu. The gun, they said, accidentally went off in Yafeu’s face. The police investigation never mentioned an accident and the rap group’s take on the shooting has never been corroborated.

  Since Tupac and Kadafi’s deaths, the Outlawz have remained together. They originally signed with Death Row Records in March 1997. But after a contract dispute, they left to record under an indie label.

  10

  THE MURDER OF BIGGIE SMALLS

  On Sunday, March 9, 1997, East Coast rap superstar Biggie Smalls, also known as Notorious B.I.G., was attending a star-studded party in Los Angeles to celebrate the 11th Annual Soul Train Music Awards. He’d been in Los Angeles for about two weeks doing West Coast interviews and had canceled a flight to Europe so he could attend the post-awards get-together. The party, held at the Petersen Automotive Museum in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles and sponsored by Vibe magazine, Qwest Records, and Tangueray Gin, was supposed to have been private, but by the time Biggie and his associates and friends arrived, about 2,000 people had filed into the museum.

  Biggie, six-foot-three and weighing 350 pounds, wore a long-sleeved black-velour shirt and faded blue jeans. It was too warm for a jacket. Around his neck on a heavy gold chain hung a large gold Jesus Christ pendant, not the prized Bad Boy Entertainment gold medallion and logo with a baby wearing a baseball cap and work boots. Biggie also wore one of his trademark hats, a bolo riding cap.

  Biggie was a presenter at the awards ceremony at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. He was booed as he walked on. It didn’t daunt his enthusiasm, though. He bent over the mike and said, “Whad up, Cali?” He felt honored to be a presenter. He was in good company. Also appearing throughout the evening were co-hosts Gladys Knight, LL Cool J, and Brandy, along with fellow presenters Snoop Dogg, Aaliyah, Immature, Tisha Campbell, and Heavy D.

  The night’s biggest award, for Best R&B/Soul or Rap Album, went posthumously to Biggie’s onetime rival, Tupac Shakur, for his multi-platinum double-disc All Eyez On Me.

  The night also marked the end of a lengthy recording session in L.A., as well as a big promotion opportunity for Biggie’s Life After Death album, to be released in just two weeks. All Biggie wanted to do that night was relax with his friends.

  The guest list for the party included Heavy D, Busta Rhymes, Chris Tucker, Da Brat, Yo-Yo, Jermaine Dupree, and, of course, Biggie Smalls and his friend, record producer, and owner of Bad Boy Records Sean “Puffy” Combs. Also attending was Kidada Jones, Tupac’s girlfriend at the time of his death.

  A noteworthy, if not a surprise, attendee was Orlando Anderson, the reputed Crips gang member all but accused of having something to do with Tupac’s murder. Also with Orlando was his uncle, Keefee D, or Dwayne Keith Davis, an alleged Crips member. LAPD homicide detective Fred Miller, a lead detective in the Biggie Smalls murder case, later told me that Orlando’s appearance had “no significance” for investigators and that they had ruled out Orlando as a player in the murder-scene scenarios. Orlando had been trying to break into the music business and had built a studio in a garage behind his uncle’s Compton house, where he lived.

  At about eight o’clock the guests began arriving at the auto museum on Museum Row on the Miracle Mile in the Wilshire District near Hollywood.

  At the post-awards party, the DJ played a single, “Hypnotize,” from Biggie’s new album. Biggie talked about the new release in an interview with Black Entertainment Television. “If you thought the [first] album was a fluke, hold your head, ‘cause this next one, man, it’s all. It’s all like you never thought. The next album is called Life After Death, and we ain’t takin’ no prisoners.”

  By 9:30 p.m. the party began to take off. It was about that time, witnesses later recalled, that Biggie was seen enjoying himself, talking and laughing. He sat at a table on the edge of the dance floor, directly in front of a classic German car, with Combs and record-producer Jermaine Dupree.

  Russell Simmons, president and CEO of Def Jam Records, stopped by Biggie’s table. Actor Wesley Snipes and singer Seal, among others, were sitting nearby. Women danced for Biggie at his table. Biggie, who was using a cane, couldn’t get up and dance with them, because he had broken his leg in a car accident and was still recovering. He signed autographs. He appeared to be having a good time.

  More people crowded onto the second floor of the museum. By midnight, the room was overly packed. About 30 minutes later, at 12:35 a.m., Los Angeles fire marshals, already standing by for the special event, announced they were breaking up the party. By that time, an estimated 2,000 were in attendance. Two hundred fans milled around outside hoping to catch a glimpse of a celebrity. The building needed to be evacuated, fire marshals said.

  “This party is over!” barked a fire marshal’s voice over a loudspeaker. “Please leave in an orderly manner. Immediately!”

  As people left, Biggie and Puffy Combs stayed upstairs waiting for the crowd to disburse. Biggie had to take it slowly because of his leg. While they waited, they posed together for a last-minute photo. It would be the last photograph taken of Biggie alive.

  By 12:45 a.m., the guests spilled onto the street. Biggie and Puffy emerged from the building through the crowd and stood at valet for a few minutes. They talked with friends and made arrangements to meet at a private after-party at the home of Interscope Records executive Steven Stoute.

  Biggie and his group left the parking garage and walked to the street, where their SUVs were parked. Biggie climbed into the front passenger seat of his rented GMC Suburban (he didn’t have a driver’s license and never drove himself). Biggie’s driver, a bodyguard and friend identified only as Greg, got behind the wheel.

  Just like Tupac six months before him, Biggie was sitting shotgun. He was a perfect target.

  On the bumper of Biggie’s Suburban was a sticker that read, “Think B.I.G. March 25, 1997,” which was a promotion for his upcoming CD release. Damien “D-Roc” Butler and Lil’ Cease got in the back seat. Another Suburban, carrying Combs and others, pulled into the street. Biggie’s Suburban followed. Falling in behind Biggie’s vehicle was a Chevy Blazer. The Blazer carried the group’s personal bodyguards—all off-duty cops from the Inglewood Police Department, the same pool of moonlighting cops from which Suge Knight drew security guards. One of those off-duty cops was behind the wheel of the Blazer.

  The convoy headed down Fairfax Avenue toward Wilshire Boulevard. All three SUVs stopped at a red light at the Wilshire intersection, about 100 yards from the entrance to the museum. Just then, a dark-colored sedan pulled up next to the second GMC’s passenger side and stopped. The sedan’s driver, a black man in his early twenties wearing a suit, dress shirt, and bowtie, stuck a 9-millimeter silver-colored handgun out the window and opened fire. More than a half-dozen rounds were pumped from the semi-automatic. Biggie, who for a moment had a look of surprise on his face, was hit seven times in his chest and abdomen. He was the only one hit.

  Damien and Lil’ Cease saw enough of the shooter to help police draw a composite sketch of him. Damien told the Los Angeles Times that Biggie, for a fleeting moment, appeared to recognize the shooter.

  Puffy Combs said he heard the crack of gunfire. “I jumped out of my car and ran over to his,” he told the New York Daily News. “I was saying the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Marys. I was begging God to help him out. I was touching him and talking to him in his ear.”

  Biggie lost consciousness almost immediately. He was slumped over in his seat.

  The shooter, in the meantime, simply drove away. The off-duty Inglewood Police Department officers moonlighting that night as security for Biggie and Puffy took off in their Blazer after the gunman. Their efforts were unsuccessful. The shooter had sped away into the night. The off-duty cops did not get a license-plate number.

  Lil’ Cease, Damien, and Puffy tried to move Biggie, but he was too heavy. Instead, they propped him up in the passenger seat and closed the Suburban’s door. Lil’ Cease and Damien got in the back. Puffy followed behind in his Suburban. They left the scene of the crime and headed for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, less than two miles away.

  When they arrived at the hospital, they helped emergency personnel lift Biggie’s lifeless body onto a stretcher.

  Biggie Smalls was dead on arrival. Hospital officials said Biggie probably died immediately after being shot.

  He’d suffered massive injuries from the seven shots he’d taken in his chest and abdomen. He’d lost a lot of blood from internal injuries. Still, for about 20 minutes, doctors and emergency-room personnel tried to resuscitate him. But he had been mortally wounded. “They tried everything in the hospital to revive him,” said Voletta Wallace, Biggie’s mother. “Everything.”

  At 1:15 a.m., 24-year-old Christopher George Latore Wallace was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai, the same hospital where Eazy-E had died of AIDS the year before.

  “He died in my arms,” Biggie’s friend Damien told the L.A. Times.