Investigating the Biggie Smalls Murder
COOPER: Time now for our continuing series looking into the most notorious cold cases in history. Tonight, one that's literally notorious, the murder of Notorious BIG, also known as Biggie Smalls, and the also unsolved murder of Tupac Shakur, two icons of rap. More than a decade after their very public deaths, the cases are still cold, but there could be a break in one of them, we're told. A law-enforcement source telling CNN that Biggie's case has been, quote, "reinvigorated" because of new information. The source would not get any more specific than that. But there's word that a task force is actively pursuing leads in what is now a 13-year-old unsolved case. Biggie Smalls' death and Tupac Shakur's death have been the subject of all kinds of speculation but not a lot of clear answers. Ted Rowlands tonight investigates.</s>TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Las Vegas, September 7, 1996. Mike Tyson is fighting Bruce Sheldon at the MGM Grand Hotel. Multi-platinum rap artist Tupac Shakur is there to watch Tyson, his friend. After the fight, Shakur rode with his boss, Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records, to a party just off the Las Vegas strip. Their security team went in separate cars. Knight was behind the wheel, Shakur in the front passenger seat when witnesses say a white Cadillac pulled up next to them at the intersection of Flamingo and Koval. Witnesses then say a gunman in the Cadillac extended his arm out of the backseat window and fired a semi-automatic pistol at Shakur from close range. (on camera) After the shooting the white Cadillac made a right- hand turn here on Koval, speeding away. Suge Knight, with Tupac bleeding in the front seat, made a u-turn on Flamingo and started driving back towards the Strip. Two police officers who were on duty heard the gun shots, but when they responded, they followed Suge Knight and Tupac, which allowed the white Cadillac to get away. (voice-over) There were several possible motives for the murder. Three hours before the shooting, this MGM Casino surveillance video shows Shakur, Suge Knight and their entourage attacking Orlando Anderson, L.A. area gang member. Many believe that Anderson, seen here after the beating, and his friends shot Shakur in retaliation. CNN asked Anderson about the accusation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you involved in any way in the death of Tupac Shakur?</s>ORLANDO ANDERSON, L.A. AREA GANG MEMBER: No, I was not involved.</s>ROWLANDS: Anderson was shot and killed months later in a gang- related shooting. Another theory focused on the gangster world that Tupac sang about. Many believe the murder was part of an East Coast/West Coast rap war and the dispute between Shakur and this man, a one-time friend named Christopher Wallace. Made famous with his hits like "Big Papa," Wallace, a New York rapper, was known as Biggie Smalls, or Notorious BIG. There had been an ongoing public feud between Biggie's record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, run by Sean "Puffy" Combs, and L.A.'s Death Row Records, run by Suge Knight, which represented Tupac. Six months after Tupac's shooting, Biggie Smalls came to California to promote an upcoming album. During an interview with San Francisco radio station KYLD, Smalls denied any involvement in Tupac's death and seemed to want to put any rap war to rest.</s>CHRISTOPHER "BIGGIE SMALLS" WALLACE, RAP ARTIST: I'm just getting over, you know what I'm saying, this whole situation with this East Coast/West Coast thing, you know. And they're going through their things, we're going through our things. It's just game over, you know what I'm saying? I'm trying to, like, basically squash it.</s>ROWLANDS: Four days later, on March 9, 1997, Biggie Smalls was shot and killed in Los Angeles. Smalls was leaving a music industry party. He was shot at a busy intersection while riding in the passenger seat of this Suburban.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They heard the shot and everyone started running.</s>ROWLANDS: The shooting was eerily similar to Tupac's six months earlier.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Given the fact that they were both gangster rap artists, naturally our people will be contacting the Las Vegas authorities to see if there's any connection in the two.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where this blue vehicle is where Biggie's Suburban was. He was stopped just like this vehicle right here.</s>ROWLANDS: Former LAPD Detective Russell Poole was one of those assigned to the Biggie Smalls case. Witnesses say the gunman looked like this. He was alone, drove up next to Smalls and shot him at close range. Poole is convinced that Suge Knight ordered Biggie Smalls' murder, even though Knight was behind bars at the time. He also believes that off-duty LAPD officers who were working for Knight's Death Row Records helped plan the murder.</s>RUSSELL POOLE, RETIRED LAPD DETECTIVE: Suge Knight ordered the hit. Reggie Wright Jr., the head of security for Rightway Security and Death Row, organized the personnel to plan the hit. And I believe police officers were a big part of the hit.</s>ROWLANDS: Poole says he believes Suge Knight also had Tupac Shakur killed because the rapper was planning to leave Knight's Death Row Records. Poole says he retired early from the LAPD out of frustration because of this case, saying the department didn't allow him to pursue leads that involved other cops.</s>POOLE: I think I was getting too close to the truth. I think they feared that the truth would be a scandal.</s>ROWLANDS: Poole later assisted Biggie Smalls' mother in a lawsuit claiming L.A. police covered up officers' involvement in the shooting. Bernard Parks was the chief of police when Poole was investigating. He's now an L.A. city councilman. He tells CNN Poole's accusations are, quote, "absurd," saying, quote, "We would have never ignored a lead that could have helped us solve that murder." We couldn't get Suge Knight to sit down for an interview, but he has told CNN he had nothing to do with either murder. Reggie Wright Jr. did agree to appear on camera. He was Death Row Records' head of security, who says he ran the company while Suge Knight was in prison. (on camera) Did you have anything to do with Tupac's murder?</s>REGGIE WRIGHT JR., FORMER HEAD OF SECURITY, DEATH ROW RECORDS: No, sir.</s>ROWLANDS: Or Biggie's?</s>WRIGHT: No, sir.</s>ROWLANDS (voice-over): Wright says he believes that Tupac was simply killed in retaliation for the casino fight, and Suge Knight whom he says he no longer talks to, was not involved.</s>WRIGHT: I know that he 100 percent had nothing to do with the murder of Tupac Shakur.</s>ROWLANDS (on camera): Suge?</s>WRIGHT: Suge Knight. Biggie Smalls, I honestly do not know.</s>ROWLANDS: Both the Los Angeles and Las Vegas Police Departments say the investigations into the shootings of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls are ongoing. Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>COOPER: Earlier, I spoke with "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh about how two icons in the music industry could be murdered in plain sight and we still don't really know what happened.</s>COOPER: With the killing of Tupac Shakur and also Notorious BIG, there are clearly people out there who witnessed this, who witnessed both of these killings, and yet have not come forward, have not said anything.</s>JOHN WALSH, HOST, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": You know what bothers me is this B.S. thing, the stop snitching, where some of these rappers say, you know, "Don't tell, don't cooperate with police. We'll retaliate." I remember going to Boston and doing a case where there was a gang banger in jail, and his defense attorney got the witness list. And he had one of the witnesses killed in South Boston from jail, so they couldn't testify against him. Then came the "stop snitching" T- shirts and all this crap. It could be your neighbor. It could -- I don't care where you live. Yes, if you're afraid of retaliation, but if you witnessed a murder or you know something about it, then do the right thing. You can remain anonymous. You can be protected. God forbid it's your brother that's the next victim or your father or your cousin or your daughter or your wife. They know exactly. People know exactly who killed Biggie. Tupac was shot right after Mike Tyson fight on tape.</s>COOPER: On a busy street in Vegas.</s>WALSH: I mean, it's a very high-profile case.</s>COOPER: Just think, there were people. I mean, in Tupac's -- Tupac Shakur's case, there were people sitting right next to him. And, you know, in Biggie Smalls' case, there were people who witnessed this.</s>WALSH: Yes.</s>COOPER: And these are people who claimed to be his friends. They were people who, you know, made money off him, made money from him, and yet refused to say anything, because they're afraid -- maybe they're afraid for their own life. But I don't even give them that much credit. They're just afraid of being seen as being a snitch, which is just absurd.</s>WALSH: It takes a lot of courage to do the right thing. Being a snitch is easy. Then you're a coward. Then you're an accessory to the murder; you're an accessory to the crime. You're just a coward. You're a chicken. But it takes a lot of guts to say, "I know who did that. This is the person. This is what happened." You can remain anonymous. I understand -- I understand the fear. Yes, there's retaliation. I don't understand this fake gangster attitude. You know, I've been on the streets. Most of the people in those areas where these gangsters operate, they're terrified. They're good people. They're trapped there by poverty. They would do the right thing.</s>COOPER: It used to be the definition of a snitch was somebody who gave -- gave up information about one of their cohorts in crime in order to get a lesser sentence. Now the definition has expanded to anybody who talks to police. And that's just -- that's unacceptable because society cannot function unless people report what they see and are good citizens.</s>WALSH: "America's Most Wanted" is the testimony to good people doing the right thing. We've caught 1,200 guys out there. I believe you save lives. If you know who slit the throat of a little girl 20 years ago, ten years ago, a week ago, you could save the life of the next girl by having the guts to say, "I think it is my creepy cousin," or "I think I know who that is." Think about that.</s>COOPER: Do you have any insights? I mean, you've done Tupac Shakur's killing. Do you have any insights on who killed them? Or why?</s>WALSH: You know, all this East/West rivalry between the different hip-hop factions and the gangster thug stuff, I really believe that maybe people that were with Tupac or people that were with Biggie didn't see who the shooter was, didn't see who drove by and did the shootings, didn't see who shot Tupac, but somebody knows. Somebody helped orchestrate that B.S. gangster crap, and they've literally gotten away with murder. I do believe that somebody is going to man up at some point in their life and say, "This isn't right." Biggie had friends, relatives. He had a mother, people that loved him. Tupac had lots of people. He has surviving children. They need justice. And you're just a coward if you don't man up and say, "I think I know who did it. This is who it is. This is what happened. I don't want to leave my name. Get you back on track. You can break this case."</s>COOPER: Tomorrow we continue the series the most notorious cold cases, revisiting the JonBenet Ramsey case, the murder of a 6-year-old girl on Christmas 14 years ago. Took over the headlines. Even though the case is cold, the story is not. Just a few months ago, there were new reports about police contacting JonBenet's older brother. We're reopening the cold case on JonBenet Ramsey tomorrow on 360. Up next tonight, first it was birds falling from the sky, now 2 million fish wash up on a shore in Maryland. What caused this latest mass kill? Details on that ahead. Plus, see what happened today that interrupted the reading of the Constitution that also made it to tonight's "RidicuList."