Mohave 13. J-Diggs was one of Dres closest friends. The Mandalorian, March 1. They claim Dre was the ringleader and used his lyrics in court to help support their case. All Rights Reserved. In 2004, Mac Dre was murdered in Kansas City. His name always came up," Babcock said. "Mac Dre"s been dead for eight years, but he has a mother left, nieces left, a daughter," she said. The 26-year-old friend of Dow also was charged in the deaths of Watkins and Akins. So listening to that, it kind of opened up my eyes that maybe I do need to do this. Mac Dre then said that he didnt feel safe and was about to leave. He then ran upstairs and told Mac Dres friends what happened. Mac Dre was dead when they got there from a bullet wound in the back of his neck. Macnificent 15. The KCPD then, for some reason, locked both men in the same holding cell. Dre got jumped into The Crest. All I know is that I thought they should have been able to go get that gun., Hed found success solving Kansas City cold cases in the past. Gray said Mouton was a federal informant who faced up to 40 years in prison at the time of his testimony in a trafficking case involving a minor. Young shared that as a result of this she is forced to live in her car . According to Las Vegas police Detective Todd Hendrix, Watkins told his mother and girlfriend that Dow had promised him a meeting with Snoop Dogg. And I delivered it to the police. Mac Dre told Davila he was annoyed because the event wasnt organized and because there were other local rappers performing. On November 4, just two days after Minister and Corleone were indicted, Fairfield police responded to reports of gunfire in a quiet neighborhood. Typical fed tactics. Dow, 35, and Mathis, 26, were indicted Nov. 2 on two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Watkins and Akins. 60. r/CaliBanging. He wanted more from me. According to the Daily Mail, she has been living out of her car and working as a delivery driver for DoorDash and Uber Eats. Thats a tip I took from him.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'passionweiss_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_0',157,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-passionweiss_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0'); Even if its a controversial statement outside of the Bay Area, Mac Dre belongs on top five greatest MC lists. Rappers. Nobody touched the Bay Area like Mac Dre touched the Bay Area, and I dont think nobody will. During the interview, they begged her to cooperate, even promising to help her get her life back on track, but she refused. Despite serving a five-year prison sentence for conspiracy to commit bank robbery, Hicks was no thug, his mother said. One of those informants was Gary Patterson, who told Detective Babcock that he became friends with Davila while they were housed together in 2007. This is a carousel. The event he had planned went poorly and he hoped this would make up for it. What happened here had been loud and violent. Dow remains on the lam, sought on a no-bail warrant issued after the indictment, and may be featured soon on TV's "America's Most Wanted." There, Laursen was seen in a gun shop nine days before the killing, where she bought ammunition similar to that used to kill Watkins and Akins, according to grand jury testimony. That was always the big payoff moment for me as a detective, he says. This was several years before he would appear on Americas Most Wanted, American Gangster and a show on the Investigation Discovery channel about women who may have killed their husbands. By 1992, Mac Dre had recorded a number of EPs and began his first independent label, Romper Room Records. Laursens murder remains unsolved. Its all tangled up, Mr. Stinky says. I just couldnt be responsible for putting another man behind bars. By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to The Cell BlocksPrivacy PolicyandTerms of Use. Along with dozens of bullet holes, police also found that the drivers side of the van had been rammed by the other vehicle during the shooting. Hes been shouted out at least twice by hip-hop superstar Drake;My city loves me like Mac Dre in The Bay, and Shoutout to Mac Dre in The Bay. Rap superstar Rick Ross has shouted him out as well; Rest in peace Mac Dre, throwing up Thizz. Mac Dres impact on hip-hop culture has been undeniable as fans celebrate him around the world, still to this day. This is an excerpt from a court opinion published in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit describing what happened next: Five or ten minutes later, an officer heard some yelling and looked into the holding cell to find George lying face down on the floor, bleeding from the nose and mouth, and Antwine sitting on a bench a few feet away. A totaled, white Dodge Legacy van was found on an embankment below Highway 71. They also learned that the blue Tercel Tone was found in had been given to Ministers 28-year-old girlfriend by a Berkeley activist, and they found footage of Laursen buying ammo in a gun shop for the gun Corleone was known to carry on May 14 about a week prior to the murders. Detectives eventually counted 30 bullet holes on the drivers side of the van, with copper bullets still lodged in two of the holes. In 1989, the outgoing Hicks made waves with a cassette tape featuring the single, "Too Hard for the F---in' Radio" while still a student at Vallejo's Hogan High School. His body was found May 23 in an unfinished housing development in Las Vegas. The father told police that he rescued his daughter once, in the month before the killing, but that she voluntarily returned to Las Vegas. We pleaded with her to get out of there so she wouldn't be harmed.". Witnesses say they saw Fat Tone arguing with Mac Dre over stage time at the National Guard Armory show on October 29. "Every shooting that happened (in Kansas City), you would get calls saying, 'Fat Tone did it, Fat Tone did it.' learn more about mike and his books at thecellblock,net, where you can also follow his blog, the official blog of the cell block. Responding officers found shell casings for two separate weapons, multiple 7.62X39 Wolf shell casings, as well as two .45 Caliber spent shell casings. He went through a lot.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'passionweiss_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_3',156,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-passionweiss_com-large-mobile-banner-2-0'); Mac Dres name pays homage to another one of Vallejos musical legends, Michael The Mac Robinson, who was only able to release two EPs under Strictly Business Records, before being shot to death in 1991. The KCPD have never arrested or charged anybody with the murder and the high profile nature of the killing has continued to generate rumors and theories among hip-hop fans and true crime aficionados. In January 2021, DJ Fresh said he doesnt remember Whitmill at all and that he normally doesnt remember people if he only worked with them one time. He died on Halloween night and I was throwing a Halloween party the night before and what makes it even crazier is that Fat Tone shows up to my party and gets into a fight with someone later that night. Subscribe to the newsletter to get the latest updates! I finally got to the point where I could look at it from that point of view, she says. The San Francisco Standard. Anyone with. Authorities linked the killings to the fatal shooting of Andre Mac Dre Hicks after a show in Kansas City a year earlier. For a long time I was not proud of it, but I am now and I think that conversation started with Drake, and with other up-and-coming entertainers like the Jabbawockeez. To be fair, there are pieces of Davilas story that dont quite add up. He tells Detective Babcock that every time something like this happens, he gets blamed and that he isnt worried because he knows he did nothing wrong. Bell told detectives hes not sure what to believe, considering that everyone said that they had something to do with the murder at some point. He said no, and then they both left. Davila said he asked Mac Dre if he needed anything else. Mathis "said he shot Watkins, then chased Akins into the street and shot him while he was on the ground pleading for his life," the warrant alleged. He didnt hear about the murder until the next morning. And things quickly began to unravel when Mac Dre arrived. Cancers. He was 34. Bay Area rapper Mac Dre began his career at 18 and quickly became an influential force in early west coast hip-hop. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The 22-year-old friend of Watkins was shot 13 times. The first real tip came the day after the murder, when Detective Babcock was contacted by the local media, who told them that a man had reached out with information about a car. They parked the car and took out masks, but as they did, a television news crew whod caught word about the heist on the police scanner arrived. The posthumous. When paramedics arrived, however, Dre was dead, reportedly from a gunshot wound to the neck. At the same time, police were looking for the culprits in a string of robberies that targeted Vallejo pizza shops. Its unclear if that ever happened. The registered owner: Lee Danae Laursen. When asked if it was frustrating being unable to shut a case after all the work hed done over more than a decade, Detective Babcock said this: I mean, you have the case files, he says. He was a member of the infamous 51st Street Crips, even allegedly earning a leadership position after a turf battle with a gang member and convicted killer Rashawn Long, a former 51st Street boss. According to agents, the gang was responsible for 13 robberies, netting around 1.5 million that they claimed was used to invest into Dres rap career. After witnessing the shooting, Davila said he turned off his phone, took the nearest exit, went home and went to sleep. This is unlikely and detectives know it. His San Francisco attorney, Eric Safire, says his client isn't capable of murder but admits that Dow is capable of basking in the negative publicity. Dre is the king of The Bay.. He wanted me to get into music.. In a February 2021 interview, the Kansas City rapper Mr. Stinky said that he threw a show at the Atlantic Star the night before Mac Dres murder, which only added to the confusion later on. But Davila spoke with more people than just jailhouse snitches and in 2008, he shared a version of events with Detective Babcock that could have solved this case more than a decade ago had he decided to follow through with his statement. Dows attorney said his client adamantly maintains his innocence., Were going to keep fighting it, DeMarco said, but I am hopeful that he will ultimately be vindicated., Michael Barba can be reached at [emailprotected]. Both Yukmouth and Keak Da Sneak left Kansas City the next day without being paid the full amount they were promised for performing. The complete story of how, why and who killed one of the greatest rappers of all time is laid out in more than 1,200 never before seen documents requested from the KCPD. The show at the Armory took place on a Friday. The tipster had tried to reach Kansas City police, but couldnt get through. He was released from Californias FCI Lompoc in August, 1996, and in the early 2000s he moved north to Sacramento to focus on music. Unlike Davila and Piersey, Whitmill was the only known person with a financial incentive to have Mac Dre show up on time and fulfill his responsibilities. of SF politics and culture. Unless Davila wanted the truth to be out without implicating himself. Mac Dre was big enough for that. During the past few months, Minister had befriended Fat Tone, who, by now, J-Diggs had publicly cleared in the murder of Mac Dre, promising to help him with his rap career by introducing him to various rappers and other VIPs in the rap game. A culture of distrust exists between the Black community in Kansas City and the majority white police force that has been tasked to protect them. Patterson told Detective Babcock that Davila was trying to leverage information he knew about the Mac Dre murder to make a deal for leniency in his upcoming drug conspiracy case. That cant be true, Davila says. The white van allegedly belonged to Savino Davila, a 27-year-old man who prosecutors say was at the head of a drug trafficking organization that brought more than 330 pounds of cocaine into Kansas between 2000 and 2006. He'd been shot about 20 times and was slumped over the front seats of a blue 1992 Toyota Tercel, according to grand jury testimony. They counted a total of 3 exit holes on the passenger side as well, with most of the windows getting broken in the process. There is a mural of Mac Dre in the Ivy Hill section of Oakland, California, the place where he was born on July 5, 1970. His father was murdered when he was just a kid. However, police still felt they had enough evidence to pull Mac Dre and friends over and charge the crew with conspiracy to commit bank robbery. He doesnt recall hearing from Whitmill again. The informant told Detective Babcock that Davila called Piersey, the driver of his van that was transporting Mac Dre, to find out their location for Whitmill, who then sent the shooters to attack the van, resulting in Mac Dres death. On that day, hed decided to hitch a ride to Fresno with two friends so he could meet up with a girl hed met while performing a show two weeks earlier. He was instrumental in the emergence of hyphy, a cultural movement in the Bay Area hip hop scene that emerged in the early 2000s. It took severalyears for Wanda Mac to deal with her sons passing and his status as a rising rapper who became more famous upon his death. Its beyond frustrating.. She'd been shot in the head two days after Dow and Mathis were indicted, authorities said. In December of 2011, nearly seven years after Mac Dres death, a number of music publications ran a story about a person claiming to have information about the still unsolved killing. Cowboy had been shot about 13 times by the same gun and laid a few feet from the car. Prosecutors charged Diggs and Curt with attempted bank robbery and Dre with conspiracy. They were told that theyd get the rest of the money wired to them later in the week. Seventeen people have been killed so far this year compared with 16 at this time last year, Deputy Police Chief Drennon Lindsey said. Booking records should have been disclosed in the trial, Dows attorney argues. Another informant from Leavenworth shared a similar story with Detective Babcock. Gary Edwin, who performs under the name DJ Fresh, was working as the sound man and DJ for the show that night. From here, what exactly happens is unknown, but roughly 80 minutes later, a security guard patrolling a housing development under construction about five blocks from the house Corleone was renting, found Fat Tone and Cowboy, dead. Hill would later ditch the Infiniti, telling Taylor that he sold it to a man named Papoose.. Airfare, hotels and food while Mac Dre and crew were in town also landed on Whitmill, who sent a contract and the first payment early in October. Dre was loving, Dre was funny, Dre was a comedian, man. Police said there had been 29 robberies in under eight months. After that night, the black Infiniti was gone. He stayed for only 30 minutes, according to Whitmill, before abruptly leaving without performing. The 35-year-old rap promoter was indicted Nov. 2 in Las Vegas on murder charges stemming from the deaths of Watkins and Akins. Mac Dre Is A Member Of . Here are the main Damu & Crips in Carson/Barson. The right side of the victims neck was up against a small tree.. Davila is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence in Texas at FCI Seagoville, for being at the helm of a drug trafficking conspiracy that brought more than 330 pounds of cocaine into Kansas City between 2000 and 2006. Antwine and a friend asked them if they wanted to go to a rap concert on the night Mac Dre was murdered, according to the anonymous tip. But I dont think he did it.. "For a while up, for I'd say up to about. At around 2:30 a.m, the white van was traveling northbound on Highway 71 just south of 75th street, when a dark sedan pulled along the drivers side of the van and unloaded upwards of 30 bullets from two seperate guns: an automatic rifle and a .45 pistol. Hes a Kansas City native and allegedly a small-time drug dealer, according to witnesses and informants who spoke with Detective Babcock in the months following Mac Dres death. Based on all my investigations, it seemed to suggest that the statement that Davila gave Detective Babcock was only partially true. 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