Since the arrest and indictment of Duane “Keffe D” Davis for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, people have speculated about whether the Los Angeles Police Department will be reinvigorated to pursue an investigation into the other great tragedy of that era in hip-hop — the 1997 murder of the Notorious B.I.G. But former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who was the lead detective of an interagency task force created in 2006 to investigate Biggie’s murder, tells Rolling Stone that he feels the murder was likely the result of a smaller conspiracy that would be much harder to prove and prosecute than the one that took Shakur’s life. “I don’t think it’s going to have any carry-over,” he says. “It’s a different set of circumstances and people.”
In Kading’s view, the key potential witnesses to Biggie’s murder include Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, who was in jail at the time on a probation violation and is currently serving a long sentence due to a 2015 hit-and-run; Wardell “Poochie” Fourse, Biggie’s alleged shooter, who died in 2003; and a woman known as Theresa Swann, who cooperated with the investigation but might not be a reliable witness on the stand. “Suge’s already doing essentially a life sentence,” Kading says. “And [Swann] actually did get immunity for her cooperation. So now you’ve got nothing left. If [Swann] is the only witness you have saying Suge Knight ordered Biggie’s hit, that ain’t going to last an hour in court. It’s unprosecutable.”
Hellbound and Down 