The Toyota Tercel, investigators now say, had been given to Dow's girlfriend by a Berkeley activist, a woman who once was her teacher. I told him we expected retribution, Babcock says. The prosecutor also said that the death would be painless, which defense for Antwine argued was untrue and manipulative to the jury. Get Right 9. He said that Davila had approached him for help writing a letter to detectives. Dres crew was determined to find out. Sleep Dank, a Vallejo rapper and friend of Mac Dres, was born and raised in the Country Club Crest. July 5 Rapper #4. He served nine months in jail before the charges were dismissed, with prosecutors complaining that the witnesses refused to cooperate. "The tragedy of the whole thing is that, assuming (the woman killed in Fairfield) was killed as retribution for being a witness, that's three people dead over a financial matter over an amount of money that wouldn't pay for a weekend in Vegas," said Babcock, who would not elaborate on the alleged dispute except to say that Watkins was not a suspect in Hicks' death. The car even bore a "Bush Lost" bumper sticker. The record store owner told detectives that fans were getting antsy and it all felt very unorganized. Whitmill bet his own money on the success of this concert and worked to lower costs by hiring members of his own family to collect tickets and provide security. Dr. Dre's oldest daughter, LaTanya Young, started a GoFundMe page to raise money for housing for her and her four kids.. Young launched the fundraiser on August 9, according to the GoFundMe page. Mac Dre was dead when they got there from a bullet wound in the back of his neck. | Susan Tripp Pollard/MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images, By clicking Subscribe you confirm you have read and agree to our. Taylor wasnt surprised to be speaking with detectives, having seen the black Infiniti on the news during reports of Mac Dres murder. He fathered a daughter named Drane. His body was found May 23 in an unfinished housing development in Las Vegas. Laursen was pronounced dead at the scene from a head wound. Aside from a black Cadillac Escalade, Davila also owned a white van that he used for odd jobs around Kansas City. I tell you, at the time, I would have put my hand on the Bible and been like, Nah, Dre had nothing to do with that. He was just somebody who was down with the neighborhood, and that neighborhood was getting profiled, and hes standing up for it. Dre was reportedly offered a deal to snitch, but he refused, telling the prosecutors to go fuck themselves. He was 34. His problems were behind him when he was killed, Salvatto said, and he talked about mentoring teenagers to keep them flying straight. 1,282 Followers, 1,212 Following, 371 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Annie Steinberg (@macdreismydad) 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. He symbolized hope for a lot of people who came from the same poverty stricken areas as he did. The tipster had tried to reach Kansas City police, but couldnt get through. Crestside 12. Mac Dre was one of the first rappers unfairly targeted and prosecuted for crimes they never committed. ovldacch prvkov ochrany osobnch dajov, Informcie o vaom zariaden a internetovom pripojen, naprklad vaa IP adresa, Aktivity prehadvania a vyhadvania poas pouvania webovch strnok a aplikci Yahoo. Coolio remembers several interactions with the police: They used to come through sweatin us. A family member of the victim had tried calling KCPD with information, but Washington says that he was shrugged off. I dont want to implicate myself in something thats not true, Davila says. By 2004, Kansas City and The Bay Area shared a mutual affection towards each others burgeoning hip-hop scenes, acting as the conduit to California for fledgling midwest rappers looking to gain access to a portion of the rap community previously unavailable to them. The informant said hed never heard Antwine say it himself but that hed heard his friends, including a man named Taron T-Baby Smith, talking about it. What happened here had been loud and violent. 589 Followers, 879 Following, 79 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Andrea Hicks (@its_drea_duhh) He was born in Oakland, California, on July 5, 1970. He even went so far as to tell detectives that he witnessed the shooting himself and then went home, turned off his phone and went to bed. We may never know. Hes a self-described hip-hop head and his lifestyle in the early 2000s closely mirrored the crime-fueled stories present in the genres most popular music. Antwine pled guilty to murder and was sentenced to death. He said no, and then they both left. Know Your City! "For a while up, for I'd say up to about. He doesnt recall hearing from Whitmill again. He was the first person to show my neighborhood that we dont have to sell crack anymore. She thought he'd take care of her. While Mac Dre made his way through the city with Piersey, performing and appearing at different scheduled events, it was Whitmill who was responsible for making sure he got paid and that everything went according to plan. Davila is hispanic, with brown eyes and black hair. He collaborated with E-40 on the song "Dredio." Mac Dre Popularity . He left prison with a new lease on life, founded an . And now, as I travel throughout the world, I see people recognize him for the flavor that he brought to hip-hop. 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. Dre kept a smile on his face, but the minute that smile was gone, you know he would be in your ear. [3], On November 1, 2004, Hicks was killed by an unknown assailant after a performance in Kansas City, Missouri,[4] a case that remains unsolved. That was always the big payoff moment for me as a detective, he says. Hicks, who grew up in Vallejo's hardscrabble Country Club Crest neighborhood, first gained radio airplay as a teenager with a song titled, ironically, "2 Hard 4 the (expletive) Radio." According to authorities, just minutes later, at around 3:30 am (which would now be November 1), while Dres van was heading northbound on U.S. 71 Highway (now known as I-49), a stolen Infinity G36 pulled along the drivers side of the van and unloaded shots into it from an assault rifle. In the years after Mac Dres murder, Detective Babcock began to hear rumors that Damon Whitmill, the promoter who paid to fly Mac Dre to Kansas City, might have also paid to have him murdered. Davila wanted to leave out that last part for fear of incriminating himself, according to the informant. He was found near Watkins' body. Fat Tone was a large figure, literally and figuratively. Andre Dowknown as Mac Ministerwas convicted at trial in 2008 on two counts of first-degree murder in the shootings of Kansas City rapper Anthony Fat Tone Watkins and his friend Jermaine Cowboy Aikens. In exchange for his testimony, he was let out a few weeks after Mr. Dows trial, said Gray, managing attorney of a San Francisco DA unit that investigates police shootings and other use-of-force incidents, called the Independent Investigations Bureau. In 2004, he gave a tip to KCPD that helped solve the killing of four-year-old Erica Green, known to the world as Precious Doe.. VALLEJO It's been eight years since her rapper son Mac Dre was shot to death leaving a Kansas City club, and Wanda Salvatto said Wednesday she is still searching for peace. Be sure to follow Mike and The Cell Block on social media at @mikeenemigo and @thecellblockoffocial. 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. This was a pure fabrication.. The violent story, pieced together through interviews and court records, reflects the blurry line between rumor and reality in the world of underground rap. Detective Babcock met with Antwine numerous times in the years after the murder and he repeatedly denied having any involvement. At the time of the killing, San Francisco promoter Andre "Mac Minister" Dow, his friend Jason Mathis and call girl Lee Danae Laursen were in Las Vegas, according to police. "She was completely snowed by Mathis. On Friday, October 29, 2004, Dre and several other Bay Area rappers performed a show in Kansas City, Kansas. I couldnt do it. It seems such an unceremonious way to go for a larger-than-life personality like Mac Dre. He told Detective Babcock in 2004 that he spoke with Mac Dre while in a limousine in front of the club. 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. 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. Hes a large, personable man with graying hair and has been with the department since 1995. However, in a brief phone interview from January 25, 2021, Detective Babcock said that the media department within the KCPD wouldnt approve detectives to speak publicly about the case. He made the men drop everything and then told them to leave. He was once charged with the murder of 17-year-old Shameka Posey and her unborn child, but he was released 9 months later after charges were dropped due to uncooperating witnesses. [10] Vallejo police began focusing on the Crest Neighborhood as a source of the crime. When speaking with detectives in the weeks after the murder, DJ Fresh, who was the soundman and DJ that night, remembered Fat Tone briefly hopping on stage after being invited up by Mac Dre. Star Wars fans, rejoice! After that night, the black Infiniti was gone. Along with his other admissions, Mouton wrote in a sworn declaration that hes actually from Hunters Pointa district on the other side of San Francisco. She'd been shot in the head two days after Dow and Mathis were indicted, authorities said. 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. In 2016, Drake even brought out Mac Dres mother, Mac Wanda, at a sold-out show he did at the Oakland Arena in 2016 for his Summer Sixteen Tour. Whitmill used his own money to fund the October 29 show at the Armory, shelling out the $6,000 deposit before plane tickets were even bought. 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. I never discussed anything with anybody at Leavenworth. If Dre was alive Id be in a big ass house right now.. Mac Minister was a suspect in the murder of a call girl from Utah named Lee Danae Laurson. He wears a pair of glasses in most photos and his muscular physique reflects the time spent weight lifting during his period of incarceration. [9], The city of Vallejo began experiencing a surge in bank robberies in the early 90s. Kansas City police Detective Everett Babcock, who cleared Watkins in Hicks' death, feared that rumors following the shooting might turn deadly. This turned out to be a good thing for Dre, as his audience began growing, and mainstream radio began giving him more airtime. Davila wanted to give detectives info about the murder without implicating himself. Kansas City Detective Everett Babcock arrived to the scene of a murder on the morning after Halloween in 2004. One of the largest contributors to this was his use of the word thizz and his embracement of the drug in his music, where he began rapping about it as common as most rappers rap about smoking blunts. Calvary Baptist Church. So much so that Babcock summonsed Tone to Kansas City police headquarters for an interview. Refused bail, Dre sat in the Fresno county jail for a year awaiting trial. But its no wonder why the police didnt find the car. Dre is the king of The Bay.. This overrepresentation of Black victims and suspects makes the white officers look like heroes. It seems as if Dre was a pawn for the feds to try and get a witness against the actual robbers, who Dre was affiliated with, but when he refused to snitch, he went down with them. Fat Tone did little to quell the rumors of his menace. By 2004, Mac Dre was a god in The Bay and respected nationwide. After talking with the detectives I went back to my cell and laid down. People were interviewed at the scene, including a pair of women who came upon the accident, before heading to a nearby gas station to call it in. His Las Vegas attorney, Keith Brower, was not available for comment. I remember everything about that case, Detective Babcock says. Associated With. It didnt take long for the streets to start talking, and they were saying a notorious Kansas City gangsta was behind the murder of the Bay boss: Fat Tone. O tom, ako pouvame vae informcie, sa dozviete viac v naich zsadch ochrany osobnch dajov a zsadch pouvania sborov cookie. In his first interview with detectives taken the day after the murder, Whitmill states that he lost money. Salvatto said she had never even heard of Dow or Mathis. Already an emerging drug on the streets, Dre popularized the word and experience, transforming the flavor of Bay Area hip hop from hard and gangsta, to more fun, wild and carefree. When Mac Dres friends saw the news crew, they called it off, according to documents provided by the FBI. This isnt how youd expect someone to act after witnessing their own van being shot up with a friend and family member inside. 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. He used Mac Dres name to get a little more street cred for his career. Police in Cass County had received multiple tips that a small-time criminal named Elijah Taylor had been seen driving the car in the months leading up to the murder. In Portland, Seattle, Las Vegas, and all throughout California, Mac Dre had garnered a similar following, earning cult-like status in local hip-hop communities across the West Coast and beyond. Taylor was interviewed by Detective Babcock nearly a year later at the Wyandotte County Jail, where he was being held on theft and robbery charges and outstanding warrants. 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