The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murders (28 page)

As the police began the arduous task of interviewing those who had been arrested, it was Anderson who let slip that he believed it was Marion Knight who was the target of the assassins, not
Shakur, information he claimed he had heard on the grapevine. Other than this the gang members denied all knowledge and involvement in either the Compton shootings or Shakur’s murder,
providing in-built alibis for each other. Meanwhile the investigation in Las Vegas was proving equally fruitless. No trace of the new Cadillac which had been seen leaving the scene could be found
and nothing had emerged from the many members of the public who had witnessed the incident. No one it would appear wanted to get involved, like the media claimed; this was gang business, not some
innocent member of the public who had been killed.

With the police unable to solicit help from either the public or the gang world their investigation essentially ground to a halt. Their enquiries had been unable to unearth any facts which would
assist in a conviction and all the while rumours and accusations gradually filtered through to the police and the press.

The world of television eventually turned its more positive focus on the case when the show
Unsolved Mysteries
aired details of the drive-by shooting in the hope of jogging people’s
memories. The producer of the show was surprised when the switchboard took more than 250 calls regarding the events from members of the public, many more than other similar incidents had generated.
For days following the programme’s transmission the show had been forwarding tip sheets to the Metro homicide unit, who said they were meticulously following each lead up. The show had
invited members of the Metro unit to join switchboard staff but unlike other times, they did not attend, a fact which was noted when members of Shakur’s family claimed the police were not
working as hard to solve their case as they might have been for someone from a good Las Vegas home. The show has a 28 per cent solve rate but in this instance many of the tips were from people
unwilling to give their identities; one lead which appeared to be quite hot was unable to be followed up effectively as the informant refused to provide contact details, presumably afraid of
reprisals. For a serious programme and one whose track record is helping to bring criminals to justice, it is perhaps surprising to hear that around 70 per cent of the callers claimed to believe
that Shakur was still alive and had simply gone to ground to avoid further violence.

It was apparent that the only people who could possibly assist in the investigation were members of Shakur’s entourage that night. One man the Metro police did want to question again was
Yafeu Fula, aged 19, and a member of Shakur’s backing group. He had been in the car directly behind Knight’s BMW when the attack took place and had been briefly interviewed after the
event, as all of the entourage had – his close proximity to the attack meant that it was almost impossible to conceive that he had not witnessed the entire proceedings. To the officers’
chagrin Fula returned to his home in New Jersey and remained elusive, communicating via Knight’s attorney. As the police were making progress to have Fula returned to Las Vegas for
questioning they were faced with another problem – Fula was found dead in the third-floor hallway of an apartment building, shot once in the back of the head. The New Jersey Police Department
were confident of an arrest almost immediately and within days arrested a 16-year-old boy whose name could not be revealed for legal reasons. Shortly after this a second youth turned himself in but
after prolonged questioning it could not be established if Fula’s murder had been connected to the Shakur investigation. Either way, the Las Vegas police had lost the one person who had
indicated in his first interview that he might be able to identify the murderer. The two youths were later charged with murder and weapons offences.

And so without the evidence needed to pursue the case, the police, like members of the media, were left to speculate over the question of who had murdered Shakur. Two main theories emerged, one
of which alleged that another big-time rap artist, Notorious B.I.G., real name Christopher Wallace, had planned the attack after the two had been involved in arguments. Once close friends the two
had since fallen out and had taken to insulting each other in public. Shakur had written lyrics in one of his songs which suggested he had slept with B.I.G.’s wife and that he wanted to kill
him. Nothing short of hatred now existed between the two. A
Los Angeles Times
article claimed that Biggie, as he was often referred to, had met with members of the Crips gang in Las Vegas
and offered them one million dollars to kill Shakur, even offering his own gun as part of the deal. When the story emerged friends and family of the star closed ranks to discredit the story and
provide alibis for the night Shakur was shot. Documentary evidence supported Biggie’s claim that he had been holed up in a New York recording studio during the day and had then returned home
with friends to watch the Tyson fight on pay per view.

Sadly Biggie suffered the same fate as Shakur just months later when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle as he was driving home. The star’s driver drove him to a nearby hospital where he was
pronounced dead from multiple 9mm bullet wounds. One of Biggie’s entourage in the car behind tried to pursue the shooter but was unable to keep up. Frustratingly the police were unable to
connect the killing of Shakur with that of Notorious B.I.G.

The second theory and the one given most prominence by the police and the media was that Orlando Anderson, one of the men picked up in the early morning raids in Compton, lay behind the attack.
He and fellow members of the Compton Crips gang had attacked and robbed one of Shakur’s bodyguard’s months earlier in Los Angeles. It was by chance that the bodyguard spotted Anderson
leaving the MGM Grand after the Tyson fight and pointed him out to Shakur who confronted Anderson with his group and extracted the revenge which was caught by the security cameras. It is known that
Anderson was then approached by MGM staff who tried to persuade him to press charges, something he refused to do. Shaken and bruised it is then thought that Anderson headed to the Excalibur Hotel
where he had a room booked with his girlfriend. News of Anderson’s beating spread through the gang underground and before he got to his hotel his phone and pager had started to ring with
messages from his Crips gang associates. He arranged to meet a group of them at the nearby Treasure Island Hotel which had served as Crips headquarters during many profile boxing matches. Here in a
marijuana smoke-filled room the gang members planned how they would extract their revenge, the most hotly disputed topic being who would get to pull the trigger. The gang initially planned to shoot
Shakur after his performance at Club 662, by placing armed snipers across the road from the club’s entrance. As it turned out they were unable to carry out the attack in this way and had to
revert to a back-up plan when Shakur and his entourage managed to get in cars and head away. A car containing Anderson and three associates followed the convoy down the road until they had the
opportunity to attack when halted at traffic lights, which resulted in Shakur’s eventual death.

The man the police thought most likely to be the culprit and the man Shakur’s mother filed a wrongful death suit against subsequently claimed to be one of Shakur’s biggest fans, a
claim others vehemently denied. Again though, just two years after Shakur’s death, Orlando Anderson went the same way, killed by a gunshot in the Compton district of Los Angeles.

Afeni Shakur has always claimed that the investigation carried out by Metro Police was less thorough than it might have been for any other citizen, a situation she bitterly despises. As she has
pointed out herself, when Ennis Cosby was shot, son of the television actor Bill Cosby, the press and the police searched high and low for the perpetrators, yet for Shakur, the bad man of gangster
rap, they ran a lacklustre investigation supported by a media machine intent upon presenting only the bad side of her son’s music and reputation.

Shakur was a complex individual and someone who is only now getting the recognition he deserved for his musical ability. His fifth and last album,
Makeveli
, went on sale after his death
and became an immediate number one selling success. Shops sold out in hours and even his previous albums enjoyed a second wind. Radio stations coast to coast were inundated with requests to play
Shakur’s music.

In a final twist, the video made by Shakur just a month before his death depicts the star being ushered into heaven following an ambulance ride in which he is seen riddled with bullet wounds. He
is met in heaven by the comedian Redd Foxx who is seen hosting a jam session with Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday – a case of life imitating art.

Anyone would be annoyed if they got a flat tyre, especially if it was dark and cold outside. So who would ever guess that what should have been just an inconvenient delay could
actually lead to murder. Yet this is exactly what happened to Ennis Cosby, son of the famous Hollywood television star, Bill Cosby, when he was driving towards a friend’s house one
evening.

As soon as Cosby realized that the car was in trouble he pulled over and walked around the side of it to see what the problem was. He soon found that he had a flat and that he would need to
change it before he would be able to continue. But before he could finish the job he was dead.

William H. Cosby Jr was born on 12 July 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young boy he enjoyed listening to comedians, including Fred Allen, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, George Burns and
Jimmy Durante. He left school after tenth grade to join the Navy where he stayed for four years as a medical corpsman, during which time he completed his High School education. By his twenties he
had already appeared in television and film shows and was proving to be extremely popular. During the 1960s he received six consecutive Grammys and in 1984 his situation comedy
The Cosby
Show
began, making him a household name, his character known to millions of fans as the loving dad of the house, Mr Cliff Huxtable. At its peak the show had in excess of 70 million viewers,
running from 1984 to 1992. Throughout this period of huge television success he was still a fantastically popular, witty comedian, using family life as the basis for his material.

Bill Cosby was enjoying a truly successful life. Happily married to his wife Camille Olivia Hanks, a direct descendant of Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s mother, they had four daughters,
Erika, Erinn, Ensa, and Evin, followed by one son, Ennis. This well-regarded Afro-American, famous as an actor, stand-up comedian, singer and author, wrote a wonderful book entitled
Fatherhood
, which became a number one best-seller, in which he recounts many amusing stories associated with becoming a parent, managing to persuade the reader that he thoroughly enjoys the
experience.

Sadly for the Cosby family, on 16 January 1997, the worst fears of any parents were realized when news reached them that their beloved son Ennis had been murdered, apparently while changing a
flat tyre at the roadside in Los Angeles.

As a child Ennis had struggled with dyslexia, but with great determination had fought to deal with the problem, confident that it would not hold him back. As an adult he had managed to cope with
his disorder and was planning to become a teacher of children with special educational needs, spending his free time helping children who were suffering with the disability he knew so much about.
He was studying at Columbia University for a Master’s in special education and would no doubt have gone on to inspire other youngsters with the disability to achieve all they could. It was
while enjoying a vacation in Los Angeles that Ennis Cosby was killed, the apparent victim of what was described as a roadside robbery.

Ennis had been driving his dark-green convertible Mercedes down the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles when he was forced to pull over due to a flat tyre. Realizing that he could not continue he decided
to phone a friend, Stephanie Crane, whose house was relatively close by. As it was too dark to change the tyre he was hoping that she might drive out and help. She arrived a short while afterwards,
parking her car a small distance behind his and using her headlights to provide the much-needed illumination. After a brief chat Ennis got down to the task of changing the tyre while Stephanie sat
in her own car to keep warm. She had only been there a short while when from nowhere, a white man appeared next to her door with a gun. The gunman threatened to shoot Crane if she did not get out
of the car, but spurred by a sudden rush of adrenalin, and taking advantage of the already idling car, she locked her door and accelarated away, leaving just the gunman and poor Ennis on that dark
and lonely road. Once Crane had put enough distance between herself and the gunman she bravely turned the car around and headed cautiously back to the scene, where to her relief she saw the man
running away. As she pulled in to the edge of the road again to check on her friend, she was met with a scene of pure horror – where only minutes before Ennis had been changing a tyre, he was
now sprawled out on the ground in a pool of blood.

Kneeling next to Ennis, Crane saw immediately that he needed help, his blood loss seemed huge and she was unable to see exactly where his wound was. Panicking, she managed to stop a motorist who
advised her that his condition did not look favourable. Rushing back to her car she then called the emergency services, quickly describing the situation, but by the time they arrived, 27-year-old
Ennis Cosby was already dead, the victim of a single gunshot wound to the head. Fame and fortune are simply no defence against a callous murderer, especially when you happen to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. And from this brief encounter on a dark Los Angeles road, Bill Cosby lost his only son.