Matt Johnson
Miss. Iverson
Freshman Course (G)
10/19/10
Introduction
For the iSearch paper I chose the question: Who killed Christopher Wallace aka “Biggie
Smalls”. I knew some things about Biggie Smalls before I started to research him. I knew that he was a famed rap star and was born in Brooklyn, New York. I also knew that he worked in the music business with Sean John, aka “P. Diddy,” and Junior M.A.F.I.A. I chose to research this question because I am a big rap fan and I am interested in the case because this is the third big rap star that has gotten killed and nobody knows who pulled the trigger. It really gets to me that this is one of many cases that hasn’t been solved. I think Biggie Smalls death was a shame; it really hurts to know that someone with such great talent got his life taken away and nobody knows who is responsible. Especially his loved ones, the people who lived with him, and the people who grew up with him. I really want to find an answer, so any information about this case that I don’t already know will be great. I have listened to Biggie Smalls music for a long time now and I really like his music and just wanted to know a little more about him and by doing this research project, I will hopefully learn more about him and his murder case.
Getting Started
I started my search by typing in the simple question, who killed Biggie Smalls? After I clicked on salon.com, I then learned that this whole situation was more complicated then I

thought. I know that this was mostly about corrupt cops in the LAPD Rampart Division. There was another theory on salon.com and it was that Death Row Records had something to do with the murder of Biggie Smalls. The website informed me that Tupac, who was part of Death Row
Records, had been killed because of Biggie Smalls, but according to Smalls, that was not the case.
I then went to Wikipedia and searched “Biggie Smalls” and got a little more background information on him like, he was born on May 21, 1972. Biggie Smalls was murdered on March
9, 1997. I also learned that he started rapping when he was a teenager entertaining people on the streets. My next lead into the investigation was when I tried to reach an LAPD officer by going to their website which is lapdonline.org. I then learned that the three officers that I wanted to question for my interview have retired or have been reassigned, because this case is 13 years old.
So I am going to do the next best thing, and that is to ask my questions to the LAPD office.
Hopefully they answer all my questions realistically and seriously. I don’t want them just to think I’m a little kid and I am not important. After I sent the e-mail to the Rampart Division hoping to get a response, I then searched, “Who killed Biggie Smalls” on answers.com. I already knew the information on that page. It was basically saying that Death Row Records might have been involved with the shooting. Another part of the website speculated it Biggie Smalls’ murder might have been payback from Tupac’s death. This website and the information on it reassured me that the other websites that I had visited are reliable.
The two other rap legends that have been killed and their cases have not been solved are
Tupac Shakur and Jam Master Jay. Just like the Christopher Wallace case there are more questions then answers. And their murders remain unsolved. Six months after the death of the
Dj/Producer nobody can find an answer and nobody knows who would want to take one of the

most well-liked man in hip-hop. As far as Tupac’s case goes it as far as the other two cases.
Tupa’s murder was just like Biggie Smalls murder. The two killers creeped up to his car and shot and killed them, also there were many witnesses yet no killer or killers have been charged.
In the course of my research I have tried to contact some sources. For example, I have tried to reach the LAPD to ask them some questions about my topic. When I sent the e-mail I thought that they might not answer but surprisingly they did respond. But, it was not the response
I hoped for. It said in a courteous way that we don’t give information to anybody who is doing research on that subject. After that disappointing e-mail that I received, I then tried to reach another source and that was “P. Diddy’s “ e-mail address. I have not received a response but I hope to because P. Diddy might have some valuable information that will help me to find who the killer is or who was associated into the crime. I found the e-mail from answers.com and someone asked the same question that I did and it was, what is P. Diddy’s email address. I saw the e mail and right away I e mailed him. I am so desperate for any information, so I sent the email to supposedly P. Diddy’s email which is SWAGGER@badoyworldwide. Since the LAPD got back to me with no information, I really needed some information from P. Diddy.
Unfortunately I have not heard from P. Diddy.
Interview Source
Based on my research I cannot come up with an answer. There are so many questions that are unanswered. For example, did any witnesses say anything about the murder? Also, who was the first on the scene? These are two out of the six questions I asked to the LAPD office. Sadly, they didn’t respond to me for safety reasons.

However, there are some questions I had that I actually answered. One question was:
How was Christopher Wallace killed? I answered it based on the information from salon.com and from the knowledge from Biggie Small’s movie: Notorious B.I.G. I learned that was killed by a shooter that was in a dark Chevy Impala that pulled up alongside Biggie's ride. The driver, a black male in a suit and bow tie, rolled down his window and fired seven shots from a blue steel
9mm semi-automatic into Biggie’s car, a green SUV's, the bullets went through the front passenger door. Four of the bullets hit their mark. Biggie, 24, was pronounced dead less than an hour later, shortly after he arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
This was all after leaving a star-studded Vibe magazine party after the Soul Train Music
Awards. One other question I had about Biggie Smalls was: Where was he killed? I found the answer to that, and it was in Los Angeles, California at a traffic light after leaving a star-studded
Vibe Magazine party after the Soul Train Music Awards.
Sadly, some of the questions I set out to ask didn’t get answered because nobody responded to me except for the LAPD. Its really frustrating to not get anybody respond back to you because I am doing so much my research on this question and nobody that has some information about the subject cant take the time to respond back to me.
Searchings and Findings
When I searched Biggie Smalls death there was one website that jumped out at me, that had a lot of information. That website was salon.com, it had a full page of information about Biggie
Smalls and his death. This was probobaly the most helpful and most factual website that I ran into when doing this research. One main point in this article was how the LAPD cops were

corrupt and that’s why Biggie Smalls case has been remained unsolved. Chief Bernard Parks suppressed a report he had written on corrupt cops at the Rampart Division a full year before the scandal erupted. Rafael Perez an officer in the Rampart Division confessed that Chief Parks had suppressed the report about dirty cops. That whole situation hampered with Dec. Russell
Pooles investigation with Biggie Smalls which was said in his lawsuit. A former girlfriend of
Rafael Perez said that she saw Perez and fellow officer David Mack kill two people in the mid-
1990s when a cocaine deal went bad. Sonia Flores, 23, made the allegations in an interview with the Los Angeles Times; last week she traveled to Mexico with an assistant U.S. attorney and FBI agents to show them a dump in Tijuana where she said the pair disposed of the bodies.
This is the reason why Biggie Smalls case has never been solved. Most of the officers in the
Rampart Division are corrupt like David Mack and Rafael Perez.
This really opened my eyes to how hard it is to be a cop because all the power you have could be used in a good or bad. Just like in the movie “Training Day”. Denzel Washington played Rafael Perez and corrupt cop, and Ethan Hawke was Dec. Russell Poole he was the good guy that just wanted to be a cop and fulfill his duties. After reading this part of the article I was interested in what in what the LAPD Rampart Division might have to say, and to my questions I had. Because I was so intrigued by this article I then went on my e-mail and e-mailed LAPD online, and asked them the six questions about the Biggie Smalls case.
Another theory is that Mack's apparent ties to Suge Knight were part of the puzzle.
Many of Biggie's associates believed the rapper was killed on orders from Knight, as retaliation for the September 1996 killing of Death Row's star rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. Knight

was also wounded in that shooting, which remains unsolved. Knight had been engaged in a long-running feud with New York rap mogul Puffy Combs. More than a dozen gangsters had died in this feud, including three of Knight's "executives," his bodyguard Jake "The Violator"
Robles as well as, it was widely believed, Tupac. Once I heard Tupacs name I then searched him and his murder case just to get a little more background information on him. This theory that
Biggie Smalls death was retaliation really shocked me because they had songs together and I thought they liked each other. Another question that I asked myself was: Did Biggie Smalls really kill Tupac and Biggie Smalls death was really a retaliation? Because Tupacs case was never solved either so it may be true. I kept on hearing P. Diddys name in the back of my mind because I already knew that P. diddy was involved with Biggie Smalls through music. So that led me onto my next lead and that was to Answers.com and I asked the question: What is P. Diddys e-mail address. I the got the answer to my question. His suppoively e-mail address was
SWAGGER@badoyworldwide . I then asked the same questions that I asked the LAPD via email. I have not gotten a response from him yet, but hopefully I will.
These two theories are the only valid theories there is. These theories actually go into depth rather then a random idea with no proof or information to back it up. My opinion on the question is that it is a mixture between both theories that I have mentioned already. I believe that the LAPD cops are corrupt and that Biggie Smalls death was caused by a rap feud between
Tupac and Biggie Smalls. There is no doubt if I was Dec. Russell Poole, Biggie Smalls murder investigato, that it would be hard to try and solve a case when you have corrupt co-workers on your team. I believe that Biggie Smalls was killed as a retaliation of Tupacs death because the east and west rappers did not like each other at this time so it is very possible that he was killed

because of a feud. There are even songs to each other that describe the hatred between them.
Tupac’s song to Biggie Smalls was: “Hit em Up” and Biggie Smalls song to Tupac was: “Who Shot
Ya?” “Who Shot Y?” , refers back to the idea of Biggie Smalls trying to kill Tupac. So, Biggie
Smalls in the song is saying I didn’t shoot you, I don’t know what you are talking about, we used to be friends. Tupac’s song was saying how much he didn’t like Biggie anymore because he thought that Biggie tried to kill him. Which makes it even worse is that Suge Knight who was a member of Death Row Records at the time was in a dispute with P. Diddy which was Biggie
Smalls label and head member of his crew. And the same went for Suge Knight, he was Tupac’s main guy. Now this is two fights in the same group and since Tupac was the first to die, I guess
Biggie Smalls was next and maybe it wasn’t even for the right reason it was probably for revenge.