With the release of an autopsy report in the shooting death of rapper Biggie Smalls, it begs the question: Will the murder of the rapper, born Christopher Wallace who recorded as Notorious B.I.G., ever be solved?
When I was researching my book The Murder of Biggie Smalls back in 1997 and ’98, I sat in the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office with a public information officer who read from – but not all – of Wallace's 23-page autopsy report. Back then, the case was still active and officials didn’t want to release too many details. So they parceled out information to me.
The East Coast rapper legend was shot four times in a car-to-car shooting on March 9, 1997 as Wallace left a party with friends at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. According to the long-sealed autopsy report officially released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Friday, December 7, Wallace suffered gunshot wounds to his chest, shoulder, leg, groin and forearm.
Three of the gunshots were not lethal. The fourth and fatal bullet entered Wallace's body through his right hip, hitting several vital organs. It eventually rested near the 24 year old’s left shoulder. That fatal bullet ruptured the 6-foot, 1-inch, 395-pound singer’s colon, liver, heart, and upper lobe of his left lung.
Two bullets with copper jackets were recovered from Wallace’s hospital gurney. An FBI report released in 2011 described the ammunition used to kill Wallace, just 24 years old, as Geco 9 mm, a “very rare” metal-piercing German ammunition.
A police artist’s sketch, based on witness accounts, shows a light-skinned African-American male in a bow tie as the person who, from the driver’s seat of a late-model Chevy SS Impala, fired into the passenger door of the GMC Suburban, hitting Biggie.
Wallace didn’t have a chance of surviving, but doctors tried nonetheless. At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where his entourage immediately drove Wallace, unsuccessful efforts were made to revive him. Wallace, the report also noted, was “morbidly obese.” The toxicology results detected no traces of alcohol or drugs in Wallace’s system.
Fifteen years after the murder, the LAPD is hoping the report's release, which they described as “an investigative strategy,” might prompt people to come forward with new information. “Obviously, this has been a challenging case for us to solve,” Capt. Billy Hayes, who heads the Robbery-Homicide Division, said in a statement. “We hope that witnesses or other people with information will come forward and give us the clues we need to solve this case.”
Asher Underwood hopes for the same. He's the founder of the popular Truth About Tupac site and has been following the case and updating fans about the murders of both Wallace and West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down in a similar shooting six months before Wallace. “I think both cases will be solved. I think we will find the answers eventually, or at least a majority of the answers,” Underwood said. “But, he added, “I don’t know if this will ever play out in a court of law.”