Less than a month after a US inmate admitted robbing Tupac Shakur in 1994, another prisoner has come forward to claim he knows who killed Notorious BIG. Clayton Hill, currently serving a sentence for tax fraud and identity theft, says that in 1997 he helped dispose of the handgun used to shoot the rapper, receiving it from a man using the name Dawoud Muhammad.
"[Dawoud Muhammad] stated to me that he was on the run for the murder [of Notorious BIG]," Hill wrote in a recent email to the website HipHopDX. "He disclosed that he was the shooter ... because he [Muhammad] was a former Blood gang member and was paid to do so." Muhammad allegedly claimed he "made twenty-five Gs", or $25,000, from the killing.
At the time of the shooting of Notorious BIG, real name Christopher Wallace, both Hill and Muhammad were members of African-American rights group Nation of Islam. Hill said that Nation of Islam officials instructed him to pick up Muhammad at the Atlanta bus station, where he was arriving from Los Angeles. "I told [Muhammad] I had instructions to collect some property from him," Hill claims. "He didn't hesitate or show any signs of doubt as he bent over and removed a [bin] liner out of a waste can and handed it to me to hold open. He reached into the duffel bag he brought with him and pulled out a semi-automatic hand gun that could have been a .9 millimeter or a .40 calibre wrapped in a white undershirt. Carefully he placed it into the trash bag making sure his hands never touched any of the exposed parts of the gun." Hill then delivered this weapon to Emile Muhammad, the personal driver of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who was to convey it elsewhere. "Somebody in Chicago wanted that weapon," Hill explained. "[But] I doubt if Minister Farrakhan knew anything."
Notorious BIG was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on 9 March 1997. As with the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, Biggie's west coast rival, the case has never been solved. According to Hill, the man he knew as Dawoud Muhammad "looks like" Amir Muhammad, a Nation of Islam member who Notorious BIG's family once accused of being the gunman – though he could not say for certain they were the same person. Muhammad was reportedly cleared of suspicion by the LA police and FBI.
While Hill is still serving time for a 2006 tax scam, he is preparing to publish an ebook detailing his life as a Nation of Islam member. He also reportedly met with US government and FBI officials in October 2010, disclosing his memories of the events of 1997. This information, he claims, is responsible for what the LAPD recently referred to as a "reinvigorated" murder investigation.
In June, a prisoner named Dexter Isaac came forward with allegations that hip-hop manager Jimmy Rosemond had masterminded the non-fatal 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur . Rosemond has since been arrested by the US drug enforcement agency, who are holding him on unrelated cocaine trafficking charges. Rosemond's attorney has denied Isaac's allegations.
