Ep. 169: MICHIGAN - The Most DANGEROUS Killer In Detroit: Nate Boone Craft (Pt. 2)
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Warning. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

In last week's episode, we discussed the childhood of Detroit's most notorious hitman, Nathaniel Boone Craft.

Boone had a traumatic, tough childhood, was working the streets selling drugs at 9 years old, and had committed his first murder and buried his first body before he was even 10. We explored the effect that a troubled childhood can have on a person, their self-perception, self-worth, and future actions, and the possible reasons why Boone may have been drawn to the murder-for-hire business. But nothing will prepare you for what you're about to hear.

In May of 2024, while visiting Detroit, Michigan, I sat down with Nate Boonecraft in the basement of our Airbnb to talk to him about his life, the over 30 murders that he claims he committed, his thoughts on the past and the future ahead of him. And the details that he shared with me about these murders and the conversations that we had were nothing short of disturbing, shocking, and revealing. So, this is part two of our interview with Detroit's most notorious killer,

I'm Colin Browen. I'm Courtney Browen. And you're listening to Murder in America.

Demetrius "Meach" Holloway was born on the east side of Detroit in 1958, and like Boone, he had been drawn to the streets at an early age. Although Meach tried to live a normal life as a young adult and worked as a postman, the streets always called his name, and remained an easy way to make a lot of money that was always in the back of his mind.

Interestingly, most of the gang members that entered the drug scene in the late 1970s and early 80s came from working class and middle class homes. But due to Detroit's economic demise, which we discussed in the last episode, the same opportunities that these kids' parents had grown up with were just no longer available. So many times individuals were forced to earn their money on the streets.

During the mid-1980s, crack cocaine was the people's drug of choice, and getting into the drug dealing business had the potential to earn someone millions of dollars. And so, one day, Meech decided to go all in on the drug business, and dived headfirst into the world of narcotics, money, and murder.

After starting up his drug peddling operation, Meech decided that he would run his illegal business out of the Chalk and Cube Pool Hall on Seven Mile in Detroit. And he recruited one of his best friends growing up, a man named Richard "Mazerati" Rick Carter, to pedal dope alongside him. And pretty soon, Mazerati Rick and Meech were running a multi-million dollar drug empire.

In a relatively short amount of time, Meech had grown his operation from buying kilos of cocaine from Detroit drug dealers named Art Derrick and Doc Curry to rubbing elbows with and purchasing hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Colombians and smuggling those drugs back into the United States himself. It was reported that during the height of Meech's cocaine ring, he was distributing 300 kilos of cocaine per month. I want you to stop for a second and think about that. Think about it.

Just how much volume that is. 300 kilograms of cocaine every single month. Not only is that a lot of drugs, but that's also a lot of money. Before long, Meech was the go-to drug dealer on the streets of Detroit. And quickly, because they were racking in dough, Meech and Maserati Rig became known around town for their flashy, somewhat flamboyant style.

They would often be spotted rocking big fur coats with expensive jewelry on, driving ridiculously expensive cars. One of Meech's close friends, a man named Rob Boyd, even admitted in an interview, quote, "...Demetrius was true Don. Him and Maserati Rick were holding it down for real. Rick was more flamboyant, but Demetrius was calling all the major shots. They both used to hit the clubs all iced up and sporting full-length mink coats."

End quote. End quote.

In fact, retired DEA Bureau Chief Bob DeFau in an interview said about Meech, quote, If you heard the words Big Meech back in the Wild West days of Detroit in the last half of the 1980s, you were talking about Demetrius Holloway. He was head honcho around here, top dog in the drug trade. While all of his contemporaries are wearing track suits and thick gold chains around their necks,

Holloway was wearing 15 $20,000 Italian suits, looking more businessman chic than dope boy chic. The man was cut from a different cloth. End quote.

Another figure we need to talk about when dealing with Detroit's infamous gang scene of the mid to late 1980s is Maserati Rick Carter. Richard Maserati Rick Carter Sr. was born on July 31st, 1959 and raised in the barren and depressing post-industrial Detroit. As a teenager, Maserati Rick joined a car theft ring and used the proceeds to buy himself a BMW.

In 1977, he acquired a powder blue Mercedes-Benz, and then later that same year, he was convicted for receiving stolen goods. After serving his sentence and being released in 1982, Maserati Rick ventured into the boxing world. He started out as a towel boy for Thomas Hearns, a famous American boxer.

and he eventually worked his way up to become Thomas' bodyguard and a boxing manager for his own brother, Greg Carter. During this time, Maserati Rick mingled with notable figures such as boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard and legendary promoter Don King at Detroit's renowned Kronk Gym. But it wasn't until about five years after he got out of prison that Maserati Rick made a name for himself in Detroit's drug scene.

Initially, a small-time player with big dreams, he and Meech's rise began with the downfall of another infamous drug dealer in Detroit named Sylvester "Seale" Murray in 1982. Seale had been the main supplier of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana to inner-city dealers for over a decade, including to the YBI Detroit's first major crack gang.

However, in 1982, indictments and convictions which landed Seale and the YBI leaders in prison with hefty sentences. So, with Seale and the YBI leaders out of the picture, ambitious young men like Maserati Rick and his close friend Demetrius "Meach" Holloway seized the opportunity to become major players in the drug trade.

Within three years, Maserati Rick controlled a major drug network on the east side of Detroit. He and Meach operated alongside other key players, including Johnny Curry, whose wife Kathy was the niece of Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, former members of the YBI who weren't affected by the indictments, and the Chambers Brothers. But after the Curry brothers and several of their top lieutenants were arrested in 1987, Maserati Rick and Meach began consolidating their power.

They allied with teenage drug supplier White Boy Rick Wersch and funded the Best Friends Murder for Hire crew, boosting their operation's protection and expanding into heroin distribution. Eventually, federal agents began to notice Maserati Rick's frequent trips to Florida and Los Angeles, and determined through their own investigation that he was most likely securing and importing a steady supply of cocaine into Detroit.

Maserati Rick's lavish lifestyle reflected his success, as he owned a bungalow on Burwood Avenue in Detroit and other upscale residences, including a fortified flat near Alter Road and a luxury riverfront condo. To launder his drug profits, Maserati Rick invested millions into local businesses like car washes and hair salons, which served as fronts for his drug operation.

Authorities eventually reported Maserati Rick dealt only in 2.2 pound quantities of cocaine and heroin, a sign of his significant wealth and influence. You see, street dealers were the ones chopping up the coke and heroin and selling it to the users, and Maserati Rick was supplying the dealers. As Maserati Rick's power grew, he made a number of enemies, but none were more determined to take him down than a man named Edward Big Ed Hansard.

who had once been a customer of his. A heated argument over debt in the hair salon that Big Ed owned in the summer of 1987 ignited a bitter feud between him and Maserati Rick, and when the two saw each other on the streets, their confrontations ended in gunfire. These frequent shootouts and attempted hits then began drawing media attention,

which wasn't good for business. And when Big Ed's own drug peddling organization began cutting into Maserati Rick's profits, this led to even more violent clashes, shootouts, and attempted murders, including a shootout between the two crews that left Big Ed with a serious abdominal wound.

But back to Meech. As Meech grew his drug business, he knew he needed more muscle on the street, and he remembered a group of four brothers he had grown up with on the east side, who were now associated with a gang called "The Best Friends." The Brown brothers, Terrence "Boogaloo" Brown, Reginald "Rockin' Reggie" Brown, Gregory "Ghost" Brown, and Ezra "Wizard" Brown, had already earned a violent reputation for their no-nonsense approach to street business.

Growing up on the east side of Detroit, the brothers grew up with a father who worked long hours at a factory and a mother who worked at home as a homemaker. As for the meaning behind the name The Best Friends Gang, it simply implied that those who associated with the gang held a close bond as brothers and that they always traveled in packs. And as word spread around town, other drug dealers and criminals began to realize that you just didn't mess with The Best Friends Gang.

the brown brothers and their gang were quick to handle business even if it meant that someone had to lose their life if they got in their way of making it to the top of the drug world

the brothers were known around the streets of detroit and they all drove different color bmws with the words best friends written across their hoods in addition to the cars they also dressed alike with flashy suits and often wore shirts and jackets embroidered with the words best friends the brown brothers had earned their reputation as stone cold killers during their teenage years when they started carrying out hits for other drug dealers

Soon, Meech Holloway, the top cocaine dealer in Detroit, met with the Brown Brothers, the most violent gang in Detroit, and hired them to be his street enforcement crew. And after the two forces combined, the bodies began to pile up on the streets of Detroit, as it turned out that murder for hire was a pretty lucrative business.

In 1986, in fact, in the middle of this gruesome and bloody gang war, Detroit led the nation with the highest number of recorded homicides, which totaled out to be around two murders per day in the city. This statistic emerged at about the same time that the best friends were at the top of their game. Author Rob Boyd explained,

there was a no tolerance policy with demetrius if you crossed him once you were done baserati on the other hand who was demetrius's guy on the street was more laid back and some people probably thought they could take advantage of it that was why they brought in the best friends to use his muscle they were straight thugs cold-hearted killers that hired themselves out for different enforcement jobs eventually things got out of hand with them and demetrius couldn't control their activities anymore

Seeing the money that was constantly changing hands around Meech, the Brown brothers eventually got greedy and wanted more of the action. Meech was raking in so much money every year from his importation and distribution of cocaine that he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So one day, the Brown brothers approached Meech and asked him to essentially move them up in the company. They wanted better jobs.

In their mind, more power means more money, but Meech refused to give them any more control of the business than they already had. So in a bid to get this control on their own, the Brown brothers and the Best Friends gang took matters into their own hands and headed out onto the streets of Detroit, terrorizing and murdering any and all of their competition.

the youngest brown brother terence boogaloo brown was the leader of the best friends gang and standing at 6 3 and almost 250 pounds he was an intimidating person to cross paths with he knew that if he wanted to take over rival territory he could use excessive force to get what he wanted reginald rockin reggie was the lead enforcer and he was known to be a ruthless and cold-blooded killer and

and by the end of 1986 the brown brothers knew that the only person that stood in their way of controlling the crack cocaine drug business in detroit was their former friend demetrius meech holloway ex-dea agent e james king said quote this organization had little or no regard for human life if their goal was to take somebody out they'd kill everybody and anybody around

Their reign of terror put the entire community, rivals and innocent people alike, in constant fear." So, in an effort to send a message, anyone associated with Meech was gunned down by the Brown brothers. Friends, family, nobody was safe from the violence that could and would erupt at any time of day, or any time of night, anywhere in the city.

The subsequent open war between the Best Friends and Meech's crew was merciless and ended with two Best Friend members, Ezra "Wizard" Brown and Gregory "Ghost" Brown, being gunned down and killed in the streets. It has been reported that the hit on Wizard and Ghost was ordered by rival Meech, but to this day, that claim has never been fully substantiated.

in an effort to get revenge for his brother's deaths boogaloo brown then stepped up his game ordered even more violence and the number of killings carried out by the best friends drastically increased it has been reported that at the end of their five-year reign the best friends were responsible for the deaths of over 100 people in the city of detroit alone and that's just the reported deaths no one to this day is certain of a true number

as it's possible that they murdered people in other cities, hid bodies so well that they were never found, and simply made people disappear. However, despite the numerous murders committed in an attempt to get to the top, the Best Friends gang never reached the sole person they wanted to get, Demetrius Meech Holloway. It was known on the streets that Meech, simply put, was not your average gangster.

He was smart, feared, respected, and he dressed like a corporate CEO, always seen in lavish, expensive Italian suits. He didn't drink or do drugs, but the one thing he continuously chased was money. By November of 1988, the Best Friends gang was on a mission to end his life.

But at this point, they had garnered the attention of both the Detroit Police Department and the federal government, who had now been watching their every move for years. In the past few years, there had been numerous unsuccessful drive-by attempts on Meach's life, and more than a half a dozen of his own drug houses that had been attacked, firebombed, and burned to the ground.

It was an all-out war to take Meech down, and the violence on the streets only escalated as each day passed.

In 1985, before the murder of Maserati Rick, Rockin Reggie and Boogaloo approached Boone after witnessing his success in the ring at the Tough Man contest. And while there, they asked if he would be interested in working with them as a part of their Murder for Hire operation. Immediately, Boone could tell that Rockin Reggie was a laid-back gangster.

and the two hit it off. However, Boogaloo appeared to be more skeptical, and he continued to stare him down, silently watching him throughout the night. At the end of their interaction, Boone admitted that what they had presented him with was a good business proposition, but he would only agree to work with them if the money was right. "He said, 'Man, we want you to come work with us.' I said, 'What's in it for me?'

He said, "We need money, drugs, whatever you need. But we also want you to get to do things for us that, you know, I don't know if you got the balls to kill someone." I said, "How much?" He said, "Well, $5,000." I said, "$5,000? Ain't no money. Come on, man. Come on with it." He said, "Well, we probably can get you $10,000." I said, "Sounds like $20,000. It all depends on who the person is." He said, "Let's talk some more." So we go back to one of his places. We sitting there talking.

He start going in the kitchen cooking. I'm like, "Oh, that's my shop. I like to cook too." So I go in there and look in his picture right there. I'm like, "Hey man, you just looking at my..." So trying to give me something to cook and eat. I'm like, "I like you. I like you too, man. You cool, you cool people. You seem to be more relaxed than your brother." 'Cause his brother was still wanna test me. So we go outside and he start to, "Yeah, man. Come on, man." "Boo, you don't want to. Seriously." He was like,

Oh, come on, just give me one round. I don't think you'll last four blows. Oh, you think you can hit me? I stepped to the side of him so quickly he didn't even know I was there. Just don't move. You'll pull your own throat out. He tried to grab the hand. I ain't gonna do nothing but just lock my finger up more deep into your throat. I let him go. You didn't even last one.

Man, I wasn't ready. Oh, I was supposed to say, okay, are you ready? That's a fool move, man. Don't you ever do that to anybody. Oh, come on, man. We're going to fight. While you're talking, I'm going to be moving into action. Action is better than words. Words take too long. People hear you or hear him or whatever, and then you're like, witnesses. You want to do shit and not have a witness. See, when I got you in that position, there was no witness, was there?

He said, "Well, you call Cena." I said, "But this is between us. He wouldn't have lived that long either after I ripped your throat out or ripped his." "He'll shoot you." I said, "Yeah, he gotta get to that gun. And he gotta reach behind his back to get it. You think I'm gonna stand there and wait till you pull it out? I'm gonna be on him like flies on crap."

Boone was working alongside the best friends, and he grew close to Rockin' Reggie. Boone said that Reggie was usually a laid-back person, that is, until he started drinking and taking acid. On nights when he was drunk and high, he liked to go take rides to the west side of Detroit. On one occasion, Boone drove Reggie and the two pulled up next to a Jeep, and Reggie casually rolled down the window and blasted gunfire into the people in the car next to them.

Boone, seeing this, sped off into the night, but after getting nervous, ended up going back to the scene to make sure that the people were dead, as to not leave any witnesses. He then realized that Rockin' Reggie was a quick-triggered gangster who didn't take shit from anyone, and it wasn't long before Boone was on the best friend's payroll as their go-to chief assassin. He had everything they wanted in a hitman. He was 6'5", weighed 300 pounds, and had elite military training.

He didn't ask questions and would kill anyone on command. While I was speaking with Boone in the basement of our Airbnb, I had the chance to ask him some questions about the time he spent working with the Brown Brothers and the Best Friends gang. How many people would you say you killed in total? 30. 30? Are there... well, I guess we'll just go through the short kind of... What was your preferred method to execute people?

Or was it kind of varying? Basically, it was a barrier between my knife and my gun. If I could get close to you, I would use my knife. It's quiet and peaceful. But if I can't and you see me coming and start, then I got to plug you. But I'm hoping nobody else see this or hear this because we started buying silencers from white boy Rick. What would you guys do with the bodies typically? You take the bodies, you know, well, me...

And a couple of the guys used to introduce them to the tree shredder. Those were the guys that people was like, "What happened to such and such?" "Man, he must have left Tosca." "Yeah, he probably left state." Whole lot of guys was running from Michigan because we was out there putting in work. And when they find out, "Hey man, y'all made them guys list." "What? Who the hell put us on there?" "Hey, we just know that Brown Brothers was looking for y'all."

And what would like, what would earn somebody kind of getting onto an actual hit list? Like, what was the biggest reason people would get whacked? They'd be uh, wanna take over somebody else's area, put their mans in it or they out there running their mouth about what they ain't gonna pay what they supposed to owe. That's how, it's the chemical got it. He'd run around talking about he ain't paying the brothers nothing. He went and bought him a bin.

And of course, we found out about it. We drove over there. Me, Boo, I think it was Mark too. Me, Boo, and Mark. Because I know when we sat at the club, sure enough, here he comes out. I said, we ain't going to do him out in front of all those people. They said, no. We know that black being is over there. It's he. We're going to follow him. And as soon as we get a chance to pull up on him or just to get behind him, we're going to light his ass up.

I said, "Okay, just try not to get in my way with a bunch of goddamn cars that don't people at." He said, "Well, we gonna try to hit him wherever we can. That nigga gotta be hit. Talk about what he ain't gonna pay." So, sure enough, he jumped on that freeway. When he jumped on that freeway, I said, "Oh, shit. Here it comes." 'Cause the freeway at that time in the morning was damn near empty. So we got the van and we pulling him down on the freeway. We get right there on the side of him. He finally looked over.

And I guess he decided to just lay across the seat because I knew he couldn't take off his coat. And we just started, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. We flying down 75. I mean, the large freeway. We flying down there behind that bend. Now, the van can't catch it, but we still lighting it up. All of a sudden, it seemed like the bend just started rolling to the side and then it stops.

Which car them talk about? Okay. I said, "Get the hell out." He said, "No, stop. Let me out." So when they let me out, I said, "Y'all go here. I'll find my way home. I want to make sure this nigga dead." So I go up there to the car. I be there, this nigga not even dead. He layin' by me, "Don't a killin' me. Don't a killin' me. Don't a killin' me." "Oh, no, you talked all that shit about what you gonna do and you ain't gonna pay and how you will come after us." Time is over. I hit his pockets.

I hit his glove box, got his trunk, got everything that I could. I stripped him of anything that the police could verify. I took his retirement receipt. I took everything. He just wanted it. I just took the back of the bag and I said, this way they won't find out who he is for a while. Now, I didn't know that my people knew him until, as a matter of fact, he was in a house that we used to own.

Because like I said, I find out about people afterwards or it should be beforehand. But that boy could have just kept his mouth shut. Because see, people be out there talking about, I ain't worried about this. Now, the guy you said you ain't worried about, you just made them look like punk. Talking about what you're going to give a damn. So now they're going to come after you. If they don't, everybody's going to say, man, those motherfuckers ain't shit. Which car talked about them like a dog and they didn't do nothing. You talk about us like that, somebody's going to come after you.

Or if we give you drugs and you want to run off with it, that's another killer. If you don't want to pay us on time or you come up with phony money. See, that never happened to me, but the phony money came in after I got out of prison. Somebody was pushing phony money, buying drugs, and which car them bounced out and they went after the boy. I was like, especially when they start shooting at the boys, I'm sitting there watching them.

Then when they got through and they jumped back in the van, I'm like, "Why you keep staying out of there? Y'all feel all right now? What you mean? Got y'all jackets. What about we shooting at us? Y'all be shooting at each other. You got this boy in the middle and y'all shoot. You know those bullets gonna go through him and come for whoever's in the way?" They thought about it like, "Man, shit." That's when maybe a day or two later, which Carl said that his boy wanted to shoot me in the back of the head.

He never told me why. I think he said because I was getting too well known again. Meaning that people had stopped paying attention to him because I was back home. And I put in work the quiet way. I don't go out there and have a thousand witnesses. But Chuck had told me that a witch car wanted to shoot me in the back of the head, but he told them.

And that's the only reason why I'm alive because he stopped which kind of shoot me in the back of the head. I was like, I don't know if I can bleed that or not. But he told me that while we was in prison. And I figured that he might be just telling me that because he think I'm gonna cut his throat while he's sleeping. Because he's the one that shot me with that AK.

So when you were given a hit to carry out, you didn't know like the person or it was just kind of like... Well I knew what they did and who they was because I had my friends check on them, find out where they live, where they go, what they do and make sure we find out everything there is about them before we do the hit. I ain't even go out there and kill somebody that not involved with the game. You ain't involved with the game, you ain't gotta worry about me.

I won't do it, but these other fools will. You ain't got that. I got everything. But am I gonna show it to y'all? Nah. Wait for the movie deal. - I got two more questions. One, did the best friends ever use torture or torture people? 'Cause like the cartel will. - Well see, they grab some people and beat 'em up or stab 'em and shit like that. Yeah, that's a little torture.

Me, I believe in the real torture like I told them. I don't need y'all around to watch me do what I'm finna do to this fool. Like when they had grabbed me. I didn't cry when they took me upstairs in that attic and started torturing my fingers with irons and shit. I didn't cry.

"Oh, you want me to cry? Go get your mama to give me some head. I'll cry." 'Cause I was trying to piss them off so he could just pull the trigger and kill me quicker than sit there and try to just torture every goddamn thing and clap your nine eyes to it. - Do you have any enemies as of now in 2024? - If I do, I don't know about them. And those that I do know about, I don't think they wanna turn back the hands of time. 'Cause like I tell people, "Hey,

I can be him. I'm a human being just like anyone else is. But if you come for me and I find out that you're trying to come for me, I'm gonna come for you with all force. No loyalty to a motherfucker that killed my little brother. Loyalty went out the window. So I got one more question. This is it. Is there any story that you have of like a hit that sticks out to you that you go back to and think about something that happened?

Well, I think about that one hit because that man shouldn't have been killed. That was an innocent man. That tears me up every now and then. I still think of it as of today. I had to see a psych when I got out because it was really eating me up. The psych said, but you didn't put a trigger on that. I said, no, but I was there. And I told the man, don't move. Whatever you do, don't move the cab.

When witchcraft came out and got in that cab and everybody started running up on it. No, no, no, no, no, no. Cab driver got scared. Put it in drive and took off. He wind up catching it and dies. But they still run over to the cab because they still want to make sure this nigga in the back is dead. Excuse my word. I'm sorry for using that N word. But they wanted to make sure he was dead. They opened the back of the cab up. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I was like, oh, man.

But yeah, that's the only regret I had, that that cab driver was an innocent man with a family and didn't have nothing to do with none of that. He was just on the call picking up somebody, trying to take them somewhere else when that messed up on him. Because I even asked the prosecutor, is there any way I can send them some money? He said, no, we don't want you doing any. Don't reach out to these people. I said, okay. So I left it alone. But it would never get out of me because I'm sick.

I still think about it, but at least I don't break down no more. But I was breaking down real bad. And I just felt sorry for him.

But even while working with the gang, Boone always had reservations about being directly associated with the best friends. He noticed that wherever they went, there were usually police officers not far behind. At one point, Reggie and Boone went to grab dinner at a local Coney Dog restaurant and Boone saw a couple of police officers in the parking lot. When he mentioned the cops that he saw to Reggie, he stated that he wasn't concerned and that he was aware the officers were there.

He also told Boone that the cops knew who they both were because of their association with the gang. And this set off an alarm bell for Boone, who believed that whatever the gang did should always be discreet, with no witnesses left behind.

And secretly, even though he was killing for the Best Friends gang, he believed that their in-your-face antics and tactics of open broad daylight warfare would eventually catch up with them. Boone told Reggie at that moment that if one of his friends who he liked to ride around with got caught by the police, then chances were that the friend would probably give up sensitive information to the authorities. But Reggie didn't believe him and said that his friends would never rat him out.

He stated that he had full confidence in his friends and partners, and even told Boone that he was confident that they would die for him. At one point, in an attempt to scare Reggie and his crew, Boone talked about his stint in prison, and told the brothers that in prison, there was the reality that they could, and probably would, be raped. Boone then followed that by saying that the best way to avoid prison time is to make sure that you never leave a witness during a shootout.

At one point, Boone met infamous Detroit figure, Maserati Rick, while the two were handling an issue at a Bieber phone shop. On that evening, Boone and Maserati Rick had gone into the store, each accompanied by one of their friends, and there appeared to be some sort of conflict inside. So Boone reached into his coat pocket that had a hole so his gun was easily accessible, and Maserati Rick noticed.

I had Maserati Rick seeing that move. He was like, "Hey man, what you been doing?" I said, "Who is you?" "They call me Maserati." "What, you a cop?" I said, "No, man, you ain't heard of me, Maserati Rick." I said, "I heard of that name, but it mean nothing to me." He said, "What you been doing? How come they kill your boy here?" And the guy talking about, "How you gonna do it?" I said, "Put it back in my pocket." My other boy standing aside, he got his and his.

"Man, what you niggas wanna do?" "Yeah, you better step to my friend. You ain't gonna live that long." Rick was like, "Hey man," and said, "Let me talk to you, let me talk to you." I was like, "What's up, man?" We step outside, I still got my hand on my shit. He was like, "Man, what you really gonna do him in there?" I said, "Yeah, and you too. We don't need witnesses." He was like, "Man, you serious? You look like that guy Boo." I said, "Who?"

Maserati Rick soon hired Boone to be his part-time bodyguard, while he continued to work as a hitman for the best friends. You see, what Maserati Rick saw in Boone was a quiet warrior that could be useful in his life. Boone was quiet. He was discreet.

and he didn't make a lot of noise with his murders. As opposed to the other hitmen who carried out their murders in broad daylight in busy parts of the city, Boone preferred to handle his business alone, and he often used a knife to take out his victims. Boone admitted that using a knife was more quiet, and it was a way to murder his victims without getting attention of others nearby. After that, Ross Reiterich said that he would pay me if I hang out with him.

I'm still money hungry, you know, because I haven't gotten back down into the deep shit yet. I'm selling, but a little bit. I don't want to draw too much attention to me. And of course, Red was like, man, you need to get a better spot. I said, yeah, well, I seen a couple of spots. I just got to find out who working them. He said, well, we're going to clean it up for you. I said, I don't need nobody. See, you always want to do shit and have people with you. If anybody get caught,

All the witnesses you got against you. Now, my way nobody know it's me 'cause I sneak up on 'em. He's up, "You wanna shoot him?" "Nuh, I'm gonna put that throat up." "You been having that knife up there?" I said, "Yeah, I always carry that knife." It's quieter than pow. Everybody in the neighborhood gonna be like, "My way, I can come up behind 'em on the side of the house and just open 'em up and just ease on off before they even fall." Mm, know it's good days. But, uh,

I became good friends with my wife and me, but after a while, I kept telling them. I said, man, of course, I'm still good with the best friends, too. The best friends eventually expanded their drug operation and killing spree across state lines into Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. They were now a violent drug and murder-for-hire gang operating across many state lines and taking in profits of millions of dollars a year. Basically, we started spreading out.

Once we had to go up there to Lima and we had to straighten them people out up there. First we had to straighten one out in Toledo. This apartment building as you come up the thing, we wanted to put it down there. And them guys talking about Detroit ain't even come up here and do nothing here. Y'all got us mixed up. So we came up there with quite a few men. So Boo was like, yeah, man, we're going to rush the building. We're going to take over that apartment. I was like...

"Then why you brought all these fools? I thought you'd been just set them up and be specific." "We are, but first you gotta get rid of the people there." I'm like, "Okay, but I'm not killing no one. I'm saying that loud enough for all y'all to hear." "You will be tested." Now you may catch me just intimidating the hell out of Mosul and pack up and leave, or this gonna be your last stop on this planet. Mosul guy was leaving, man. We gone, man. We ain't gonna die for this shit. There you go. Good thinking, good thinking.

Boo wanted to shoot several of them. He did. I was like, "You made me and everybody else in the witness area go down. One of these guys is going to give your butt up to get out." I didn't worry about nothing. He's my man. He's down with me. Tell you what. Uh-huh. I'm watching them. They're going to give you up. The police have to grab them. But he took over that area good, him and his cousin.

"Andre, Patrick, he was a good brother, he still is." At this point during my interview with Boone, he told us an incredibly disturbing story about the process of buying off the cops in the small town of Lima, Ohio. In the following story, Boone describes how he and a friend arrived in Lima, Ohio in order to try and start up some gang operations involving drug dealing in the area on the orders of the Best Friends gang.

But upon arriving in the town, Boone and his friend knew that they wouldn't be able to operate so easily in the area if they would be under the constant watchful eyes of local small town police. So, Boone and his friend came up with a plan. They decided that they either needed to get some blackmail on the local cops so that they could put them in their pocket, or they would need to just talk the cops into allowing them to straight up pay them off.

But if people in the area resisted their attempt to strong-arm their way into the local drug trade, they would meet Boone's close friend, the tree shredder. But I was more down with his brother, Mark Patrick. Mark used to give me a hand and he was showing me some rope. I went, okay, okay. We went up to Lima, Ohio.

and he was telling me yeah we got to get a spots up here well a couple days we drove around and got a kind of layout of the people and i seen what was going on and i was like okay we need to get some girls on there he said what would you want to freak us police are freaks we're gonna get some young girls and sick them all let the girl drive by and give them a finger so when they pull them over they will be frightened with them they will have a little bit of

rock cocaine on them and we gonna get them to call the police and the smokers. See, this ain't nothing trying. We don't do that. Oh, you look, oh, you gay, I'm sorry. The police, get him. Oh, we got him. We got him. Him in his part. We got them, okay. Let's try to get some more. We didn't have to. Those two turned out their own people up there, their own cops. So we found out where they be going to to smoke it.

behind the railroad station. They be back there with their police cars, that's all you see is torture. They back there smoking up. Everybody. Then, yeah, it was Mark. Mark said, "Man, we gotta get them on our payroll." I said, "What's up?" He said, "Man," I said, "Well, I just can you get a couple of them to come here to the motel where we were staying at?" Oh, I did.

I guess they thought that we was going to do something to them because they already had the gun and the snap, the hands on it. I was like, okay, but you'll never be able to pull it out because you got to pull up. Me, I just tilt mine. So Mark talked to them, and I know we was able to pay them off to leave us alone. But several of the dope guys, they was pissed off because police wasn't doing that even though they was calling the police on us.

Try to get the police to bust up. No, but we got this. You need to get the hell out of Lima. Because if we see you again, you're going to disappear. It ain't going to be like Houdini and you gone. It's going to be like the cannibal. Somebody will eat your butt. That's why I like to use those tree shredders. Tie a rope to their feet before we cut it on. Pull it through and just pull them on up to their feet. It does okay. Wake his butt up.

What's going on? You finna be a witness to your own death. Man, what you talking about? Feet came up, machine grabbed them, but they died before they even get to their knees. You're like, what the hell? Man, they keep dying. I'm shocked. Spill them through, spill them all over into the pig vein. They was like, hey, pigs eat anything. That's when I stopped eating pork. I knew what the pigs was eating.

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Meanwhile, back in Detroit in 1987, Demetrius "Meach" Holloway was starting to have problems within his own drug ring. One of his street operations on the east side, run by Meach's former close friend Edward "Big Ed" Hansard, had been broken up due to Big Ed's new connection to the West Coast.

with a new drug kingpin by the name of Richard "Freeway Ricky" Ross. It was reported that Big Ed was buying this cocaine from Freeway Ricky and selling it to Meech and Maserati Rick's customers at a much cheaper price.

When Maserati Rick found out about this, he confronted Big Ed and a verbal altercation broke out. Over the next six months, gunfire would be exchanged between Meech and Maserati Rick's men and Big Ed and his crew. Maserati Rick successfully shot Big Ed outside of a nightclub at one point, but he survived, and remaining loyal to street code, Big Ed didn't rat him out when the police arrived. Former drug dealer Rob Boyd said, "Ed didn't want to pay Maserati Rick what he owed him. He didn't think he had to.

Apparently, the Brown brothers from the Best Friends gang also had beef with Big Ed through two other men named White Boy Rick and Steven "Freaky Steve" Russo.

According to the book, The Detroit True Crime Chronicles, Freaky Steve had allegedly been having sex with one of Rock and Reggie's girlfriends, and he ended up reaching out to Maserati Rick and Meech to see if they wanted to join forces to take Big Ed down. But Meech and Maserati Rick refused, and it was speculated that this only intensified the beef between the gangs.

In fact, on the first night that Maserati Rick hired Boone as his bodyguard, the two men jumped into Rick's Mercedes Benz and went to a local club. While there, Boone ran into Rockin' Reggie and Boogaloo, who couldn't believe that he was also working for Rick. Boone told them that it was nothing personal, but that money talks. And if the money was right, then Boone would do anything for anyone. A few moments later, Big Ed walked into the club,

up, not knowing that his rivals were already there. And according to a later interview with Boone, Maserati Rick walked over to Big Ed and a verbal altercation ensued. When the owner of the club caught wind of what was going on, he approached the men and told them he didn't want a shootout and he asked them to leave. A few moments later, Big Ed realized that Rick had Boone as a bodyguard.

and soon afterwards noticed Rockin' Reggie and Boo hanging behind them in the shadows. Seeing this, he knew he was outnumbered, which was enough to make Big Ed realize he was in a potentially dangerous situation. So from there, he ran from the club, got in his car, and sped off. But Maserati Rick, Boone, Rockin' Reggie, and Boo were close behind.

And soon, the four men were chasing Big Ed down Jefferson Avenue. Eventually, Big Ed turned down a side street and parked his Mustang behind a house so that the men couldn't find him. But this incident only made Maserati Rick more angry. And he told Boone that Big Ed had to go.

It was also reported that Big Ed continued to stir the pot after he told a local news outlet that he had earned the nickname "Big Ed" from Maserati Rick's mother, who said he had a "well-endowed penis." Needless to say, Maserati Rick was pissed and wanted Boone to carry out a hit on Big Ed. However, Maserati Rick told Boone that he wanted to help him with the murder. He wanted to be there to watch the life leave his enemy's eyes.

Boone then stated that he didn't want or need the help, and told Maserati Rick that if he wanted a specific body part to prove that Big Ed was dead, he would cut it off of his dead body and bring it back to him.

but Maserati Rick wouldn't take no for an answer, and he told Boone that it was personal and said that he would increase his payment for this hit if he could tang along. So, one night, Maserati Rick and Boone hid in the bushes outside Big Ed's house on Sunset Street. While they waited in silence, lurking in the dark, a group of men that they knew drove up and knocked on Big Ed's door before quickly running away. It was almost like a deadly game of Ding Dong Ditch.

When Ed finally answered the door, he stepped out onto his porch and looked around, side to side, obviously paranoid. He had just heard the violent knocks at his door, but no one was there. It was almost like he knew something was up. Seeing Big Ed out on his porch and exposed, Boone and Maserati Rick counted to three before jumping up and blasting gunfire in Big Ed's direction. And even though a shot or two did land, it was not a successful hit, and Big Ed escaped with his life.

however after the shooting boone quickly ran over to the front door and snatched up big ed's hat and began wearing it around on the streets to send a message if big ed wanted his signature hat back he would have to come and get it but this shooting only served to escalate the drug war between the gangs to an unthinkably high level now everyone was involved in this fight big ed and his crew maserati rick meech boone the best friends

It was an all-out open war between the rival drug dealers. Men were getting gunned down in the streets in broad daylight, dead bodies were washing up in the rivers and being found in garbage bins, and non-deadly shootouts were happening multiple times a day.

But despite the ongoing conflict, Boone continued to carry out his contract hits for the best friends, Maserati Rick, and whoever else wanted to pay him what he wanted for his services. According to Boone, he was paid upwards of $50,000 for every person that he killed, and his brutality was limitless. Soon, he was paying off cops to keep the heat off of him. Like he stated before, he started making bodies completely disappear through the use of a tree shredder.

As an enforcer and hitman, Boone's reputation on the streets earned him the title of the Grim Reaper. To him, the killings were never personal, and he justified them by saying it was merely business. In an interview with Click on Detroit, Boone said, "...it was business. You have to understand. These people was into illegal things anyway. Somebody pay me to hit you, I'm gonna hit you. Don't get it wrong. I believe in money. Friendship? No. I don't have friends."

Another one of Boone's contract hits was taken out on a man named Rick Wershe Jr., better known by his street name as "White Boy Rick." According to Boone, multiple people wanted Rick dead, including dirty cops who believed he was a snitch. And in fact, "White Boy Rick" was a snitch.

He was an FBI informant and had been since the age of 14. According to a news report, quote, "His work resulted in the convictions of several Detroit drug kingpins." He was later arrested in 1987 with 9,000 grams of cocaine and $30,000 cash, end quote. So one night Boone met white boy Rick at a red light in Detroit. White boy Rick later said, quote,

We had the music up pretty loud. God willing, I saw the side door on the van opening. I told my buddy, I said, "Pull off." He didn't hear me. I reached my leg over the thing and I pushed the gas. We went through the red light and that's when the shots rang out.

End quote. It ended up being a failed hit. And in another interview, Boone stated, quote, of course we hit the car. Hitting the car ain't the whole routine. You must get the person that we going at. Don't kill a car, kill the person in the car. That's who we came to kill. The white boy jumped down up in there. I could have sworn that it went across his back. Then the gun finally jammed. End quote.

But of course, from here, Boone would continue to pursue White Boy Rick and whoever else was on his list of hits. Through his powerful connections, Boone persuaded his associates in prison to help locate White Boy Rick and murder him.

However, luckily for white boy Rick, the feds caught wind of this plan and he was quickly whisked away from the prison and relocated to an area where he would remain safe under constant guard from federal agents. But that wasn't enough to stop Boone. You see, if you were on Boone's list, you weren't getting off of it until you were dead. And so Boone hatched a demented plan

he was going to climb up to the rooftop of a nearby building where White Boy Rick was being held. He would then wait until he was transferred to another location and then snipe him from his position while he was exposed and out in the open. However, once again, someone in law enforcement heard about this plan and White Boy Rick was escorted out of the building through an underground tunnel.

It appeared that White Boy Rick was untouchable, but Boone wasn't going to let him get away so easily. So the next plan he came up with was to get two grenade launchers and blow up the prison in Mesa, Arizona. The prison where White Boy Rick had been taken. But this plan never came to fruition.

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Eventually, Rockin' Reggie decided to take matters into his own hands, and during the summer of 1987, he hunted down Steven "Freaky Steve" Russel, the man who was rumored to have been having an affair with his girlfriend, and stormed into his house with an automatic submachine gun. Upon seeing his target, Rockin' Reggie opened fire.

Freaky Steve was killed on his couch, and shortly afterwards, Brock and Reggie Brown, responsible for that murder and at least a dozen others in and around the Detroit area, was finally arrested and charged with something: the murder of Freaky Steve.

Once Reggie was in prison, the only brown brother left to run the best friend's operation was Boogaloo, and shortly after Reggie was taken off the street, things only got worse for the best friends when one of their top associates, James "Mr. Big" Lamont, was murdered in a drive-by shooting as he sat at a red light in front of the St. Regis Hotel.

Even though this, on the surface, looked like it was a hit carried out by a rival gang or drug lord competitor, it was later discovered and reported that Boogaloo Brown himself was behind the murder. That's right, he had ordered a hit on one of his own friends, and he was arrested and charged, but later acquitted during the trial.

On September 10th, 1988, after months of shootout and bloodshed, Big Ed would finally get his revenge against Maserati Rick at a car wash on Seven Mile Road that Maserati Rick owned. On that day, Big Ed's top enforcer, a man named Lodrick Rickey "The Hitman" Parker, confronted Maserati Rick outside of the car wash and the two exchanged gunfire.

Maserati Rick was hit in the stomach and rushed to St. Carmel Hospital, where he underwent surgery for his wound. Once he stabilized, he was taken to the ICU and word quickly spread that someone had tried to murder him. Boone, who had been staying with Maserati Rick at his house, rushed to the hospital once he found out and Rick paid him to stay there with him and keep an eye on his hospital room. Soon, Boogaloo arrived as well.

and he told Boone that the word on the street was that Boone and his group that ran with Maserati Rick were a bunch of bitches for failing to protect their leader. Boogaloo told Boone to leave, but Boone informed him that Rick was paying him to keep guard. Interestingly, Boogaloo then doubled the amount of money that Maserati Rick had paid,

And so, seeking the biggest payout, Boone left the hospital and left Maserati Rick completely exposed. Two days later, on Monday, September 12th, an unknown man entered Maserati Rick's room in the ICU wearing the disguise of a doctor's hospital coat. The man placed a pillow over the unconscious Maserati Rick's head and he shot him with a pistol while he slept.

Eventually, an eyewitness came forward and identified the man as Lodrick "Ricky the Hitman" Parker. However, at the trial, Ricky the Hitman was acquitted. In a later interview, Boone said that he believed Bukalu was behind the murder, but it's never been proven.

As it turned out, before Maserati Rick's death, Boogaloo Brown and what remained of the Best Friends gang had become greedy and had decided that they wanted to control the entire crack cocaine empire in Detroit. And Boogaloo Brown knew that the only way to gain control of the crack dealing business would be to get rid of Demetrius "Meach" Holloway and his right-hand man, Maserati Rick.

Maserati Rick had made a grave mistake when he agreed to work with the Brown brothers, as he at one point had introduced them to the Columbians that supplied the drugs for Meech's empire. One drug trafficker, a man named Billy Joe Chambers, admitted that the best friends were ruthless and would do anything to get to the top, saying, quote, "When everyone in the drug trade was trying to get each other, they would go further and go after your family," end quote.

After the murder of Maserati Rick, Oogaloo Brown became even more paranoid. An acquaintance of Boo told the Detroit Free Press: "Terrence always carried two guns. If he'd come into your house, he'd never sit down. He'd always stand near the door. He wasn't being rude, just really cautious." Richard Maserati Rick Carter was buried on September 16th and his funeral mirrored the flashy life that he had lived on the streets.

Meech Holloway paid $16,000 for a custom-made Mercedes-Benz casket with a gold exterior and silver-plated rims, complete with wheels that actually spun. Thousands of people gathered to mourn the loss of Maserati Rick, a very influential figure in the city, and six Rolls-Royce cars and a dozen limousines were provided for the family and close friends to ride to the cemetery after the service.

Maserati Rick's mother, Barry Carter, told the Detroit Free Press at the time, "I don't agree with any of this. My son always told me he wanted a simple funeral. But my other boy, he said, 'Rick lived this way. He should die this way.'" Boone was also in attendance at the funeral, but he knew that the event would be crawling with DEA and other federal agents, so he made sure to wear a hoodie over his suit. And soon after the funeral, things really started to go south for the Best Friends gang.

You see, two of the brothers, Gregory "Ghost" Brown and Ezra "Wizard" Brown, were dead, Rockin' Reggie Brown was in prison, and Boogaloo Brown was the only brother left to deal with the anger of other competing drug dealers who wanted to see him dead.

As for Meech Holloway, he knew that he was in danger not only from other street thugs, but he was also feeling pressure from the feds, and so he decided to stage his own abduction. In November of 1988, while Meech ate at a local restaurant called The Top Hat, four masked men entered the establishment and shot four bullets into the air. They then grabbed Meech, threw him into the back of their trunk,

and disappeared. As a part of his plan, Meech left Detroit and traveled to Las Vegas, where he married his girlfriend, Wanda Jean Hardaway. He ended up staying in Vegas for a few months, hoping that things would die down in Detroit during the time he was gone. But eventually, he returned to the city that he had once ruled with an iron fist.

but this was a fatal mistake. On October 8, 1990, two years after Maserati Rick's death, Meech was shot twice in the back of the head while he stood picking out a pair of socks at the luxurious and legendary Broadway Department Store in downtown Detroit. It's rumored that Big Ed Hansard was responsible for this murder, but the killing remains unsolved and no convictions have ever come from it.

At the same time, there was also tension brewing between Boone and Boogaloo Brown. And this tension really rose during the late 80s and early 90s. Boone said that on one occasion, he allowed Boogaloo to drive his car.

and when he gave it back, he left a bag of crack cocaine in the ashtray. After being pulled over by the police, they found the bag of drugs and Boone was arrested. He was then charged and sent back to prison for a year and a half. Despite being upset with Boogaloo's stupidity, at the time, Boone understood that that was the lifestyle he lived and that these were the people that he associated with.

However, while he was in prison, there would be one murder that sparked the end of Boone's relationship with the Best Friends gang, the murder of Boone's younger brother, Andre Craft. After hearing the news that his own brother had been gunned down and killed, Boone was allowed to leave the prison to attend his brother's funeral.

And while there, he ended up speaking with his nephew, Bruiser. It was during that conversation that Boone learned that Boogaloo had been the one to order the hit on his own little brother. Apparently, Andre owed Boogaloo money and he wouldn't pay it

So in order to prove a point, he made the call to have Andre killed. Unfortunately, there was nothing that Boone could have done, as at the time he still had a few months left on his sentence. So after Andre's funeral, Boone went back to the prison, got together with a few of his affiliates, and started making a plot to get back at Boogaloo for what he had done to Andre. The original plan had been to implicate Boogaloo in a crime so that he would be sent to prison.

And once he arrived in prison to serve his sentence, Boone had plotted to have his affiliates on the inside torture Boogaloo and then "butcher him good." Boone also contacted the authorities from within the prison and began working for the feds as an informant in order to get Boogaloo Brown locked up for good.

He believed if the feds knew the ins and outs of what Boogaloo Brown and the best friends were doing on the street, then they would arrest him and charge him with multiple crimes. But things didn't go according to plan. Instead, once Boone got out of prison, one of the best friend's associates, a man named Mark, was murdered, and so Boone went to his funeral. While he was there, he noticed that Boogaloo had walked in and for a brief moment, he realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to kill his rival.

However, Boogaloo never left the side of his three bodyguards, and Boone later stated that he didn't want to have to take out all four of them at once. So, instead of killing his former friend and associate at the funeral, Boone played it cool, as he didn't want to alert Boogaloo that he wanted to kill him. Eventually, one of Boogaloo's associates made his way over to Boone, and asked him if he would accompany them on a hit.

he offered him a substantial amount of money and stated that the plan was to murder a witness who had knowledge of a murder committed by rockin reggie brown boone was suspicious when he learned that other members of the best friends would be in attendance for the hit as it was known amongst their peers that he usually preferred to work alone but needing the money he went with them anyways hoping to gain some sort of information about boogaloo or possibly to kill him that night instead of their intended target

But Boone's intuition was right, and the entire thing had been a big setup. On the night of that final hit, Boone and the Best Friends crew paid a cab driver to keep his car in park while he picked up their victim, a man named Joe Long. And so, the cab driver sat, Joe Long came out of the building he was in and got into the back of the taxi, and the Best Friends and Boone jumped at the opportunity.

And even though the best friends and Boone had warned the cab driver not to start driving when they started shooting, it didn't matter. When the bullets started flying, the cab driver got spooked and attempted to flee. But unfortunately, in the ensuing gunfire, he was shot and killed. This cab driver was the only innocent man that Boone claims he feels bad about killing, as it was, according to him, a complete accident. But that evening, after shooting the target and finishing the hit,

As Boone turned around to go get the getaway car, he felt a sharp pain in his back. This was something he wasn't expecting to feel. And when he reached around and touched the area that was suddenly hurting, he noticed that it was soaking wet. And when he pulled his hand back in front of him, he noticed that it was covered in blood. Soon, another gunshot rang out and a bullet pierced through his already blood-soaked hand. And when he looked around to see what was going on,

Boone noticed that his so-called friends had their guns aimed in his direction. When I came home from prison, I was going to set him up to be killed. But he peeped the moon and told them to kill me once we do Joe Long. After we kill Joe Long, do him. So we go there to do that. Ah, this thing I know, I get all shot up. But I survived. I mean, they hit me with everything.

- Oh shit. - I mean literally, they hit me with everybody. - That is amazing. That's so crazy. How many shots was that, four or five? - It came through this one, M16, M16 in the thigh and the knee, nines in the back, .357 here, shotgun blast here. They hit me with everything in the head though, but I was still, you know,

If you ain't killing my brain, I'm not gonna fall. I'm sorry. So when which guy hit me with the F-16, that did knock me down to one knee. Got my gun out. They all taking off. What the hell they running to? That nigga got his gun. Yeah, which I thought that I left it at the house. I go nowhere without a gun and I still have my knife. But my knife got twisted because that AK-47 tore my goddamn wrist up.

Damn. My leg bones coming all out of there. I look like a walking dead. By the time they got me to the hospital, I was out of it. Because I believe I probably would have died. Because I wouldn't have let them stick me with a needle. But when I woke up, I'm in heaven. Everything was white. So I'm thinking, I ain't died. I'm in heaven. I'm like, man. People lying to me, telling me I'm going to hell. That's when I heard the...

The nurse told me, "You all right? Do you need me to call some other?" "Where am I, man?" "Holy Cross Hospital." "How long I been here?" He said, "Basically almost going on two days." "You must have been tired or you was out." "When they put you up on the operating table, you was snoring." I was tired. I said, "Yeah."

I like to use a phone. I need to make some phone calls. They said, "Well, your clothes over there. We didn't see no phone." I said, "Ain't no thing. Just bring me a phone." They hooked up the phone, brought it to me. I called several people, told them to come down here and get these clothes. I don't know if the police are going to come and knock, come get these clothes and, boom, anything else that got blood on it. So after that, a witch card came down. He said, "Ma'am, what you going to do?" I said, "We got to get me out of here."

Jerry was like, my boy was like, "They get you wired all up, dude. How you gonna get out of here? Start pulling these motherfuckers out of me." He said, "Man, you can't cash anywhere. You ain't never heard of a crutch?" I said, "Crutch my ass on. I ain't getting in the car then. Hell, if you take me somewhere, I'll lay up there and let them finish it." He was like, "Man." Then he called my sister. She came here. I told her, "You want to get rid of that

No clothes in that bag. She said, "There's money in there too." I said, "Burn that in my bag." "I can wash that. I don't care what you do. Get it out of here. Leave now." My other sister went, "What's going on?" I said, "I don't know." She said, "They said you was in a shootout." "Who was in a shootout? Do they got somebody that can witness it?" She said, "Father, I know people said no, that you was sitting up on the fire hydrant. Then you just fell over." "I don't know. Whatever."

But by that time, homicide came down several hours later. My boy was coming back. I done pulled the shit out of me. I'm trying to get out of the hospital. They done pulled, "Oh, where you think you going?" "What?" "You was in the shoe locker. You ain't going nowhere. We gotta question you unless you wanna go down there to 1300 Bowman while we question you." "Man, I gotta get back to the bed." I did and he put all the stuff back in me. The doctor said, "Man, you can't go nowhere. You tough."

When they brought you in, we thought you was dead. We just had to fill for a pump. You was gonna go down there till tomorrow. I said, "Well," he said, "but we finally found you. Then when we put you on the operating table, you start snowing." I said, "I was tired." Hold it, he's talking about, "Uh, you wanna talk to us?" I said, "Hell no." So I laid back on the bed and went to sleep.

As you just heard Boone explain, the Detroit Police Department showed up while Boone was still in the hospital and they had him handcuffed to the bed. They asked him questions about what he was doing that night, hoping to get information about any illegal activities. But Boone refused to talk and once they left, he asked the nurse to get him a phone so he could call his sister

He wanted her to come down to the hospital and destroy any evidence. Boone already knew that he couldn't trust the Detroit Police Department, as he would later state that half of them were already on his payroll. So instead, he decided to call the DEA, eventually to get revenge on Boogaloo Brown and those who had conspired to murder his little brother.

Boone cooperated with the authorities, he told them everything that he had witnessed during his years with the Best Friends gang. And he did all of this in an attempt to take down the remaining top six members of the group and to get immunity for his crimes. Ultimately, Boone received a 17-year prison sentence despite the fact that he admitted to killing 30 people.

In exchange for his testimony, this testimony would result in the prosecution of the best friends who were responsible for over 100 murders and thousands of kilos of crack cocaine infiltrating the streets of Detroit. Author Scott Bernstein said quote, "Boone got the deal he got because he could give the government something they wanted very badly."

So the feds decided they could live with themselves if they made a deal with the devil to eliminate another 25." For Boone, he didn't consider what he did as snitching because the men he told on had already tried to take his life and had successfully taken the life of his little brother. For Boone, as opposed to snitching, this was more of a type of revenge on his former colleagues who had already turned their backs on him.

In 1992, Rockin' Reggie Brown, who had already been sentenced to life in prison for murdering Stefan Roussel, had his sentence overturned by Judge Crockett III. It was discovered that he gave the wrong jury instructions during Stefan Roussel's murder case.

So from there, Rockin' Reggie Brown was released from prison on a $7,500 cash bond pending a new trial. However, the Court of Appeals eventually reinstated Reggie's conviction. But by that time, he had disappeared. Remember now, I never gave up my men. I just gave up those six people. That's it. They wanted me to give up more people. I don't know. I can't do that unless y'all let me walk all the way.

Other than that, just these six people that I believe that were responsible for killing my little brother and trying to kill me. And these are people y'all really want anyway. Yeah, we do want Terrence Boogaloo Brown back. So I knew that. Shit, I need to shout out to them guys. I know that. Shit. But I also want them too. I figured that once I give them up, I know I'm going to prison. But once we get in that prison, I've been there before. They haven't.

It gonna still carry on, we just won't have a gun. Even though I did have one in prison in Camp Waterloo and the parole camp. I had a gun there. But that's in one of my documentary too. But who was that?

I would get my train of thought that quick. I think I'm talking about Boo, but you know, like they wanted Boo. So they said, "Yeah, give us him." I said, "Yeah, and most likely when you catch all of them, they gonna give up people because they ain't never been in prison, none of them. And they gonna tell their brains out." Just like when they caught Chuck, he told everybody, gave up people that he was selling drugs to. I was like, "Damn, boy, you really snitched."

People talking about, but you snitched too. I snitched on the niggas that was trying to kill me and killed my little brother. Now people can't understand that, like I said. Let me come and kill your brother or your mama and you know it's me. But don't you tell. That's snitching.

Yeah, I'm going after you with everything I can and all because I get caught up on this murder Okay, but I'll give y'all up and bring you in there with me. I'm gonna let y'all stay out there while I'm serving time No, I'll give you up bring you in there with me and we gonna keep on fighting until either I'm dead or y'all dead But the fight don't stop

Word quickly spread that Boone and a few others were cooperating with the authorities, so Boogaloo and Rockin' Reggie Brown decided to run. But before they left Detroit, Rockin' Reggie had one last piece of business to attend to.

On May 12, 1992, Rockin' Reggie Brown opened fire on one of his associates named Alfred Austin, whom he knew had been working closely with the Feds to help them build a case. According to the story, Alfred had been arrested in Kentucky for multiple gun charges, and the Feds had stated that they were willing to cut him a deal if he gave them inside information about the Brown brothers and the Best Friends gang, amongst others.

When Reggie learned about this, he located Alfred and blasted him multiple times with an Uzi, killing not only Alfred, but also three other innocent bystanders nearby who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of those innocent bystanders killed during that shooting was a three-year-old girl. And once the hit was completed, Rockin' Reggie sped off and left Detroit and joined his brother Boogaloo in New York, where

where they hid out in harlem brooklyn and the bronx the two successfully stayed on the run and in hiding for a year until june of 1993 when the feds located them in new york at a bmw car dealership and hit them with a 56 count drug and racketeering indictment rock and reggie was immediately taken into custody at the dealership but boogaloo was somehow able to escape on his motorcycle and led the authorities on a high-speed chase through the city shockingly

he was able to lose the authorities and escape from them again, and eventually he ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. But this Georgian vacation from the long arm of the law wouldn't last for long, and quickly, Oogaloo Brown's violent lifestyle finally caught up with him.

His dead body was discovered on August 9th, 1993, wrapped in a garbage bag and a green Ralph Lauren polo sheet in the back of a GMC Yukon. Oogaloo Brown had been shot in the head. He was only 25 years old when he died.

but he had already in his short lifetime ordered the murders of over a hundred people trafficked millions of dollars worth of cocaine and other drugs and had held one of the highest positions possible in the underground detroit gang empire his murder to this day is still officially unsolved and nobody knows exactly who killed bukaloo brown

The case against Rockin' Reg Brown and the other five former Best Friends gang members went to trial in 1995, and Boone and a few other hitmen for the Best Friends testified for the prosecution. The other former members who testified included Stacy "The Machine" Culbert, Charles "Chucky Doe" Wilkes, and William "Bumpy" Wilkes. When Rockin' Reg was brought into the courtroom, he looked over at the Detroit drug officer who had arrested him in New York and said, "Bitch."

All 29 members of the Best Friends gang either pled guilty to the charges or were convicted of them, and that marked the official end of the final chapter of the Best Friends gang.

Law enforcement officer Robert DeFoss said, quote, End quote.

Did you get revenge on the guys who shot you all up? Oh, uh, the one that hit me with the AK, he came to the same prison I was at, but the prosecutor had told me, "Don't you do anything to him," so I didn't do anything to him because he wanted to be there in the prison where you were at. He said that he don't want to hear his booty taken. I got out on the street, I used to always scare them with that. I said, "Man, when you go to prison, oh man, you gonna make somebody a beautiful wife."

"Man, I ain't no punk." "You ain't gotta be. They gonna take you." "And you gonna love me later." "Man, I ain't going to prison. It's all about the shootouts." I said, "That's the thought I want them to think."

Police try to pull you out over, you better get out and blast at them. Boo did one day, the police tried to pull him over on West Grand Boulevard and he got out and blasted at that, jumped back into the room. Of course, later on, he turned himself in with his lawyer and he beat the case. I don't know how, but he beat that case. But yeah, basically it's just,

Power want more power until there is no power to take. So let's say you the top dog and I'm underneath you. I'm seeing you raking in all this money. I'm gonna knock this nigga off and take his money. And that's what people out here thinking. Now, the boy might say, "No, man, my boy would never do that." Yeah, we thought the same thing. And you see what Boo was doing? Boo was going around knocking off anybody knew about him killing anybody or doing anything.

And when he finally got down to several people, they finally figured it out. So they went upstairs and shot Boo in the head while he was in bed. Because they knew Boo was telling them to kill all these people off and they killing them, but it's their own means. So it finally dawned on them, hey man, we're killing anybody that knew about Boo mixed up in any way. Wait a minute, we know that. They took it from on their own to go do it. At least this is what I'm hearing from Chuck.

That's why they killed Boo while he was asleep. I think it was on his birthday or the day after his birthday, something like that, that they went there to party. That's why when they tried to throw the other guy a party, he found out about it and called Chuck and them up and told, "They gonna tell y'all think y'all gonna do, you think you gonna kill me? I'm coming for you, now. I'm coming for y'all." Everybody took off on the run, different states and so forth.

I can't remember what state they caught them all in, but yeah, they got them and they took cops. Now, they saying that they didn't tell. Oh, you the kind of snitch that'll tell, don't have to go to court. But you gave them the lead to go find these people by telling them, yeah, such and such and them sell drugs out of here, they be doing this. I believe they killed that person, this and that. Okay, they giving the cop the lead to put a group on them and watch them.

Some of the men, they were selling to these guys and they were telling on people that was underneath them. They wasn't giving nobody a high up because guess what? You was the high up. After y'all killed Boo off, y'all was the high up now. But they was blowing through money like it wasn't nothing. I was like, what's that? Yeah, man, we was buying them cars, jewelry, all that. I said, shh. That's why I never did that. Kept my money because you can understand if you're going to

try to get out of it even though I ain't never known nobody to retire. They either get married, prison, handicapped, but there is no such thing as retirement. Like a lot of guys talk, "Oh man, boom be lying." If I'm lying, you tell me what happened then. Mr. He's lying?

Boone was lucky to escape with his life.

and after serving 17 years in prison, he hoped that he would be placed into the Witness Protection Program, but that didn't happen. Instead, the feds rejected his plea to enter the program and he was forced to return to Michigan due to his probation requirements. When he returned, he had the same identity and no official police protection.

But he managed to make it through. Today, Boone lives a quiet life near Detroit and he refuses to hide. In fact, nowadays he can be seen frequently on social media discussing all of the gory, grisly details of his crimes.

When I spoke with Boone, he admitted to us, as we had discussed earlier, that the only murder that still haunts him to this day was the killing of the innocent cab driver who wasn't involved in the lifestyle, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as for the other 30 killings that he carried out, Boone is unrepentant. Oh man, that was love, okay? I got three years of anger in me for serving that time.

I need somebody to take him out on, Reds came up, come on man, come on man. They should talk to me. I said, what's up? He said, man, we want you to come work with us. I said, what's in it for me? He said, we need money, drugs, whatever you need. But we also want you to get to do things for us that, you know, I don't know if you got the balls to kill someone. I said, how much? He said, about $5,000. I said, $5,000, ain't no money. Come on man, come on with it.

"We probably can get you ten," I said. Nathaniel Boone Craft's legacy is a stark reminder of the devastating impact of gang violence and the scars that it can leave behind. We are going to be posting photos of this on our Instagram and Patreon. And the lifestyle left plenty of scars on Boone's body as well. In fact, his stomach and arms are covered in scar tissue.

remnants of the bloody murder attempts that almost claimed his life. Boone's story is also a reflection of the economic decline of Detroit during the 1980s. Back then, the abandoned city landscape was plagued with poverty and unemployment, which fueled and almost encouraged the riot of gang life and violent crime. - But I guess at the end of the day,

You kind of got a happier ending to your life specifically because you're alive You're not in prison right now. Would you say that that's better than what happened with other people that you knew? No really because certain my time got out lost everything I had and wind up a cripple and like I said either prison, death or cripple There's no such thing as retirement if people understand what I'm saying but uh

I wind up, you know, messed up, so now I get SSI. That's how I basically make my living now. Live off SSI and live a quiet, peaceful life. Even though the building I'm living in, all them old folks, they're like kids.

He doing this, he doing that. He smoking weed. They up there doing it. I heard them doing it. They just humping. All I was about, you jealous because he didn't come down there and hump you? Jesus. I mean, I hear this every day for the last five years. I'm like,

Y'all make me feel like I'm in prison. I ain't supposed to have a girlfriend. I ain't supposed to be parking my truck or car over there. I ain't supposed to be talking about anybody. But look at y'all, all seven of y'all sit down here and talk about everybody in this building. And I know y'all talk about me when I leave. I don't care. Just don't put your hands on me. They all know what I did in my past, because like I said,

I wasn't trying to hide anything or keep anything quiet. Yes, I did do anything. I served my time for it. Yeah, what you talking about? I got immunity. My name ain't Keith P.D. I'm not talking about something. I ain't got immunity problem.

Former drug dealer Rob Boyd said, The reality is, no matter how much money you make or power you achieve, you are always going to wind up in one of two ways. You're going to end up in a cell or a box. That's the bottom line, and it won't ever change no matter what year in history we're in. Rockin' Reggie was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is currently housed at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan.

And I'm going to end this episode with the final conversation that I had with Boone. These were the last words that he said to me in the basement of our Airbnb. Like I tell people, I love my haters. You ain't got nobody to hate on? Hate on me. You want me to sign an autograph for you or something? Take a picture with you? You can tell people, see that I know? A lot of people be seeing me out there, they be like, I say quit doing that. Yes, I'm Nate Boone Crabbe.

"Yeah, man, I thought you were a legend." I said, "There's nothing legend about what I did. If I could take it back, I would, but I would do it a different way. I'd still kill them, but I'd do it a different way." "You mean that you would do that like that?" "Hell yeah, I love the money. Sometimes I just like to get rid of bad people, because you got to understand, I killed no one innocent.

The only guy I killed was people that was mixed up into their lifestyle. You mix up into their lifestyle, you free game. There is no, "Well, no man, you can't kill me because I'm gonna..." They ain't your best friend. Or that's behind you looking at you like, they sizing you up because they just trying to figure out how can they kill you and get away with it. A lot of them do it and they wind up getting jammed up. Like Apple. Apple wanted to kill his boss and shit. I was like, "Man, that boy crazy."

But he did kill his one friend. They was friends. Shot him and threw him in the guy's damn book. I told Apple man, you can't go back to New York, man. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I can. I'll kill you. Can't you ask back there? They gonna kill you. And they did. I was like, damn. You got Apple, throw that motherfucker be up there flying around on a motorcycle and trucks. And they caught him in his truck, pulled up on him. But of course they knew, well,

They knew that he was gonna be somewhere because he always trying to showboat. He got out of that lifestyle for a long time, but then when he got out, he went into the witness protection program. He gave him a new name, but he missed it. He came back to New York, got into it again, same way with Sammy the Bull. He got out and ran back into that stupid stuff with his kids or whatever, and the mother kids told on his boy. Like, yeah.

The red gas niche don't buy his racks. But yeah, Seventy Bull, he was always trying to tell me I should be hanging around Philly. Oh no, I like Philly, man. Philly did work together. Well, not work, but I had to teach him something about blowing up things and he taught me things about doing it to hard. I don't want to put no wire in through the spot. Nah, my way is easier. But uh,

Yeah, I was in that prison with a lot of those high profile people were Carlos Leite, Sammy the Bull, Giovanni, that's his real name, Fat Cat, White Boy Rick, Tony. I mean, there's so many, I ain't gonna name them all, but we filed

a class action suit and everybody had to put their real names on there. So I got that list. My name was on there too. I wanted the suit too, but really I didn't give a damn we wanted it or not. I got everybody's name. I mean you're never too old to pull the trigger. - Awesome man. - But I advise people don't get in that lifestyle. If you can, please pick something else to get in because those are only three things you can look for. Prison, death, or cripple.

Can y'all tell me one person that y'all know retired? I don't want them to know about the little people that made some money or anything, they're bad. I'm talking about people after they get up on the kingpin level. Somebody's gonna want your power.

Hey everybody, it's Colin here. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America. Wow, what a journey this two-part series has been. We covered a lot of history in this one. The whole history of the bloody late 80s, early 90s gang warfare in Detroit. Obviously having these conversations with Boone was just crazy to be sitting here in the basement of our Airbnb and hearing him say these things to me.

Yeah, he's in a lot of documentaries if you want to go learn more about Boone's life story. I also have a full video of the interview I did with him posted on my YouTube channel. There are some quotes and...

and, you know, stories that I left out of these episodes that you can go find on YouTube. So if you want to actually watch him talk and kind of match a face to the story, you can go watch my documentary on YouTube on my channel, The Paranormal Files. If you love the show and you want to help support us, definitely consider signing up on our Patreon. You can get bonus episodes of the show. We've been working really hard to completely revamp the Patreon and add some more super high quality content on there.

If you also don't like the ads from the show and you want to get access to the episodes early, every Patreon tier gets early ad-free access to every episode of the show. So sometimes the episodes are even posted like a whole week early. So you can sign up for Patreon. But make sure to follow us on social media at Murder in America on Instagram. Join our Facebook group.

Also, don't forget to listen to our new podcast, The Conspiracy Files. New episodes are posted every Wednesday. It's on YouTube and on every streaming service like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in addition, if you're feeling spooky, you want to go watch some true crime documentaries or ghost hunting, head to my YouTube channel, The Paranormal Files. But yeah, this has been a crazy two-part series. Thank you everybody so much for listening. I can't wait to see you guys next week. And yeah, I'll catch y'all on the next one.