March 21, 1997

By Cathy Scott
LAS VEGAS SUN

The television show "Unsolved Mysteries" received more than 250 calls after airing a segment about the Las Vegas murder of rap and film star Tupac Shakur.

"That's a good number for us," said Judy Storch, a producer with the NBC program. "We aired a 'lost love' case that was fairly solvable, but we got more calls on Tupac."

FBI agents standing by interviewed some of the callers after the March 14 broadcast, she said.

The show has been forwarding tip sheets to Metro Police's homicide unit since Monday, Storch said.

"We are reading every one of them," said homicide Sgt. Kevin Manning.

Calls were still coming in Wednesday, Storch said. The show's solve rate is 28 percent, according to program statistics.

One tip appeared to be a hot one, but the person did not leave a telephone number out of fear of retaliation, so police can't follow it up, Manning said.

Workers in a phone center take all the calls during and after each show, Storch said.

"If there's a really good tip, a hot tip, the phone agent holds up a red card and the FBI agents and local law enforcement officers will listen in on the call to see if it's a good case," she said.

The center received what they and FBI agents considered to be a few "valid callers" after the Shakur story ran, Storch said.

Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen, who is overseeing the investigation, said, "If we get one call out of a thousand, it's worth it."

Metro was invited to go to the phone center when the program aired, but didn't send anyone. Local law enforcement officers often stand by in the phone center when their cases are aired in case a good tip comes in, Storch said.

Shakur, 25, was shot Sept. 7 on Flamingo Road at Koval Lane when a Cadillac drove up next to a BMW in which Shakur was riding and opened fire. Shakur, who was shot three times, died six days later at University Medical Center. The BMW driver, Marion "Suge" Knight, 31, was grazed. The two had attended the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight boxing match at the MGM Grand about three hours earlier.

Killed in a similar shooting on March 10 was rapper The Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls, outside a Los Angeles party. Like Shakur, the 24-year-old Notorious B.I.G. was sitting in the passenger seat of a car after a well-attended event when a gunman in another car opened fire.

Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. were two top names in hip-hop rap, and both were shot to death in what some have called gang-style hits, possibly over an East Coast-West Coast rap rival or a Los Angeles-based gang dispute.

Both performed for record labels that were targets of federal investigations. The night they were killed, both were with their record label producers -- Shakur was with Knight, owner of Death Row Records on the West Coast, and Biggie was with Puffy Combs, owner of Bad Boy Entertainment on the East Coast.

Las Vegas police have not officially identified a gunman in the Shakur case. Los Angeles police are reportedly looking into gang ties in Notorious B.I.G.'s death, while also looking for possible connections to the Shakur case.

Metro detectives, however, have said the cases don't appear to be related.