Will Tupac trial resurrection follow?
The mystery surrounding the 1996 murder of gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur has taken another surprising turn: Walter “King Tut” Johnson, the much-talked-about suspect in Tupac’s first, nonfatal 1994 Times Square studio shooting, is back in town. He’s been transferred from a Virginia penitentiary, where he was serving life for an unrelated robbery charge, to a cell in lower Manhattan. Some suspected Tut in Tupac’s murder in Las Vegas as well, but Tut denied involvement in both shootings and has never been charged. According to his brother-in-law Richard Garrett, Tut has been in solitary at the Metropolitan Correctional Center since last month, though the family hasn’t been told why he was moved. Perhaps coincidentally, Jacques “Haitian Jack” Agnant, another onetime Tupac foe, is also now in residence at the MCC. The moves may suggest that federal prosecutors, who did not return calls, could be on the verge of a breakthrough in the ’94 shooting, which might in turn help solve the murder.
— Greg Sargent
The mystery surrounding the 1996 murder of gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur has taken another surprising turn: Walter “King Tut” Johnson, the much-talked-about suspect in Tupac’s first, nonfatal 1994 Times Square studio shooting, is back in town. He’s been transferred from a Virginia penitentiary, where he was serving life for an unrelated robbery charge, to a cell in lower Manhattan. Some suspected Tut in Tupac’s murder in Las Vegas as well, but Tut denied involvement in both shootings and has never been charged. According to his brother-in-law Richard Garrett, Tut has been in solitary at the Metropolitan Correctional Center since last month, though the family hasn’t been told why he was moved. Perhaps coincidentally, Jacques “Haitian Jack” Agnant, another onetime Tupac foe, is also now in residence at the MCC. The moves may suggest that federal prosecutors, who did not return calls, could be on the verge of a breakthrough in the ’94 shooting, which might in turn help solve the murder.
— Greg Sargent
