Tupac Murder Trial: Grisly Autopsy Photos Revealed As Former Gang Member Declares Himself A “Hostile” Witness

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, August nineteenth, and what are day in the Tupac trial. Day two of testimony highlighted by graphic photos that were shown for the first time in public, also highlighted by one hostile witness. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes. The hostile witness part. We've all seen that part in a movie or a TV show where an attorney will turn to the judge and say permission to treat him as a hostile witness. Rose, this was real life. I've never seen the witness say you should probably treat me as a hostile witness.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, he declared himself a hostile witness before that was and that I mean, look, it was incredibly serious and enlightening to hear what mob James McDonald had to say on the stand. And at times it was hilarious. But this is some serious stuff.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: Would you agree given all that's going on, he brought genuine levity. He brought authenticity to that stand. He brought some real He probably enlightened folks. He was so believable because he was so authentic. Robes, it was in the I know we are talking about a murder from thirty years ago. But this guy added some of the most human moments in this short trial so far.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I was telling you, look, you have We've just had conversations based on certain things in the news, just about street code and stuff that like someone who looks like me, who grew up like me, has no clue about. So to hear somebody who was in that world in the realist of ways get up there and describe life and then refuse to testify about what really happened and authentically say yeah, that's not how we do things, and I'm not going to start doing it now. It was fascinating.

00:02:02
Speaker 1: Sixty one still holding on a street code, and they kind of gave him a pass on the stand. I mean, I guess the judge could have compelled him, or the attorneys could have pushed and forced a little more, and they actually didn't. They held him with kind of kid gloves. He seemed to be in charge of all the questions.

00:02:17
Speaker 2: He did, and he, you know what, multiple times directed his answers at Duayne Davis himself, who seemed stonefaced reportedly did not react at all. These guys are enemies. These guys are rivals. And at one point even says I don't even like you. He said, I don't want to send him to prison, even though we don't like each other. And then he turns to Davis and says, I don't want to send you to prison. And he actually got so frustrated with Davis's own attorney because he was getting him or leading him into basically saying that his own client was there and was a part of.

00:02:55
Speaker 3: The group that fired shots at TUPAC.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: And so it was so interesting to see McDonald get frustrated and actually turn to Davis and say, cover your lawyer, man. That dude is tripping, like stop getting tell him to stop trying to get me to say something bad about you.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: And he wasn't being admonished for this by the attorney. The attorney seemed, I don't want to say intimidated, but they maybe they did not take the authoritative position, they were not in charge. When he pushed back, they just kind of okay, all right, I guess we'll do it that way. Oh sorry, sorry, sorry, didn't mean to say it like that. This guy thirty years later, sixty one years old, still sticking to street code. This ain't what we do. I do not get called into a court of law and sit up here and tell anybody anything that's going to put a brother in prison.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: He literally to it, said that my favorite moment was when the prosecutor asked him, are you aware of why Orlando Anderson was beaten? And look, this is central to the case because this is the motive that prosecutors say was behind the killing and the shooting and killing of Tubac Shakur, That there was a beatdown that happened a few hours earlier. So he said, are you aware of why Orlando Anderson was beaten? McDonald says, I'm aware of a.

00:04:18
Speaker 3: Lot of things. Things that was going on.

00:04:20
Speaker 2: People ain't talked about them in thirty years. Today ain't one of them. They happen today, Me or anybody else. Bringing up the dead is wrong. And that's when he said, you better treat me as a hostile witness.

00:04:31
Speaker 1: And there was some and the quotes might read one way, they didn't read intimidatingly. In the courtroom. He didn't come off like somebody who's threatening everybody robes. He was jovial at times, he was loose. He even delivering that man, you better treat me as the house of witness. I'm telling you right now, he was just this was some entertaining stuff. Every some major trials, get your you get your Kato Kalin's, you get your crazy witnesses.

00:04:58
Speaker 3: He the star witness for sure.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: And yes, the one point where everyone the entire courtroom broke out and laughter when the prosecutor and I would say stupidly but ridiculously asks him after he's made it clear he's not going to tell them anything if he was aware of rivalries between the gangs.

00:05:18
Speaker 3: And he looked at him and said, are you serious?

00:05:23
Speaker 1: I get you know what. That's a moment where I where a lawyer forgets to be a human being for a second. And he was asking what he thought was maybe a smart or lawyered question that's going to lead to the next thing in building a case. It is ridiculous to ask a longtime gang member if there were fights or beefs between any members of the gangs that you were aware of?

00:05:45
Speaker 3: Huh?

00:05:46
Speaker 1: The guy he had the answer, we all had, are you kidding? Of course there were? You idiot?

00:05:51
Speaker 2: Next question, like the entire courtroom started laughing. Wonder what that moment was like for the attorney was a little sheepish space.

00:06:02
Speaker 3: He did.

00:06:03
Speaker 2: He actually comes up, so he does becomes a very nerdy uh when he's talking, and just in direct comparison to the witness on the stand, it was it was it was something, and with all of that levity, it was grizzly, it was dark, it was tough. When a forensic pathologist, the medical examiner there took the stand, several members of Tubak Shakur's family got up and left the courtroom. And you know what, it struck me because even though it's been thirty years, you know, you think, okay, time heals all wounds, right, maybe it wouldn't be as difficult with that much time having passed to actually learn about or see what happened to your loved one.

00:06:43
Speaker 3: No, it still hurts so much.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: It's such a difficult thing to process that several members of the family got up and left before she took the stand. Several were described as turning their heads when the photos were shown, and one woman don't we I don't know which family member was actually got up in the middle.

00:07:02
Speaker 3: Of it and walked out because she couldn't take it anymore.

00:07:04
Speaker 1: I assume. And I've actually been impressed with lawyers. In particularly, it's been prosecutors I think in cases we've seen robes to just how they coordinate and work with families in the courtroom and actually give them a heads up and say do you want to step out right now? This is about to happen. I think some lawyers gave them a heads up about what was coming. I appreciate some of these human moments that we see in some of these awful trials robes, but they are describing stuff that no one has seen the family. Nobody has seen autopsy photos of a bullet written body of one of the greatest wrap icons the world has ever known. Robes. That's an image that is just the thought of it is mind modeling.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just we see all those images of Tupac's that last final one of him in the car. But because yes, this has been under investigation, no one has ever been held accountable for his murder. You're right, the crime scene photos and the autopsy photos have never been seen or released. And look, they were described as grizzly, as brutal, his body bloated with chests sorry, with tubes still coming out of his chest because he was hospitalized for six days before he actually died, but they went through what the bullets did to his lung, to his abdomen, to his intestines, to his chest. I mean, it was brutal and difficult to process, and I thought this was significant. The woman, doctor Lisa Gavin, who was on the stand, she wasn't the medical examiner who actually did the autopsy on Tupac because that medical examiner has died because it was thirty years ago, so she had to review the case and testify to it. That just shows you how long it's been. The medical examiner isn't here to tell about the autopsy.

00:09:00
Speaker 1: Finishing my freshman year of college when this happened. So these folk, yeah, this makes sense, and some of these all these guys are retired, These old guys are giving testimony and all this stuff. Now, woman who took the stand, the witness who was in the car head up with heads to the club. You can imagine that woman with some young woman hot running around the streets following a rapper. What does she look like now?

00:09:21
Speaker 3: She looked like a mother. Has had a different life, like mother or grandmother.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: Even Yeah, it's so funny you say that, because when I was watching her testify I thought, oh, I can see how she was like this hot thing when she was younger. Like it's true, that's how much time has passed the other really and this was the final witness.

00:09:36
Speaker 3: This was fascinating.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: I didn't realize all of this, but Reggie Wright Junior, former Compton police officer, and at the time he had when when the shooting took place, he ended up going into private he was security contracted by Suge Knight's death row records. So a lot of people and you, I'm sure are more aware of this than I was, believe that he killed Tupac Shakur Out. He has been implicated for all these years. A lot of conspiracy theorists believe he's the guy who killed Tupac, and here he is now on the stand testifying it's It was a big moment.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: And Rose that's We've talked about this in several cases and some currently going on. That just roges when there's a lack of information, there is a lack of official information, when people haven't been no one's been held accountable, was it. You've got so many people trying to piece it together themselves out there, Internet sluice, internet detectives, right Tiktocket. They have a name for them now or whatever, TikTok detect Us, whatever it is. They're trying to piece it together. So yeah, folks, you can find stuff online now, Robes that by the time I'll give you fifteen minutes, by the time you get finished reading, you'll go, oh, yeah, this is the guy who killed through Buck. Because they have been able to piece things together. They grab this, the grab this little nugget because it's not official information. But yes, this guy's been attached for a long time.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he and he and so he probably was very happy and maybe even grateful to be able.

00:11:03
Speaker 3: To stand to clear his name. But it was interesting.

00:11:06
Speaker 2: He was detailing the escalating tensions between Death Row Records and Diddy's Bad Boy Records, and that's, of course so so fascinating. He talked about how he doubled Shaker's security after the Hit Him Up disc track, and Biggie Small's was killed six months after that track was released. So all of these just fascinating stories that don't or haven't had answers.

00:11:31
Speaker 3: They're not stories real life deaths.

00:11:36
Speaker 1: They imagine Robes Drake and Kendrick Lamar having people in their crews who were literal criminals, felons, gangsters caring weapons. This is what it was. It was a vicious, vicious rap beef. They just happened to have real gangsters in their cruise with him when it turned deadly. This is what we're talking about, folks. It's the same thing Drake and Kendrick saying awful things about each other in lyrics, but there's a difference. These dudes were real gangsters. And if anybody hasn't rose, you know it's one of my favorite songs, Hit Him Up by Tupac's Shakur. When you get done listening to us here it is called hit Him Up. Make sure you listen to the explicit version on Spotify if you want to get an idea. You can tell he is genuinely angry. He is firing off literal death threats in this song. It goes beyond not like us right with Kendrick. We can dance to that. You hear Tupac robes, you know he is angry and you feel he would pull the trigger himself if he had a chance.

00:12:49
Speaker 2: He wasn't going to be doing a halftime show at the Super Bowl anytimes.

00:12:52
Speaker 1: This song could not play and I saw again. You hear me play it, and you hear me talk about it. Hit him up. It is known maybe as the most vicious distrack ever created.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: It's so crazy like and here it is now being discussed and testified to in court with just finally folks getting some answers and justice potentially going to be served for the killing death of Tupac Shakur.

00:13:19
Speaker 1: We've been learning a lot over the thirty years. That was one detail that was interesting to me that that song actually set off new security concerns.

00:13:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that he had to double his security and he said the night Shakur was shot, he only had one security guard with him. How crazy is that? But yes, the testimony ended yesterday with Reggie Wright Junior officially saying when he was asked, did you have anything to do with Tupac Shakur's death, his answer absolutely not. The two final words of testimony on Tuesday pretty compelling stuff. When we come back, we're going to talk about what Shakur's family had to say about a wild day in court and it's really fascinating to hear directly from his relatives and welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. Yeah, it was a wild interesting day in court, one like I've never seen before. I learned a tremendous amount, heard a little bit about the backstories from you from time to time, listening to some music. But it was remarkable to see it all testified to in court. And for the family of Tupac Shakur, a big group of them are in the courtroom every day. I thought this was really kind of cool. Her name is Sekiwa set is how she goes by Shakur. That's his sister, and Mopreme secure have been in the courtroom. But she walked over to journalists at the end of the day Tuesday and they report this and thanked them for being there, said thank you for covering the trial. Thank you, and put a hand over her heart, and then walked over to her brother, who then looked at the journalist and nodded in agreement, like they were thanking the press for covering this because it's been so long and they've just spent all this time suffering without any answers and certainly without any justice. And his cousin actually spoke and he said his name was Zaid. He said, I feel like the details, especially for the people that are close to him helps in the grief process. We've been waiting thirty years to grieve properly. A lot of people don't get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened. And that's why I wanted to stay. I just want to see for my own personal closure. He's the one who said he didn't know that his own cousin had been shot four times. Like that's how closely guarded some of the details have been surrounding his death. That he was learning about how his cousin died and what it was like. And he said, I'm very spiritual, so just the body he stayed for the autopsy photos didn't affect me the same way it might sum. I do believe that his spirit is still around and still lives on through his family and through his legacy. I just I thought it was you know, we so often forget about the people who are left behind, the people who are waiting for justice, the people who loved this man, who is such an.

00:16:20
Speaker 3: Icon, a cultural icon. He was more than that.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: He was a brother, he was a cousin, he was a son. You know, we forget about that part of who.

00:16:28
Speaker 1: He was, and that's why there. I'm sure they wondered and even worried that maybe this trial wouldn't get coverage, that maybe after thirty years, nobody really gave a damn. Maybe the mainstream folks don't care about this. So yeah, they do appreciate it. And Rob, we've talked about this a lot lately with death row cases we've covered, and how unfair it is and how these families never get closure because even though somebody's convicted, the death penalty isn't carried out for another thirty or forty years, so they have to sit and they have to wait. These folks have been waiting for thirty years too for justice and for somebody to be held accountable, so they're finally they have robes. They've been suffering for all this time waiting. So in that regard, when I think about the death penalty cases we've been covering, robes, they've had no semblance of none.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: And I wonder like this whole notion of street code, where you know, even though McDonald obviously I would think absolutely could have given damning testimony against Twayne Davis and chose not to for street code, how does that sit with family members who lived that life, who lived in those same neighborhoods, who who was around all of that. How does that plan into their need for justice.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: It's just an it's built in. I mean, it's just a built in part of life, of culture, of black culture, of street culture. A lot of times we don't have a good relationship with the police sometimes, so we already have our doubts about them. I mean, hell, some people get robbed and things happened. Last person you want to call is the police to come to your house.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: Which is a absolute crazy thought to most white people in this country.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: Just the mind. It's just everything he said, I think I talked to you about it ahead of time, or you say yeah, is that it's just understood. So it's a built in part of life. So if you want to if you want to solve a crime, you all do it on your own. You're not getting help from us, even though sometimes we're the victim of those damn crimes, which in our own community.

00:18:41
Speaker 2: Speaks exactly to what that police officer testified to on Monday in the first day of testimony, when Tupac could still still talk in the in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he said, who shot you? Obviously the police officer wanted to know, and Tupac said to him, don't worry, we got it, like, we'll take care of it.

00:19:06
Speaker 3: Shocking to me.

00:19:07
Speaker 1: But not to you, but to see, yeah, just just this now, I'm shocked at how in the condition he was that that was still on his mind.

00:19:13
Speaker 3: Street code, still still like we got it, and you know.

00:19:16
Speaker 1: What he was thinking, probably the moment revenge. Yeah, like I'm not gonna wait for y'all to work. Go maybe arrest somebody, and then rose as a as a joke that police don't solve crimes involved in black rappers because a long time it was big and because of Tupac, because of this, and if you want to get away with a crime, kill somebody and just put a demo tape in his pocket, I think that's Chris Rock joke. Just put a just put a rap demo tape in his pocket and the police will go, ah, no, nothing to do here, nothing to see here. If all this was in Tupac's mind in that moment, that we have to exact street justice for what just happened to me. We have to make sure that person gets killed, not prosecuted in that that's shocking that his head was still possibly there in that.

00:20:01
Speaker 2: Moment, right, Probably one of the last things he probably said in that.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: Moment, he assumed he was going to survive. Yeah.

00:20:09
Speaker 2: Oh, and they even described it in testimony that they when they got to the clubs and people who still went on to the club, rumor had already gotten around that Tupac was talking, so he was going to be fine, Like everyone was shocked when he died six days later. All right, we'll continue to watch the very eventful and fascinating trial going on there in Las Vegas. We always appreciate you listening to us, every one on any roboch alongside TJ.

00:20:30
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk soon.