Notorious B.I.G. Informant Recants

Informant Had Implicated Suge Knight, But Now Says It Was 'Hearsay'

(AP) 
Based on the informant's statements, police searched Death Row's office and several of Knight's homes. They could not find any evidence linking Mack, Muhammad or Knight to Wallace's slaying. In 2000, the LA Times reported that Muhammad was no longer a suspect in the case.

The theory was revived, however, in 2003 when an FBI agent in Los Angeles saw a VH-1 special on Wallace's death and contacted the informant, who told him that Muhammad had confessed to Wallace's slaying at a Compton party in early 1998, according to the deposition.

The FBI had the man wear a wire and try to elicit a taped confession from Muhammad, who instead called 911 when the informant showed up on his doorstep twice in a 24-hour period.

The FBI, who declined to comment to the Times, shut down its investigation in January.

In the recent deposition, the informant admits that he never met Muhammad before picking him out of the 1998 photo lineup. He says he guessed at the correct photo because Muhammad had short hair in his picture, which seemed to match with his Islamic name.

Investigators have pursued various other theories, including one that the killing, and that of rap star Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas the year before, was the result of a feud between hip hop figures from the East and West coasts.

Shakur was the biggest West Coast hip hop star of his time, and he regularly exchanged insults and threats with Wallace, his East Coast counterpart.