Gregory James Kading (born May 1, 1963) is an American author and former

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

detective best known for working on a multi law-enforcement task force that investigated the murders of rappers

Tupac Shakur Tupac Amaru Shakur (; born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor, regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all tim ...

and

Biggie Smalls Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper. Rooted in the New York rap scene and gangsta rap tradi ...

in the mid-2000s. Many credit Kading and his LAPD task force for the 2023 arrest of Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis for the September 1996 murder of Tupac.

Early life and education

Greg Kading was born in

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

. He graduated from

Capistrano Valley High School Capistrano Valley High School (often called CVHS or Capo) is a public high school at the southern border of Mission Viejo, California, USA, that is run by the Capistrano Unified School District. It is set on a hilltop overlooking the San Dieg ...

Mission Viejo, California Mission Viejo ( ; language change, corruption of ; ) is a Commuter town, commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest Planned community, master-planned commu ...

in 1981. He attended

Cal State Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), also known in athletics as Long Beach State University (LBSU), is a public teaching-focused institution in Long Beach, California, United States. The 322-acre campus is the second largest in the ...

and

Calvary Chapel Bible College Calvary Chapel Bible College is an evangelical Christian Biblical studies college located at 4200 32nd St. W. in Bradenton, Florida. The campus relocated to Murrieta Hot Springs in Murrieta, California from 1994 to Summer 2022. In July 2022, C.C ...

Career

Kading was an Orange County Sheriff's Department deputy, where he worked in the jail, from January 1986 to September 1988. He then joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1988. He retired from the department, where he worked in the robbery-homicide division, after 22 years of service in June 2010. The following year, Kading released his book. A full-length documentary adapted from his book began shooting in 2013. He works as a private investigator in Southern California. In February 2021, Kading was featured in the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

docu-series Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

'' Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel'' that covers the

death of Elisa Lam On February 19, 2013, the body of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam (born as Lam Ho-yi'';'' ) was recovered from a large cistern atop the Stay on Main hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where she had been a guest. She was last seen alive on January 31 and ...

Book

In September 2011, he self-published the book ''Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations''. In it, he included new evidence in the rappers' murders that he said implicated entertainment mogul

Sean Combs Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), better known by his stage name Diddy, and formerly Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, is an American rapper, record producer, and record executive. Born in Harlem and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, Mount Ve ...

and CEO of Death Row Records,

Suge Knight Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. ( ; born April 19, 1965) is an American former record executive, former National Football League, NFL player, and convicted felon, who is the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. Knight was a central f ...

. The release prompted what MediaBistro.com called "a new round of explosive media coverage about the unsolved killings". Combs responded to the allegation by telling Los Angeles local reporters in emails that "this story is pure fiction and completely ridiculous". Knight has not addressed the claim.

Lil' Cease James Lloyd, better known by his stage name Lil' Cease, (; born August 20, 1977) is an American rapper and former member of hip hop group Junior M.A.F.I.A. Early life, family and education James Lloyd was born in Brooklyn, a borough of New Y ...

, a rapper and childhood friend of Smalls, told radio host

Sway Calloway Jonathan Ahmad Calloway (born July 3, 1971), known as Sway, is an American radio personality, journalist and former rapper known for hosting music, news, and culture programming. He was an on-air reporter and host for MTV News and occasional non- ...

on the "Sway in the Morning"-show that he didn't believe Combs had ordered Shakur's shooting as Kading alleged in his book. In response to Combs's denial of the claims, Kading said on the ''All-out-Attack-Podcast'' with Harry Robinson that Combs needs to "let the people have what they deserve, and what they deserve is the truth". The book also details what Kading described as the behind-the-scenes failure by the LVMPD and

LAPD The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

to arrest Shakur's and Wallace's killers. The families of Shakur and Wallace have not responded to the allegations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kading, Greg American police detectives American deputy sheriffs Living people Los Angeles Police Department officers American male non-fiction writers American non-fiction crime writers 1963 births People from Reno, Nevada