Actor Johnny Depp will star in Brad Furman’s Labyrinth, a thriller about the unsolved murders of rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.
Depp will be portraying Detective Russell Poole, a former Los Angeles police detective who was the main investigator for the two murders in the late 90s. Poole had a few theories as to who killed Biggie Smalls (real name Christopher Wallace). One of his theories revolved around Death Row Records mogul Suge Knight, whom he believed might have orchestrated the rapper’s drive-by shooting in order to get out of paying him millions of dollars in royalties.
He also believed that Knight was aided by LAPD officer David Mack to murder Biggie in retaliation for the murder of Tupac earlier that year.
“Had we’d been able to aggressively investigate [the B.I.G. shooting] and had the heart to connect the two and do a thorough investigation, I think we probably would have found out more information,” said Poole in Nick Broomfield’s 2002 documentary Biggie & Tupac.
Ultimately, the former detective left the force and devoted much of his efforts to the case. He passed away in 2015 from a heart attack.
Labyrinth is adapted from the 2003 book by Randall Sullivan, titled LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal.
