Latest / DISGRACELAND / Peter Tosh (Pt. 2): A Home Invasion, an Assassination, and No Compromise

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Peter Tosh (Pt. 2): A Home Invasion, an Assassination, and No Compromise · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The Peter Tosh story.
0:20
Speaker 1: His role as a reggae revolutionary who rejected peace in
0:24
Speaker 1: the name of truth and justice, an outspoken critic of
0:28
Speaker 1: the Jamaican government whose refusal to compromise nearly cost him
0:32
Speaker 1: his life many times over, is so complex that we
0:36
Speaker 1: needed two episodes to properly tell it. If you're just
0:40
Speaker 1: getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause
0:43
Speaker 1: and go back to the last episode of Disgraceland, part
0:46
Speaker 1: one of the Peter Tosh story. In this episode, we
0:50
Speaker 1: get into Peter Tosh's attempt to take his revolutionary message
0:54
Speaker 1: to the airwaves by buying out Jamaica's radio one, his
0:59
Speaker 1: need to protect himself by way of African bush doctors
1:02
Speaker 1: and medicine men, and his shocking and brutal murder which
1:07
Speaker 1: happened inside his own home, carried out by someone he knew.
1:12
Speaker 1: This is a story about the cost that Peter Tosh
1:15
Speaker 1: paid for getting up, standing up, and speaking his mind
1:19
Speaker 1: through his actions and his music. Great music, unlike that
1:24
Speaker 1: music I played for you at the top of the show.
1:27
Speaker 1: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for
1:31
Speaker 1: my melotron called Incessant Cha Cha MK two. I played
1:37
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:40
Speaker 1: La Bamba by Los Lobos. And why would I play
1:43
Speaker 1: you that specific slice of Yono soemeronaro cheese. Could I
1:48
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
1:52
Speaker 1: America on September eleventh, nineteen eighty seven, And that was
1:57
Speaker 1: the day that three armed men made their way named
2:00
Speaker 1: Peter Tosh's house, ordered everyone inside down on their bellies
2:05
Speaker 1: and did not leave until three people were dead. On
2:10
Speaker 1: this episode Revolutionary Messages, Radio one, medicine men, armed men
2:17
Speaker 1: and the assassination of Peter Tosh. I'm Jake Brennan and
2:22
Speaker 1: this is disgrace lamp. In Jamaica, music was like food
2:51
Speaker 1: or water and essential for human life. Reggae music in
2:55
Speaker 1: particular was built around the heartbeat, and they quickly became
2:59
Speaker 1: the heartbeat of the country. It beat everywhere in homes
3:04
Speaker 1: and corner stores, restaurants and bars, on front steps and
3:08
Speaker 1: street corners. But no heartbeat was as powerful as a
3:12
Speaker 1: Jamaican sound system. A generator, some turntables, in huge speakers,
3:19
Speaker 1: the bigger the better, stacked on top of each other
3:22
Speaker 1: in a truck bed to form a wall of sound,
3:25
Speaker 1: steelhorn speakers strung up in the trees or propped up
3:28
Speaker 1: on rooftops, dancehall parties, and spinning dub plates, the heartbeat
3:34
Speaker 1: thumping loud and clear from one neighborhood to the next,
3:37
Speaker 1: the sound of life in the face of great adversity,
3:41
Speaker 1: stretching on for miles in any direction. Tonight, however, was
3:46
Speaker 1: different than most Tonight. There was no music in the
3:50
Speaker 1: Kingston air, only the sound of crickets and tree frogs
3:54
Speaker 1: serenading the sun as it sank slowly below the horizon.
3:58
Speaker 1: In the sun's place, the sky was streaked blood red.
4:03
Speaker 1: Within minutes, all leftover color faded away, and then there
4:09
Speaker 1: was just darkness. Out of that darkness rumbled three motorcycles.
4:15
Speaker 1: They came up Kingston's Plymouth Avenue. Before stopping outside a house,
4:20
Speaker 1: the three drivers killed their engines. The man leading the trio,
4:24
Speaker 1: Dennis Leppo Loebin knew that his buddy Peter Tosh was
4:27
Speaker 1: home along with his common law wife Marlene Brown, and
4:31
Speaker 1: by the sound of it, they had company. Leppo had
4:35
Speaker 1: crashed parties before, He was a regular at Peter's plays.
4:39
Speaker 1: He wasn't a musician or revolutionary or anyone of great importance.
4:43
Speaker 1: For that matter. It was a common criminal, but also
4:46
Speaker 1: a friend. Some called him a leech, a moocher. Leppo
4:50
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't that simple. There was a reason he
4:53
Speaker 1: did the things he did, even the thing he was
4:56
Speaker 1: about to do tonight. Peter knew why Marlene two. It
5:01
Speaker 1: was no longer the nineteen sixties or the nineteen seventies,
5:05
Speaker 1: but even now, in nineteen eighty seven, times were tough.
5:09
Speaker 1: Some days your reputation was all you had, and it
5:13
Speaker 1: could be a struggle to maintain even that. Leppo thought
5:17
Speaker 1: about the stacks of fresh green cash Peter had stashed
5:21
Speaker 1: inside American cash, cash he'd just made on a lucrative tour,
5:27
Speaker 1: the kind of cash the person who stepped into Bob
5:29
Speaker 1: Marley's shoes made. Thinking about money made Leppo impatient. He
5:35
Speaker 1: rattled the gate that surrounded Peter's house to signal his arrival,
5:38
Speaker 1: and the dogs began to bark. Inside the house, Peter
5:42
Speaker 1: Tosh asked his friend Michael Robinson to go let in
5:45
Speaker 1: the remaining guests waiting at the gate. Peter and Marlene
5:48
Speaker 1: were expecting local DJ Jeff Dixon aka FREEI and his
5:53
Speaker 1: wife to join them. For dinner, along with Michael, who
5:56
Speaker 1: was already here with Herbilis Wilton, Doc Brown, and Carlton
6:00
Speaker 1: Santa Davis. The dogs were still barking when Michael stepped outside.
6:06
Speaker 1: Seconds later, the dog stopped. Then the door opened and
6:11
Speaker 1: Michael came back inside, followed not by a DJ Freey,
6:15
Speaker 1: but by Dennis, Leppo, Lobin and the two men with him.
6:20
Speaker 1: These men weren't here for a dinner party. They all
6:23
Speaker 1: had guns in their hands. Zero fox looks on their faces,
6:27
Speaker 1: and Leppo raised his pistol in the air. This is
6:30
Speaker 1: a hold up, he said. He looked over to Marlene,
6:34
Speaker 1: and it's you why this is happening. Leppo then turned
6:37
Speaker 1: to Santa Davis dread lay down. Santa did as he
6:42
Speaker 1: was told. He dropped to the floor and got on
6:44
Speaker 1: his belly. Leppo, waving his gun around, told the rest
6:48
Speaker 1: of them to do the same. Peter, Marlene, Michael, Doc
6:53
Speaker 1: Peter thought of the pain he'd endured at the hands
6:55
Speaker 1: of seven police officers some nine years prior. He also
6:59
Speaker 1: thought of the ghost he found living there in his
7:01
Speaker 1: house on Plymouth Avenue when he first moved in. Forty
7:05
Speaker 1: nine of them. He had to persuade them to vacate
7:08
Speaker 1: the premises one by one. He was the duppy conqueror.
7:12
Speaker 1: He was ready to do that again, now, ready to
7:15
Speaker 1: usher evil back out the front door, ready to fight.
7:19
Speaker 1: He thought of Bob Marley, attacked just like this in
7:22
Speaker 1: his own home. Forced to think quick, to save his
7:26
Speaker 1: own life, think on his feet. Marlene shot Peter a look,
7:30
Speaker 1: a look that said, remember, our other friends will be
7:33
Speaker 1: here soon, and we don't want them involved in this.
7:37
Speaker 1: Let's get this over with quick. Peter told himself he
7:40
Speaker 1: wasn't doing this for Leppo, he was doing it for Marlen.
7:44
Speaker 1: He got down on his belly. Leppo wanted to know
7:47
Speaker 1: where the money was. Peter shook his head. There was
7:50
Speaker 1: no money, not the kind of money Leppo was talking about,
7:54
Speaker 1: not in the house that is. Peter wasn't some street
7:57
Speaker 1: dealer who kept his bills stuffed under his mattress. He
8:00
Speaker 1: was a major recording artist on EMI Records. Now, he
8:03
Speaker 1: had international bank accounts, he had accountants. He never even
8:07
Speaker 1: touched the money he made on his recent tour. All
8:10
Speaker 1: of that was handled for him. Leppo was pissed. He
8:14
Speaker 1: didn't believe his old friend. All those shows, those stadiums
8:18
Speaker 1: and clubs, and big time American cities, while Leppo was
8:22
Speaker 1: left behind here in Jamaica barely scraping by, and Peter
8:27
Speaker 1: had nothing to show for it. Bullshit. Leppo told the
8:31
Speaker 1: two other gunmen to go find the real money. They
8:34
Speaker 1: pulled out drawers and overturned cushions, ransacked the place, determined
8:39
Speaker 1: to find the cash that Lepo promised them was there. Eventually,
8:42
Speaker 1: they returned empty hand into the room where Peter, Marlene,
8:45
Speaker 1: and the others remained on the floor, their heads arranged
8:48
Speaker 1: in a semi circle. One of the gunmen pulled out
8:51
Speaker 1: a machete. If Peter Tosh wanted to fuck around, then
8:54
Speaker 1: he'd get his fucking head cut off right here, right now.
8:59
Speaker 1: Marlene could take it anymore. She told Leppo he was
9:02
Speaker 1: no good ingrain, a devil. After everything Peter had done
9:07
Speaker 1: for him, all the money, all the favors, hadn't he
9:11
Speaker 1: any compassion. Leppo wasn't hearing it. Marlene was always getting
9:16
Speaker 1: between him and Peter, and what kind of man was
9:19
Speaker 1: Peter letting his wife boss him around and tell him
9:22
Speaker 1: what to do. Leppo told the other two gunman to
9:25
Speaker 1: frisk everyone. They took whatever they could find jump change.
9:30
Speaker 1: Leppo jammed his gun into the back of Marlene's head,
9:33
Speaker 1: forcing her into the carpet. One of the other gunman
9:35
Speaker 1: began to pistol with Peter in the head. You're dying tonight,
9:39
Speaker 1: the man said. Another cracked the face with the butt
9:42
Speaker 1: of a gun, and another and then everyone froze. Leppo
9:50
Speaker 1: motioned for one of the gunmen to go see who
9:52
Speaker 1: was outside. The gunman left in the room was silent.
9:56
Speaker 1: Leppo paced quietly. Peter hoped it wasn't who we thought.
10:00
Speaker 1: It was. More innocent people just meant more mess. The
10:04
Speaker 1: door to the house finally reopened, and the gunman walked
10:08
Speaker 1: back in his pistol trained on two new arrivals, Freei
10:13
Speaker 1: Dixon and his wife Shit. Peter wished he could stand
10:18
Speaker 1: up and embrace them both, apologize for this, somehow make
10:22
Speaker 1: it right, but there was nothing right about this. Leppo's
10:27
Speaker 1: men working over Free I, taking an envelope of cash
10:30
Speaker 1: and a watch from his pocket, but one of the
10:32
Speaker 1: men suddenly hit Free Eye's wife in the face with
10:35
Speaker 1: the butt of his gun, and she collapsed to the floor.
10:38
Speaker 1: Leppo told Fria to follow her down Belliott. Free I refused,
10:43
Speaker 1: He stood his ground. Leppo told him again, Belliat free
10:48
Speaker 1: I remained where he was. Leppo and his men became agitated.
10:52
Speaker 1: They grabbed free Eye and roughly forced him down onto
10:54
Speaker 1: his belly next to the others, and then for a
10:58
Speaker 1: moment there was some vilence. It didn't last long. Within
11:03
Speaker 1: a few seconds, Peter Tosh's house was a washing. Sound
11:07
Speaker 1: not crickets, not tree frogs, had not a makeshift sound
11:11
Speaker 1: system pulsing with Jamaica's heartbeat. These sounds didn't aim to
11:15
Speaker 1: replicate a heartbeat. They aimed to take the heartbeat away.
11:20
Speaker 1: The first pistol cocked, it was time for Peter Tosh
11:23
Speaker 1: to step into someone's shoes, not Bob Marley's, the ones
11:28
Speaker 1: left empty by the ghosts. Peter once ushered out of
11:31
Speaker 1: his own house. There was a void in the shadow world,
11:35
Speaker 1: a void that was hungry to be filled. And as
11:38
Speaker 1: soon as Leppo and his men pulled their triggers and
11:40
Speaker 1: the guns began to fire, that void got what it wanted.
12:12
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty four, three years before Dennis Leppo, Loban, and
12:16
Speaker 1: two other armed men entered Peter Tosh's house with the
12:19
Speaker 1: intent to rob and kill. Years Peter spent knowing there
12:23
Speaker 1: was a bullet out there with his name on it,
12:25
Speaker 1: and it was only a matter of time. The world
12:28
Speaker 1: didn't allow revolutionaries like him to walk around for too
12:32
Speaker 1: long looking for truth, demanding justice. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,
12:38
Speaker 1: John Lennon. The assassin's gun found each and every one
12:42
Speaker 1: of them before long, and they almost got to Bob too,
12:45
Speaker 1: though Peter wasn't ruling out the possibility that they actually
12:48
Speaker 1: did get to his former bandmate. You could give someone
12:52
Speaker 1: cancer just like you can give them a bullet in
12:54
Speaker 1: the head. One Love didn't protect Bob Marley in the end.
12:58
Speaker 1: Peter had loved too, the love of his common law
13:01
Speaker 1: wife Marlene, the love of a reggae community looking to
13:04
Speaker 1: him for leadership. But in the end, love wasn't going
13:08
Speaker 1: to protect him from some asshole with a pistol and
13:11
Speaker 1: no moral compass. Peter grew tired of love and of
13:16
Speaker 1: love songs. He'd been over those for years now, since
13:20
Speaker 1: way back when he was still a whaler, still living
13:22
Speaker 1: under Bob's long shadow. Bob at the time was being
13:26
Speaker 1: groomed for superstardom in a manner that Peter simply didn't understand.
13:30
Speaker 1: To Peter, music wasn't about being famous. It was about
13:34
Speaker 1: delivering a message, and not a message to shake your ass,
13:38
Speaker 1: a message that if things didn't change, you'd no longer
13:42
Speaker 1: have an ass to shake. This was the ideology behind
13:48
Speaker 1: Peter's greatest songs four hundred years, get Up, Stand Up,
13:53
Speaker 1: Legalize It, equal Rights. He was passionate about the truth
13:58
Speaker 1: about uplifting black people in and uplifting black consciousness all
14:02
Speaker 1: over the world, but he was not compassionate in his delivery.
14:07
Speaker 1: He was prickly, arrogant and unreasonable, completely unwilling to negotiate
14:12
Speaker 1: when it came to his beliefs, and this made him
14:15
Speaker 1: difficult to work with, difficult to talk to. But luckily
14:20
Speaker 1: for Peter, he had no trouble finding like minded souls
14:23
Speaker 1: willing to put in the work. His friend DJ Freei Dixon,
14:28
Speaker 1: fellow Rastafarian, fellow revolutionary, shared Peter's passion. Sometime in the
14:34
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, Together they conspired to take over the
14:38
Speaker 1: airways from which Freei routinely broadcast legally, of course, La
14:43
Speaker 1: Pair submitted an application to buy out the Jamaican Broadcasting
14:46
Speaker 1: Corporations Radio one and focused his transmissions entirely on black culture.
14:52
Speaker 1: On rasta culture, a culture whose voice Peter and FREEI
14:56
Speaker 1: thought could use some amplification. But Jamaica, specifically, the Jamaican
15:02
Speaker 1: government wasn't ready for that. To give two civilians that
15:06
Speaker 1: kind of control over the airwaves to tell the truth
15:08
Speaker 1: as they saw it, that was dangerous, That would upset
15:12
Speaker 1: the balance of power, or perhaps more accurately, the imbalance
15:16
Speaker 1: of power. The government was after all, in the oppression business,
15:21
Speaker 1: down pressing, as the Rastas would call it. Peter knew
15:26
Speaker 1: the concept of the radio takeover increased the target on
15:29
Speaker 1: his back. He was under regular surveillance by the police,
15:33
Speaker 1: eager to deliver another beating and this time finish the job.
15:36
Speaker 1: The fact that he had enough money to purchase a
15:38
Speaker 1: radio station did not go unnoticed by people like Leppo,
15:42
Speaker 1: who still resorted the criminal activity to scrape by. All
15:47
Speaker 1: of these things loaded that inevitable bullet in the chamber.
15:50
Speaker 1: All of it marked Peter Tosh as dangerous, and a
15:54
Speaker 1: dangerous man needs protection. But circa nineteen eighty four, Tosh
16:00
Speaker 1: didn't just need protection, he needed healing. He had developed
16:07
Speaker 1: ulcers which were affecting his ability to sing. So we
16:11
Speaker 1: went to Africa to seek out the advice of Bush doctors.
16:14
Speaker 1: And medicine men. He communed with the natural world, with
16:18
Speaker 1: the spirits of his ancestors, with his roots. And I'm
16:23
Speaker 1: not talking about genealogy here, I'm talking about actual roots,
16:27
Speaker 1: the kind used by African healers to fight disease, cure ailments.
16:33
Speaker 1: One healer in particular explain how the process was extremely intentional.
16:39
Speaker 1: The right medicinal plant used on the right day, at
16:41
Speaker 1: the right hour, with the sun facing the right direction.
16:45
Speaker 1: That made all the difference. You could change your life.
16:49
Speaker 1: You could change your form. No longer a man but
16:53
Speaker 1: a beast. First a tiger, six hundred pounds, four inch long, teeth, apex, preditor,
17:00
Speaker 1: all muscle, sovereign, supreme. Then from a tiger to a snake, cunning, cutthroat,
17:08
Speaker 1: cold blooded, and from a snake back into a man.
17:12
Speaker 1: The transformative experience now with you, forever, transforming, shape, shifting.
17:17
Speaker 1: It was power, and power was protection. But although he
17:22
Speaker 1: felt a little better when he returned to Kingston, Peter
17:25
Speaker 1: Tosh did not change. He did not become a tiger
17:29
Speaker 1: or a snake. He became more like Peter Tosh, stubborn, arrogant, dangerous.
17:37
Speaker 1: Now However, three years later, September eleventh, nineteen eighty seven.
17:43
Speaker 1: Lying on his belly inside his own house on Plymouth Avenue,
17:46
Speaker 1: the carpet in his mouth, Peter Tosh felt that the
17:50
Speaker 1: danger had left his body. It stood above him, manifested
17:55
Speaker 1: in Denis Leppolobin and his two henchmen. There was no
17:59
Speaker 1: ritual here, no roots, no herbs, no healing, Just the
18:04
Speaker 1: thing Peter Tosh had been waiting for all along, the
18:08
Speaker 1: punishment for becoming more like Peter Tosh, the bullet inside
18:12
Speaker 1: Lepo's gun, the gun that was now emptying the contents
18:16
Speaker 1: of its clip into the bodies on the floor. It
18:19
Speaker 1: fired alongside the guns of Lepo's associates, and the sound
18:22
Speaker 1: was deafening. Peter's common law wife, Marlene, was shot first,
18:27
Speaker 1: but she was lucky. The bullet grazed their skull injuring
18:30
Speaker 1: her severely, but she lived. Peter wasn't so lucky. Two
18:36
Speaker 1: bullets in the back of his head killed them instantly.
18:38
Speaker 1: Doc Brown and Free Eyed Dixon, both lying next to him,
18:42
Speaker 1: were also killed. Leppo and his henchmen quickly made their
18:47
Speaker 1: way out into the night. They ditched their bikes and
18:49
Speaker 1: hopped into a taxi, which they found idling at a
18:51
Speaker 1: meeting place that Lepo had previously arranged. They settled into
18:55
Speaker 1: the cab, guns in hand, and told the driver to
18:58
Speaker 1: floor it. The taxi showed off toward downtown Kingston, a
19:02
Speaker 1: little too fast, perhaps local police behind them. Now suspicious gaining,
19:08
Speaker 1: Leppo told the driver to lose the heat, and the
19:10
Speaker 1: cabby put years of tricks up his sleeves into action.
19:13
Speaker 1: He banged the left, then a right, trying to shake
19:15
Speaker 1: the cops, but the patrol car lingered like a bad smell,
19:19
Speaker 1: and then Leppo had another idea. Stop here. The Cabby
19:23
Speaker 1: slammed on the brakes. Leppo and the others were out
19:26
Speaker 1: of the taxi in a flash, dashing down side streets,
19:29
Speaker 1: swallowed by the shadows before the cops could catch on.
19:33
Speaker 1: The Next day, the cabby heard the news along with
19:35
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. Peter Tosh murdered in his home.
19:40
Speaker 1: His conscience was heavy. He went to his local constable
19:44
Speaker 1: and told his story about the night before, about how
19:47
Speaker 1: a man had made a plan with him to pick
19:48
Speaker 1: him and two others up after they did what they
19:50
Speaker 1: did at Peter's, so he'd essentially acted as their getaway driver.
19:55
Speaker 1: The constable told the cabby not to worry about it
19:57
Speaker 1: to just keep quiet. Soon and cops were at the
20:00
Speaker 1: Cabby's front door, arrested for his part in the murder
20:04
Speaker 1: of Peter Tosh and two others. But the cops didn't
20:07
Speaker 1: care about the taxi driver, not really. They just needed
20:11
Speaker 1: him to get to the one person they were really after,
20:14
Speaker 1: the only person who would be punished for what happened
20:16
Speaker 1: that night. The Cabby flipped gave the cops that they
20:20
Speaker 1: were looking for Dennis Leppo Loban, arrested by the same
20:25
Speaker 1: people who some would say put them up to the
20:28
Speaker 1: murder in the first place. We'll be right back after this.
20:36
Speaker 1: We're we're, we're. Why Why did Dennis Leppo Loban and
20:44
Speaker 1: two other men force their way into Peter Tosh's house,
20:48
Speaker 1: order Peter Tosh, his wife, and his friends down on
20:52
Speaker 1: the ground, and then murder Peter, Doc Brown and Freei
20:55
Speaker 1: Dixon for money money that Lepo thought exist. Did the
21:00
Speaker 1: same money that Lepo routinely received as a handout from
21:04
Speaker 1: his friend Peter Tosh and had received as recently. Is
21:07
Speaker 1: that very weak or was it something else? There were
21:11
Speaker 1: many rumors, many theories about what really happened. Three theories
21:16
Speaker 1: in particular the cloud of the truth, the very thing
21:20
Speaker 1: that Peter Tosh had been able to see so clearly
21:22
Speaker 1: since he was a kid. What was the truth when
21:26
Speaker 1: it came to Peter Tosh's assassination? It was out there,
21:32
Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight. But first theory number one revenge.
21:38
Speaker 1: Leppo had been in and out of prison for years,
21:41
Speaker 1: mostly because he knew no other way to live, always
21:44
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the law in order to survive.
21:48
Speaker 1: He also had Peter, a friend from wayback who had
21:51
Speaker 1: managed to pull himself out of the Trench Town ghetto.
21:54
Speaker 1: Peter remained a man of the people, and as such
21:57
Speaker 1: he helped the people not only with his music in
21:59
Speaker 1: his message, but with his money. Leppo benefited from this,
22:03
Speaker 1: just as many others did. But Leppo considered himself special,
22:08
Speaker 1: so special that when Peter faced jail time for a
22:11
Speaker 1: gun possession charge, Leppo jumped at the chance to take
22:14
Speaker 1: the rap. He was familiar with the inside. He was
22:18
Speaker 1: well versed in that convict life, so he offered Peter
22:22
Speaker 1: a deal. He Leppo would do the time for the
22:26
Speaker 1: gun charge if Peter promised to take care of his
22:29
Speaker 1: family while he was away, food, rent, money, a whole nine,
22:33
Speaker 1: and Peter agreed. Peter Tosh then spent the middle of
22:37
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties becoming more famous and more rich, while
22:41
Speaker 1: Dennis Leppo Lobin spent the middle of the nineteen eighties
22:44
Speaker 1: in a prison cell. Inside that cell, Leppo became resentful
22:48
Speaker 1: with every line he notched on the wall to indicate
22:50
Speaker 1: the passing of another day. He wondered if he would
22:53
Speaker 1: always be the one to get the raw deal. He
22:55
Speaker 1: thought about Peter doing whatever he pleased on the outside
22:59
Speaker 1: thanks entire leave a Leppo's selflessness, and then wondered if
23:02
Speaker 1: Peter was actually holding up his end of the bargain,
23:05
Speaker 1: if the amount of money Peter was giving Leppo's family
23:08
Speaker 1: was directly proportional to the amount of money Peter was
23:10
Speaker 1: now making us the international face of reggae music. When
23:15
Speaker 1: his sentence was up, Leppo altered the terms of their deal.
23:19
Speaker 1: Shit had changed. Peter was on TV talking about millions
23:23
Speaker 1: of dollars old to him by EMI, his current record label.
23:26
Speaker 1: Leppel felt he was owed some of that windfall. It
23:29
Speaker 1: was the least Peter could do. Leppo got a couple
23:32
Speaker 1: guys who he knew were discreet, who would keep their
23:35
Speaker 1: mouths shut and they had pistols, they had motorcycles, and
23:39
Speaker 1: they cut a straight line through the early Kingston Knight
23:41
Speaker 1: to Peter Tosh's house, where they would take what rightly
23:44
Speaker 1: belonged to Leppo. Unless, that is, there was another way.
23:50
Speaker 1: Theory number two wounded pride. Peter's common law wife, Marlene
23:56
Speaker 1: Brown wasn't about to win a popularity contest. She was
24:00
Speaker 1: what some might call overly protective. She put up a
24:04
Speaker 1: wall around Peter. She screened his calls, she called his shots.
24:09
Speaker 1: She steered his career, which included the release of No
24:13
Speaker 1: Nuclear War, his seventh studio album, in nineteen eighty seven.
24:18
Speaker 1: She kept Peter's family, Peter's friends at bay. She wasn't
24:22
Speaker 1: a fan of most people, especially Leppo. Leppo made her nervous.
24:27
Speaker 1: Once a con, always a con, a plague in Peter's world,
24:32
Speaker 1: a pestilence, so entitled, so pitiful, reaching out to Peter
24:37
Speaker 1: with an empty hand, his pockets empty, belly empty, expecting
24:41
Speaker 1: Peter to fill it to make everything better. Well, fuck that,
24:47
Speaker 1: and fuck Leppo. Leppo, and Leppo alone was responsible for
24:52
Speaker 1: Leppo's own problems, not Peter Tosh. Marlene told Leppo as
24:58
Speaker 1: much when he was released from prison for his role
25:00
Speaker 1: in the shooting of a police officer. She told Leppo
25:03
Speaker 1: he was weak, that prison had made him even weaker,
25:06
Speaker 1: the prison had turned him into well. She called him
25:10
Speaker 1: a name, and let's just say it was a terribly
25:12
Speaker 1: offensive name that called into question Leppo's sexuality, an insult
25:17
Speaker 1: that in nineteen eighty seven in Jamaica, a hard man
25:21
Speaker 1: from the streets like Dennis Leppo Lovin simply could not
25:24
Speaker 1: accept that he wouldn't accept, which would explain why when
25:30
Speaker 1: Leppo and his goons burst into Peter Tosha's house, before
25:33
Speaker 1: shooting off his gun, he shot a look at Marlene's
25:36
Speaker 1: direction and said, it's you why this is happening. You her,
25:41
Speaker 1: Marlene Brown, Marlene's words, her cavalier attitude, her careless behavior.
25:48
Speaker 1: She was the reason that her common law husband was
25:51
Speaker 1: murdered because Leppo felt the mean and threatened by a name, unless,
25:58
Speaker 1: of course, it happened to the third way theory number three,
26:04
Speaker 1: murder for hire. It was no secret that Peter Tosh
26:08
Speaker 1: aggravated the powers that be in Jamaica. He lobbied for
26:12
Speaker 1: the legalization of marijuana and defiantly smoke ganja in the
26:16
Speaker 1: face of the law. He spoke up for the injustices
26:19
Speaker 1: he saw in the world at a time when the
26:21
Speaker 1: world didn't want those injustices exposed. Peter Tosh in turn,
26:26
Speaker 1: exposed at all lies, corruption, hypocrisy, and oppressive government thriving
26:32
Speaker 1: on political violence. He was nearly beaten to death for
26:35
Speaker 1: being such neartant. A detective pressed a gun to his
26:38
Speaker 1: head and came close to pulling the trigger. And now
26:42
Speaker 1: Peter's desire to purchase the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporations Radio one
26:47
Speaker 1: was a risk that was too great for those who
26:50
Speaker 1: relied on maintaining the status quo, so they the government
26:55
Speaker 1: law enforcement, whoever, hired a violent ex Khan Denis Leppo,
27:00
Speaker 1: a man who known Peter for years, a man who
27:03
Speaker 1: had access to Peter's house and a wallet, to do
27:06
Speaker 1: their dirty work and eliminate Peter Tosh for them, flanked
27:10
Speaker 1: by two men who were not criminals like Leppo, but
27:13
Speaker 1: actually cops. A detail in this version of events, it
27:17
Speaker 1: was allegedly later confirmed by an anonymous Jamaican official. Leppo
27:22
Speaker 1: made it look like a robbery, which is what everyone
27:24
Speaker 1: would expect from him given his criminal history. But Leppo
27:28
Speaker 1: didn't expect to find so many people at the house
27:31
Speaker 1: and then for more to show up while they were
27:33
Speaker 1: in the middle of the hit. They threw them off
27:36
Speaker 1: and he bungled the job. And by bungled, I mean
27:39
Speaker 1: he left survivors eyewitnesses. What was he going to do
27:43
Speaker 1: murder seven people? Perhaps the people who hired him planned
27:48
Speaker 1: for this. Perhaps they wanted Leppo to be fingered by
27:51
Speaker 1: the remaining victims, and they the government, law enforcement whoever,
27:55
Speaker 1: could wipe their hands of the whole thing. The job
27:58
Speaker 1: was done, and the best part was they didn't even
28:01
Speaker 1: have to pay for it. Leppo fancied himself a tough guy,
28:05
Speaker 1: but in the end he was just a patsy, or
28:14
Speaker 1: so went the thinking. After all, Leppo was the only
28:18
Speaker 1: one arrested. He was found guilty by the jury in
28:21
Speaker 1: just eleven minutes, the fastest conviction in Jamaican history at
28:25
Speaker 1: the time. Sentenced to hang, the case was closed immediately.
28:30
Speaker 1: All other leads went dead. There was no search for
28:33
Speaker 1: the other two gunmen, no interest in finding out more
28:36
Speaker 1: about the shocking tragedy that had rippled through Jamaica in
28:39
Speaker 1: the reggae world, no interest in the truth which was
28:43
Speaker 1: right there. It was in the ocean in the clouds.
28:47
Speaker 1: It was carried on the wind, but no one could
28:49
Speaker 1: see it, not really. Now that Peter Tosh was gone,
28:54
Speaker 1: so were the eyes that were able to identify the
28:56
Speaker 1: truth amongst all of the other noise, eyes that the
29:00
Speaker 1: once tried to take for himself with an old barbed
29:02
Speaker 1: wire fence. The world carried on as usual, conflicts divides
29:09
Speaker 1: brother against brother, so much going on that no one
29:13
Speaker 1: at the time or the ability to see the truth
29:16
Speaker 1: for what it really was. Dennis Leppo Lobin was adamant
29:43
Speaker 1: that only he knew the truth, not about what happened
29:47
Speaker 1: on the night of September eleventh, nineteen eighty seven, about
29:50
Speaker 1: what didn't happen. He said it over and over again
29:54
Speaker 1: from the Jamaican jail cell he now called home. He
29:57
Speaker 1: said he was innocent. He said he didn't murder Peter Tosh,
30:00
Speaker 1: Doc Brown and Free Eye Dixon. He said he was
30:03
Speaker 1: somewhere else when the murders took place. Peter's common law wife,
30:08
Speaker 1: Marlene Brown, set him up. She pinned this whole thing
30:11
Speaker 1: on him because she didn't like him, because she was vengeful.
30:15
Speaker 1: Leppo appealed a sentence, the one that said he was
30:18
Speaker 1: to be hung by the neck until he was dead.
30:20
Speaker 1: He was now serving life in prison. That wasn't going
30:24
Speaker 1: to stop him from telling his truth, a story that
30:27
Speaker 1: ran in direct opposition to the story told by the
30:30
Speaker 1: four people who survived the shooting, Marlene Brown, Santa Davis,
30:35
Speaker 1: Michael Robinson, and Freey's wife, Joy Dixon. They all knew
30:40
Speaker 1: who Leppo was, and all identified him as the ringleader
30:43
Speaker 1: of the trio who had invaded Peter's house. Santa Davis,
30:47
Speaker 1: for one, could never forget the faces of the men
30:50
Speaker 1: who shot him. At first, one of those gunmen, perhaps
30:54
Speaker 1: Leppo himself, Sanna couldn't be sure. With his face to
30:57
Speaker 1: the floor, had the barrel of his gun the back
31:00
Speaker 1: of Sanna's head. At the moment the pistol fired, Sanna
31:04
Speaker 1: moved just enough so that the bullet didn't enter his
31:07
Speaker 1: skull but his left arm. The nine millimeters slug went
31:11
Speaker 1: in through his clavicle and immediately collapsed as lung. Sanna
31:15
Speaker 1: felt like he had been pinched, and then it felt
31:17
Speaker 1: like he had no arm at all. He had a
31:19
Speaker 1: look at his arm to confirm that it was still there.
31:22
Speaker 1: He didn't know that he was bleeding on the inside
31:25
Speaker 1: drowning in his own blood. In the emergency room, doctors
31:29
Speaker 1: saved Sanna's life. Meanwhile, paramedics wheeled Peter Tosh in on
31:34
Speaker 1: a gurney next to where Santa was being treated. The
31:38
Speaker 1: doctors then struggled to do the impossible to bring a
31:41
Speaker 1: dead man back to life, futile task. One doctor stated
31:48
Speaker 1: the obvious, I'm afraid mister Tosh has left us. Just
31:53
Speaker 1: weeks before his forty third birthday, and just months before
31:57
Speaker 1: he was honored with the Grammy Award for Best Reggae
32:00
Speaker 1: Recording for his seventh studio album, No Nuclear War, his
32:05
Speaker 1: first Grammy, in the first major award that acknowledged his
32:08
Speaker 1: greatness and impact, a greatness and impact so profound that
32:13
Speaker 1: it was believed he was killed for it. Peter Tosh,
32:16
Speaker 1: of course, was not present at the ceremony at Radio
32:20
Speaker 1: City Music Hall to accept his award. He was not
32:23
Speaker 1: present to see his revolutionary stance and his rebel music
32:26
Speaker 1: finally lifted up for all the world to see. And
32:30
Speaker 1: that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in this This
32:37
Speaker 1: DISGRACELAMD Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced
32:53
Speaker 1: in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can
32:56
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