Starting in the mid 1980’s a group of brothers on Detroit’s east side, still teenagers at the time, decided to become a murder-for-hire gang. The 4 Brown brothers; Ezra, Gregory, Reggie, and Terry, grew their deadly business during Detroit’s descent into the crack cocaine era. You can read their story here.
This interview is part of the “Rollin’: the Fall of the Auto Industry and Rise of the Drug Economy” documentary we did in 2010.
This is really a powerful interview, as Nate “Boone” Craft was one of the Best Friends’ chief assassins, eventually confessing to roughly 30! murders as part of a pleas agreement that saw him spend 20 years in the witness protection program. He has since been released to the streets of Detroit.
It’s not everyday that a serial killer sits down to talk about his crimes. The funny thing is though, Nate was actually a seemingly nice guy in person. I heard he recently had a baby. Mr. Craft, incidentally, was voted the #1 gangster of all time on the Gangland TV Show
Detroit is a strange place.
I was a prison guard in Jackson Central Complex in 87, or 88 when I met Mr.Craft, he was a prisoner in 4 block, and he did not belong to any of the religious gangs. He was a studly guy, and he liked to tell stories, I was only 22, and I knew Detroit well.
What about the 1983 Detroit murders of FBI informant Betty Bradley (pregnant, tortured and strangled) her husband Carr (whose Dad was a police officer), two of her children, and her brother who was visiting. All tortured and murdered. Gil Hill put misinformation in the press and covered the crimes. Betty was the female WBR. “Valentine’s Massacre”.