Questions emerging in the alleged "suicide" of Gary Webb
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/141204webbmurdered.htm
Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered
Webb Spoke Of Death Threats, 'Government People' Around His Home
Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson | Updated December 15 2004
UPDATE: Coroner: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide
First it was multiple gunshot wounds, then it was just one and now it's multiple again. Would somebody stealing your motorcycle really drive you over the edge?
UPDATE: Do you really think someone can shoot themself in the face twice? How stupid do they think we are? (WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC)
Credible sources who were close to Gary Webb have stated that he was receiving death threats, being regularly followed, and that he was concerned about strange individuals who were seen on multiple occasions breaking into and leaving his house before his apparent 'suicide' on Friday morning.
Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide.
Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s.
Today's Alex Jones Show, aired on the GCN radio network featured interviews with Chico Brown and Cele Castillo. Castillo is author of "Powder Burns", Cocaine, Contras & The Drug Connection. A retired DEA agent, Castillo personally witnessed CIA drug smuggling operations. Chico Brown, was former business parter and co-defendent with 'Freeway' Ricky Ross, the biggest drug dealer on the west coast supplied by the CIA.
Ricky Ross, one of Gary Webb's primary sources had spoken to Gary in the days before his death. Gary told Ricky that he had seen men scaling down the pipes outside his home and that they were obviously not burglars but 'government people'. Gary also told Ricky that he had been receiving death threats and was being regularly followed. It was also mentioned that Gary was working on a new story concerning the CIA and drug trafficking.
Gary described the men around his home as 'professionals' who jumped from his balcony and ran away when Gary confronted them
Alex jones, while working with documentary film maker Kevin Booth has interviewed ricky ross many times from his federal jail cell in north texas
On Monday night Kevin Booth broke the news to Ricky Ross during Ricky’s once a week call that he makes to Kevin.
The tape of that conversation which is edited to omit personal comments, is available by clicking here.
Original Associated Press reports stated that Webb had died of gunshot wounds (plural) to the face. This was later changed to 'single gunshot wound' when people began to question how or why a man would shoot himself in the face twice. This represents a concentrated effort to cover up the nature of Webb's death. There have also been reports that the coroner on the scene had originally reported 'multiple gunshot wounds' but later changed his story.
Newspapers also reported the fact that Webb's body was found by removal men without questioning why a man who was about to commit suicide would plan a house move.
The Miami Herald and LA Times continue to attack Webb even after his death in their obituariues published yesterday. Both claimed that his work was discredited despite the fact that Webb was vindicated by congressional investigations.
Former DEA agent Cele Castillo concurs that Webb was murdered and that in such a 'revenge hit' situation it was common in his experience that the murderers would have likely talked to Webb at length about how and why they were about to kill him.
In a death of this nature a homicide investigation would be par for the course but the media is complicit in bleating like well-behaved sheep to the acceptance that this was a suicide.
You can listen to the whole show by clicking here. A partial transcript of the show appears below the following video.
Interview of Kevin Booth and Cele Castillo
Alex Jones Radio Show
Dec. 14, 2004
AJ: Kevin Booth is a documentary filmmaker. He has been working for the last year on a film entitled, “The American Drug War.” And the website is theamericandrugwar.com. The film will be coming out in about a year. He’s interviewed basically everybody under the sun concerning the history of the drug war, who really controls the drug trade, and I am the narrator of the film and the host of it. And I have been involved in some interviews with Ricky Ross, known as “Freeway” Ricky Ross,” the biggest public drug dealer – that is, the biggest known drug dealer – in West Coast history, on some days, $25 million worth of dealing going on – that linked directly back to the CIA. He was one of the main sources for Gary Webb, Pulitzer prize winning author of the book, “Dark Alliance” – CIA Drug Series, in the San Jose Mercury News. And then, of course, he wrote the best selling book, “Dark Alliance.”
He was shot-gunned in the face – something that the major newspapers aren’t reporting. But I have this from direct sources in Sacramento and some of Gary’s best friends and associates. It’s just unbelievable. He was shot-gunned in the face. And then movers who were coming to the house found a note on the door saying “Don’t Come in, Call 911, Call an Ambulance.”
Yesterday, Kevin called me and we’ve interviewed Ricky in the past. He said Ricky is scheduled to call me tonight at 10:30 – because you can’t call him at the Federal Prison he’s in. They’ve moved him there from Victorville in Southern California, to the Panhandle of Texas, North Texas, where they do not let the media in to interview Mr. Ross. So we’ve been doing it over the telephone. Kevin Booth was able to get the call last night and had the unfortunate job of breaking the news to “Freeway” Ricky Ross that Gary Webb had died from gunshot wounds to the head, to the face in very questionable circumstances. And now Kevin can reveal to us what Gary Webb, via telephone, had recently told “Freeway” Ricky Ross. Kevin Booth?
KB: Hey Alex.
AJ: We’ve got about 3 minutes before we hit the break. Just tell folks basically who “Freeway” Ricky is and what happened in the conversation last night.
KB: Like you said, Ricky Ross was known as the biggest crack dealer in West Coast history. The name “Freeway” came from the fact that he was buying up so much real estate along the harbor freeway in Los Angeles. And when he finally got put away the second time, he didn’t know that the CIA was behind allowing him to become so big. It’s not like CIA agents were supplying him with cocaine. It’s more like he just couldn’t believe he never got caught and he couldn’t believe how low the prices were. He couldn’t believe how easy it all was to ….
AJ: In the Dark Alliance series, in talking to Ricky, they had a go-between but it was Contras directly selling him and then the Contras flying back. It was all part of the CIA operation.
KB: Right, it was all these cartels. So, like you said, he was in the Victorville prison, right above Los Angeles there and the last time he spoke to Gary, which wasn’t that long ago, he told me that Gary was still working on the story. This was the kind of thing that Gary was never going to give up on because Gary felt like he could just keep going with this forever and uncover more and more people and exposing more names. But he did tell me that Gary knew he was being followed. Every time he drove some where, there were always cars following him around. He said he knew it was government people. Several times he came home to his apartment, his two-story apartment, late at night, and a guy would come shimmying down a drainage pipe off of his balcony. You could tell he wasn’t a burglar. It was obviously somebody probably in his apartment rummaging around looking at documents or looking at his computer.
AJ: And we talked off air and he was described as kind of a Special Forces type, you know really fast going down the pipe.
KB: Yeah, definitely, the whole suicide angle of the story, it’s kind of like they did stuff to kind of freak him out, to intimidate him, to push him to actually being depressed. But everybody I’ve spoken to, Ricky included, said there’s no way that this guy would have taken his life – that he enjoyed life, he loved his kids. He was excited about the future. And people of South Central LA thought of Gary Webb as a God-send. He was…..
AJ: We’ll be right back, Kevin, we’ve got to break. Stay with us.
BREAK
AJ: Coming up in a few minutes, we’ll be talking to Cele Castillo, the top DEA agent in Central and South America, who was an eye witness to massive drug deals by the CIA, by the Contras, and another one of Gary Webb’s sources. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of the Dark Alliance series in the San Jose Mercury News and then wrote the best selling book, “Dark Alliance – CIA Drug Trafficking.” And the new developments, Kevin Booth, who again has been interviewing and talked to him last night – I’ve interviewed him for the film as well – talking to “Freeway” Ricky Ross, who was the person who was supplied with CIA cocaine and the biggest known drug dealer in West Coast history. Tens of millions of dollars a day going on for years and was absolutely untouchable - one of the major sources for the Dark Alliance piece. Kevin broke the news to “Freeway Ricky”, Ricky Ross, last night. And describe for us Kevin before we get back into the people who were rummaging through and up on his balcony and following Gary Webb around, according to Ricky Ross. How did Ricky take it when you described it to him? I know we are going to be able to play that on the air. But you weren’t at your office when I called you for this broadcast this morning. So, we are not going to be able to have that until tomorrow. But Kevin describe that discussion for us.
KB: He took it really bad. He thought of Gary as a God-send. And that this guy Gary put his life on the line to expose this story and that, you know, he just thought it was really depressing. It just really made him sad. He’s said a lot of the guys there in jail who are familiar with the story and a lot of people are going to be sad. You know, when he came out with that story, a lot of people in South Central had a wake-up call and it just rang so true to them. And the crazy parts of the story is that, like I said, Ricky wasn’t aware of all this until he got put in prison and Gary Webb came out to try to help him with his case. And that’s when all this evidence started becoming uncovered. It was just like with me working on the film of the drug wars – it’s like one thing leads to another. It just never ends. You talk to one person and they lead you to another. And he just kept following this chain. And the chain, just because he finished that one book, it just never stops.
My question to Ricky was you know the book is already out, everybody knows all this stuff, so why kill him now? Was this just a revenge thing? He said, “Absolutely not because Gary was still hot on the trail and he was never going to give up on this thing.”
AJ: He had just recently been vindicated. The establishment media had been trying to attack him with ham-fisted attacks but it wasn’t working. And he had just, as of late, had a lot of new evidence. He had been vindicated. That was starting to come out in the news. He was still on the trail. That had been reported on.
Now Cele Castillo is joining us right now and he may not be aware of this development. When you talked to Ricky Ross last night, for Cele, please repeat what Ricky told you Gary told him about people at his apartment and about being followed.
KB: He knew he was being following all the time and there were several instances where he would come home after working all day, late at night, and he would see a guy shimmy down – he had a drain pipe that went up to the balcony on the second floor apartment. And these guys, who were definitely not burglars, would come shimmying down the pole really fast and just disappear. And he was pretty confident that they were up there rummaging through documents looking at his computer.
AJ: What was the term he used to describe, I mean why did he think they weren’t just regular burglars? I believe he described it as if they were just so professional how they did it.
KB: Their professionalism. Well Ricky said that Gary said they were definitely government. That’s all he told me. So I’m not going to put words in his mouth. But he said that Gary had said that these were government people.
AJ: That was the term he used was definitely government people.
KB: Yes.
AJ: Unbelievable. Anything else he told you during this interview? I’ve been doing interviews before with you and Ricky, he only gets about fifteen minutes and then the prison cuts him off. It’s the only way we are allowed to interview him. They don’t really let the media in to interview him and you actually had to contact lawyers and started proceedings concerning that because they aren’t supposed to be able to do that.
KB: Another part of the story that I didn’t know about after Chico and Ricky had gotten arrested that time, there was some production company in New York that wanted to, that was trying to buy the rights to do a film about this. And the DEA raided their office and confiscated everything - some big film company in New York. That would definitely put an end to any thoughts that these guys were going to make a movie about this.
AJ: Yeah, this would blow Scar Face, which was based on some real characters, out of the water. This is a film that needs to be made. And so that’s another big piece of this – anything they can to try to stop it. And Kevin I know that you are out taking care of errands right now. I hope that you can try – let’s be honest. I called Kevin this morning. He’s out on the Green Belt – beautiful weather here, down by the river, walking his two dogs. But Kevin, do you think you can get back to your office and get that qued up by the end of the show?
KB: I’ll try to.
AJ: If you can’t it’s okay, we can..
KB: I don’t know how to play it over the phone though.
AJ: Well you can figure it out. I think you can plug it into – just try to figure it out. If you can’t we can get it over here and get it uploaded to the computer tonight or put it on the web in high bandwidth and we can download it and stream it that way. This needs to get out immediately for Gary.
Kevin I want to bring up Cele Castillo. Now Cele was the top DEA agent. He’s been all over the big national TV shows, foreign television. We’ve interviewed him many times. He’s come to Austin and showed the pictures of the CIA drug dealers. He shows us the connection to Latin America – how that coupled through to people like “Freeway” Ricky Ross and the direct connection of the CIA and these conduits to people like “Freeway” Ricky Ross and the LAPD protecting Ricky Ross and other top drug dealers.
Cele, was this a new development for you to learn that Kevin talked to “Freeway” Ricky and found out that he had told “Freeway” Ricky that he had men at his house?
CC: I’ve heard something to that effect but I wasn’t really sure what actually did happen. But my whole point in this issue is the fact that, you’ve got to remember one thing, nobody’s ever done a movie or a documentary on the Iran-Contra investigation, which involved the CIA involved in drug trafficking. Now, Gary Webb, at one point, pointed to the assets that were heavily involved and I myself pointed to actually the CIA officials who were actually participating in loading and unloading and refueling the planes….
AJ: You came to Austin and did a two-hour presentation and showed photos of them, documents, everything.
CC: Yeah, I’ve got another 100-set of slides I’m going to bring over to Kevin Booth so he can put them on. … And those slides do have the good, the bad and the ugly.
AJ: For people who don’t know who you are, in a nutshell, tell us what you did and why you went public. Describe what you saw in Latin America.
CC: You’ve got to remember one thing, I’m not an individual who comes from the left or from the right but I was reared as a very patriotic family, came from a very patriotic family and we all served our country. And when I joined the DEA I thought that by putting my life on the line that I would make a difference. But it was there in Central America, in my six years that I realized that we were the enemy. We were sleeping with the enemy, we were involved in drug trafficking and when I tried to expose the whole issue, I remember Randy Kapster (?), a CIA official saying to me – “Nobody is going to listen to you. We’ve been doing this for years and nobody is going to ever, ever stop us.”
And he was absolutely right. Nobody has stopped them from doing their black ops worldwide. [crosstalk] and I saw DEA’s participation in refueling some planes of cocaine into the US and never been arrested, never been seized or anything.
[ ..] They were heavily, definitely involved in drug ops.
AJ: And you had individuals tell you, “Hey buddy, you are never going to stop us.”
CC: That’s right. I had a CIA official by the name of Randy Kapster(?) who was down there for close to 7-8 years involved in covert operations. He was involved in training death squads and basically about anything you can do covertly in Central America, he was involved in it.
AJ: I have about an hour long video that’s full of clips of you on national television going over much of this in years past and they are unable to even challenge you. You got to be a little bit worried about your safety, sir.
CC: Recently, to be honest with you, I’ve had some [ ] follow me around. I could tell they’re government because of my experiences with how when you approach them, they turn their face and they are on their cellphone. I’ve been under surveillance for quite a while now..
AJ: But you’re not afraid. You were a highly decorated sniper in Vietnam.
CC: Exactly, my point is this, since Vietnam, I’ve been on borrowed time. So, I’ve made my peace with God, I will fight to the end and I will never, ever commit suicide.
AJ: I want to say that, too. I will never commit suicide. Kevin, you want to ?
KB: It’s a triple non-suicide pact. I will never commit suicide.
CC: We are in this for the long haul. We need to fight these people to the very end. And whatever we have available, with what little we have, we need to continue fighting or it will just get worse. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better – if it gets better.
AJ: Talking about Gary Webb, Cele, he’s dead, shotgun to the face. And they described his face, from the sources, and you got a call just two hours after they found him, you were notified. And that his face was basically unrecognizable. A shotgun doesn’t do that if it’s point-blank. A shotgun only does that from a few feet away – for the pattern to expand. People don’t normally commit suicide with a shotgun to the face. Can you comment on what you learned about this?
CC: I got a call from Michael Ruppert who got his information right away after this incident and he knew that a note had been left and so forth. And that he was planning to move that morning and had the movers coming in. And they found that note on the door. Allegedly, that saying to not come in, to call 911 and call an ambulance. Why on earth if you are going to commit suicide would you bring an ambulance? If you shoot yourself with a 12-guage shotgun ….
AJ: Well that sounds like a classic mafia activity blowing somebody’s face off.
CC: To be honest with you, I really think when I think about government people, I think about Felix Rodriguez and his goon squads, that’s been involved in all kinds of assassinations - be they foreign or domestic. You know, Felix and his group are very well documented as assassins.
AJ: Well it’s like Barry Seal. They just marched up and machine-gunned him
CC: Exactly, and they blamed a couple of Columbians for that but there are always people who are willing to take the fall for the Agency.
AJ: Unbelievable. Again Cele, just for the record, tell us about your position in the DEA.
CC: I was a senior agent in El Salvador. We had two agents covering the four countries in Central America. I was assigned to cover El Salvador.
AJ: Well to be clear, I had read in mainstream media reports that you were described as the senior DEA officer in Latin America, are those incorrect?
CC: No, those are correct. You know I spent my time in New York City and domestically but I was the senior agent and I was in charge of El Salvador. And, you know, we went out there and conducted investigations and...
AJ: And so you signed on, you signed on to fight drugs. When did you find out that it was the government controlling it?
CC: From the very git-go. When I got into Guatemala City and J Robert Stea(?) said to me, “You know, there are some funny things going on in El Salvador and just don’t step on anybody’s toes. Don’t report anything and everything comes to me” and so forth. And sure enough, my source of information was the guy who did all the flight plans for the Contra pilots that were heavily involved in drug trafficking. And it was very well documented – money being seized in the U.S. and drugs being seized in the U.S. that came out of Alipondo{?}. There is no doubt about that. And we ourselves, we re-fueled some of those planes with the anticipation that they would be seized in the U.S. but…
"the drug dealers profit from the crisis they create" they get tax dollars as prisons are privatized and they own the companies that get the contracts serving the prisons just as they created hitler and saddam and osama and then get gov contracts fighting them
Coroner: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide
Editor and Publisher | December 15 2004
Comment: We're still treating this as very suspicious. They have flip-flopped AGAIN. First it was multiple gunshot wounds, then it was just one and now it's multiple again. The coroner is right we have seen multiple wounds before in suicides, but only in Arkansas. Would somebody stealing your motorcycle really drive you over the edge? Remember what 'Freeway' Ricky Ross said? "The last time I talked to Gary he was excited and happy about life. He was thriving and looking towards the future." We owe it to Gary to exhaust all possibilities, that's what he would have wanted being the meticulous researcher he was.
Related: Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered
NEW YORK The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.
"The cause of death was determined to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head," said a statement issued by the Sacramento County Coroner's Office. "Information and evidence gathered at the scene of death, including a handwritten note indicating an intention on the part of the decedent to take his own life, resulted in 'suicide' as the determined manner of death."
The statement was issued because of numerous calls to the Coroner's Office following a Bee report Sunday that Webb's death was caused by more than one wound. A former San Jose Mercury News reporter, Webb was found dead in his Carmichael, Calif., home Friday morning.
Webb gained national attention in the 1990s after writing a series of stories for the Mercury News linking the CIA to Nicaraguan Contras trying to overthrow the Sandinista government and to drug sales of crack cocaine flooding South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s.
The Mercury News and others later questioned the conclusions in Webb's reporting, and he left the San Jose newspaper in 1997 after being moved to a suburban bureau. The paper later published an apology.
Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, told the Bee Tuesday that Webb, 49, had been distraught for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," Bell said.
The Bee also reported that Webb had paid for his own cremation earlier in the year and had named Bell months ago as the beneficiary of his bank account. He had sold his house last week, because he could no longer afford the mortgage, and was upset that his motorcycle had been stolen last week.
He had apparently laid out his driver's license before taking his father's .38-caliber pistol, which he kept in his nightstand, to shoot himself.
Coroner Robert Lyons said his office had been swamped with calls. "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots," he said, "but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility."
Rense.com
Webb Obit - 'Died Of Gunshot
WOUNDS To The Head'
From Charlene
Sacramento Bee
12-14-4
"Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said.
Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office said Saturday."
Note the plural "wounds". An actual suicide from a gunshot to the head wouldn't leave the victim in any state to pull the trigger a second time. Vince Foster, care to comment?
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11744167p-12630255c.html
From Astroworld.us -
Posted by shylurker on December 13, 2004
In the Sacto Bee (I posted it above somewhere), they referred to 'woundS'. I emailed the person in charge of obits, but haven't heard anything back yet. ?????
Posted by shylurker on December 13, 2004
I just heard from the obit guy. He said the coronor told them "he has multiple wounds". In other words, the coronor did NOT note the origin of the wounds.
http://www.astroworld.us/archives/000456.html#000456:
Discussion at Democratic Underground on Webb's 'wounds' -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_
mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1065543&mesg_id=1065543
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Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered
Webb Spoke Of Death Threats, 'Government People' Around His Home
Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson | Updated December 15 2004
UPDATE: Coroner: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide
First it was multiple gunshot wounds, then it was just one and now it's multiple again. Would somebody stealing your motorcycle really drive you over the edge?
UPDATE: Do you really think someone can shoot themself in the face twice? How stupid do they think we are? (WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC)
Credible sources who were close to Gary Webb have stated that he was receiving death threats, being regularly followed, and that he was concerned about strange individuals who were seen on multiple occasions breaking into and leaving his house before his apparent 'suicide' on Friday morning.
Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide.
Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s.
Today's Alex Jones Show, aired on the GCN radio network featured interviews with Chico Brown and Cele Castillo. Castillo is author of "Powder Burns", Cocaine, Contras & The Drug Connection. A retired DEA agent, Castillo personally witnessed CIA drug smuggling operations. Chico Brown, was former business parter and co-defendent with 'Freeway' Ricky Ross, the biggest drug dealer on the west coast supplied by the CIA.
Ricky Ross, one of Gary Webb's primary sources had spoken to Gary in the days before his death. Gary told Ricky that he had seen men scaling down the pipes outside his home and that they were obviously not burglars but 'government people'. Gary also told Ricky that he had been receiving death threats and was being regularly followed. It was also mentioned that Gary was working on a new story concerning the CIA and drug trafficking.
Gary described the men around his home as 'professionals' who jumped from his balcony and ran away when Gary confronted them
Alex jones, while working with documentary film maker Kevin Booth has interviewed ricky ross many times from his federal jail cell in north texas
On Monday night Kevin Booth broke the news to Ricky Ross during Ricky’s once a week call that he makes to Kevin.
The tape of that conversation which is edited to omit personal comments, is available by clicking here.
Original Associated Press reports stated that Webb had died of gunshot wounds (plural) to the face. This was later changed to 'single gunshot wound' when people began to question how or why a man would shoot himself in the face twice. This represents a concentrated effort to cover up the nature of Webb's death. There have also been reports that the coroner on the scene had originally reported 'multiple gunshot wounds' but later changed his story.
Newspapers also reported the fact that Webb's body was found by removal men without questioning why a man who was about to commit suicide would plan a house move.
The Miami Herald and LA Times continue to attack Webb even after his death in their obituariues published yesterday. Both claimed that his work was discredited despite the fact that Webb was vindicated by congressional investigations.
Former DEA agent Cele Castillo concurs that Webb was murdered and that in such a 'revenge hit' situation it was common in his experience that the murderers would have likely talked to Webb at length about how and why they were about to kill him.
In a death of this nature a homicide investigation would be par for the course but the media is complicit in bleating like well-behaved sheep to the acceptance that this was a suicide.
You can listen to the whole show by clicking here. A partial transcript of the show appears below the following video.
Interview of Kevin Booth and Cele Castillo
Alex Jones Radio Show
Dec. 14, 2004
AJ: Kevin Booth is a documentary filmmaker. He has been working for the last year on a film entitled, “The American Drug War.” And the website is theamericandrugwar.com. The film will be coming out in about a year. He’s interviewed basically everybody under the sun concerning the history of the drug war, who really controls the drug trade, and I am the narrator of the film and the host of it. And I have been involved in some interviews with Ricky Ross, known as “Freeway” Ricky Ross,” the biggest public drug dealer – that is, the biggest known drug dealer – in West Coast history, on some days, $25 million worth of dealing going on – that linked directly back to the CIA. He was one of the main sources for Gary Webb, Pulitzer prize winning author of the book, “Dark Alliance” – CIA Drug Series, in the San Jose Mercury News. And then, of course, he wrote the best selling book, “Dark Alliance.”
He was shot-gunned in the face – something that the major newspapers aren’t reporting. But I have this from direct sources in Sacramento and some of Gary’s best friends and associates. It’s just unbelievable. He was shot-gunned in the face. And then movers who were coming to the house found a note on the door saying “Don’t Come in, Call 911, Call an Ambulance.”
Yesterday, Kevin called me and we’ve interviewed Ricky in the past. He said Ricky is scheduled to call me tonight at 10:30 – because you can’t call him at the Federal Prison he’s in. They’ve moved him there from Victorville in Southern California, to the Panhandle of Texas, North Texas, where they do not let the media in to interview Mr. Ross. So we’ve been doing it over the telephone. Kevin Booth was able to get the call last night and had the unfortunate job of breaking the news to “Freeway” Ricky Ross that Gary Webb had died from gunshot wounds to the head, to the face in very questionable circumstances. And now Kevin can reveal to us what Gary Webb, via telephone, had recently told “Freeway” Ricky Ross. Kevin Booth?
KB: Hey Alex.
AJ: We’ve got about 3 minutes before we hit the break. Just tell folks basically who “Freeway” Ricky is and what happened in the conversation last night.
KB: Like you said, Ricky Ross was known as the biggest crack dealer in West Coast history. The name “Freeway” came from the fact that he was buying up so much real estate along the harbor freeway in Los Angeles. And when he finally got put away the second time, he didn’t know that the CIA was behind allowing him to become so big. It’s not like CIA agents were supplying him with cocaine. It’s more like he just couldn’t believe he never got caught and he couldn’t believe how low the prices were. He couldn’t believe how easy it all was to ….
AJ: In the Dark Alliance series, in talking to Ricky, they had a go-between but it was Contras directly selling him and then the Contras flying back. It was all part of the CIA operation.
KB: Right, it was all these cartels. So, like you said, he was in the Victorville prison, right above Los Angeles there and the last time he spoke to Gary, which wasn’t that long ago, he told me that Gary was still working on the story. This was the kind of thing that Gary was never going to give up on because Gary felt like he could just keep going with this forever and uncover more and more people and exposing more names. But he did tell me that Gary knew he was being followed. Every time he drove some where, there were always cars following him around. He said he knew it was government people. Several times he came home to his apartment, his two-story apartment, late at night, and a guy would come shimmying down a drainage pipe off of his balcony. You could tell he wasn’t a burglar. It was obviously somebody probably in his apartment rummaging around looking at documents or looking at his computer.
AJ: And we talked off air and he was described as kind of a Special Forces type, you know really fast going down the pipe.
KB: Yeah, definitely, the whole suicide angle of the story, it’s kind of like they did stuff to kind of freak him out, to intimidate him, to push him to actually being depressed. But everybody I’ve spoken to, Ricky included, said there’s no way that this guy would have taken his life – that he enjoyed life, he loved his kids. He was excited about the future. And people of South Central LA thought of Gary Webb as a God-send. He was…..
AJ: We’ll be right back, Kevin, we’ve got to break. Stay with us.
BREAK
AJ: Coming up in a few minutes, we’ll be talking to Cele Castillo, the top DEA agent in Central and South America, who was an eye witness to massive drug deals by the CIA, by the Contras, and another one of Gary Webb’s sources. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of the Dark Alliance series in the San Jose Mercury News and then wrote the best selling book, “Dark Alliance – CIA Drug Trafficking.” And the new developments, Kevin Booth, who again has been interviewing and talked to him last night – I’ve interviewed him for the film as well – talking to “Freeway” Ricky Ross, who was the person who was supplied with CIA cocaine and the biggest known drug dealer in West Coast history. Tens of millions of dollars a day going on for years and was absolutely untouchable - one of the major sources for the Dark Alliance piece. Kevin broke the news to “Freeway Ricky”, Ricky Ross, last night. And describe for us Kevin before we get back into the people who were rummaging through and up on his balcony and following Gary Webb around, according to Ricky Ross. How did Ricky take it when you described it to him? I know we are going to be able to play that on the air. But you weren’t at your office when I called you for this broadcast this morning. So, we are not going to be able to have that until tomorrow. But Kevin describe that discussion for us.
KB: He took it really bad. He thought of Gary as a God-send. And that this guy Gary put his life on the line to expose this story and that, you know, he just thought it was really depressing. It just really made him sad. He’s said a lot of the guys there in jail who are familiar with the story and a lot of people are going to be sad. You know, when he came out with that story, a lot of people in South Central had a wake-up call and it just rang so true to them. And the crazy parts of the story is that, like I said, Ricky wasn’t aware of all this until he got put in prison and Gary Webb came out to try to help him with his case. And that’s when all this evidence started becoming uncovered. It was just like with me working on the film of the drug wars – it’s like one thing leads to another. It just never ends. You talk to one person and they lead you to another. And he just kept following this chain. And the chain, just because he finished that one book, it just never stops.
My question to Ricky was you know the book is already out, everybody knows all this stuff, so why kill him now? Was this just a revenge thing? He said, “Absolutely not because Gary was still hot on the trail and he was never going to give up on this thing.”
AJ: He had just recently been vindicated. The establishment media had been trying to attack him with ham-fisted attacks but it wasn’t working. And he had just, as of late, had a lot of new evidence. He had been vindicated. That was starting to come out in the news. He was still on the trail. That had been reported on.
Now Cele Castillo is joining us right now and he may not be aware of this development. When you talked to Ricky Ross last night, for Cele, please repeat what Ricky told you Gary told him about people at his apartment and about being followed.
KB: He knew he was being following all the time and there were several instances where he would come home after working all day, late at night, and he would see a guy shimmy down – he had a drain pipe that went up to the balcony on the second floor apartment. And these guys, who were definitely not burglars, would come shimmying down the pole really fast and just disappear. And he was pretty confident that they were up there rummaging through documents looking at his computer.
AJ: What was the term he used to describe, I mean why did he think they weren’t just regular burglars? I believe he described it as if they were just so professional how they did it.
KB: Their professionalism. Well Ricky said that Gary said they were definitely government. That’s all he told me. So I’m not going to put words in his mouth. But he said that Gary had said that these were government people.
AJ: That was the term he used was definitely government people.
KB: Yes.
AJ: Unbelievable. Anything else he told you during this interview? I’ve been doing interviews before with you and Ricky, he only gets about fifteen minutes and then the prison cuts him off. It’s the only way we are allowed to interview him. They don’t really let the media in to interview him and you actually had to contact lawyers and started proceedings concerning that because they aren’t supposed to be able to do that.
KB: Another part of the story that I didn’t know about after Chico and Ricky had gotten arrested that time, there was some production company in New York that wanted to, that was trying to buy the rights to do a film about this. And the DEA raided their office and confiscated everything - some big film company in New York. That would definitely put an end to any thoughts that these guys were going to make a movie about this.
AJ: Yeah, this would blow Scar Face, which was based on some real characters, out of the water. This is a film that needs to be made. And so that’s another big piece of this – anything they can to try to stop it. And Kevin I know that you are out taking care of errands right now. I hope that you can try – let’s be honest. I called Kevin this morning. He’s out on the Green Belt – beautiful weather here, down by the river, walking his two dogs. But Kevin, do you think you can get back to your office and get that qued up by the end of the show?
KB: I’ll try to.
AJ: If you can’t it’s okay, we can..
KB: I don’t know how to play it over the phone though.
AJ: Well you can figure it out. I think you can plug it into – just try to figure it out. If you can’t we can get it over here and get it uploaded to the computer tonight or put it on the web in high bandwidth and we can download it and stream it that way. This needs to get out immediately for Gary.
Kevin I want to bring up Cele Castillo. Now Cele was the top DEA agent. He’s been all over the big national TV shows, foreign television. We’ve interviewed him many times. He’s come to Austin and showed the pictures of the CIA drug dealers. He shows us the connection to Latin America – how that coupled through to people like “Freeway” Ricky Ross and the direct connection of the CIA and these conduits to people like “Freeway” Ricky Ross and the LAPD protecting Ricky Ross and other top drug dealers.
Cele, was this a new development for you to learn that Kevin talked to “Freeway” Ricky and found out that he had told “Freeway” Ricky that he had men at his house?
CC: I’ve heard something to that effect but I wasn’t really sure what actually did happen. But my whole point in this issue is the fact that, you’ve got to remember one thing, nobody’s ever done a movie or a documentary on the Iran-Contra investigation, which involved the CIA involved in drug trafficking. Now, Gary Webb, at one point, pointed to the assets that were heavily involved and I myself pointed to actually the CIA officials who were actually participating in loading and unloading and refueling the planes….
AJ: You came to Austin and did a two-hour presentation and showed photos of them, documents, everything.
CC: Yeah, I’ve got another 100-set of slides I’m going to bring over to Kevin Booth so he can put them on. … And those slides do have the good, the bad and the ugly.
AJ: For people who don’t know who you are, in a nutshell, tell us what you did and why you went public. Describe what you saw in Latin America.
CC: You’ve got to remember one thing, I’m not an individual who comes from the left or from the right but I was reared as a very patriotic family, came from a very patriotic family and we all served our country. And when I joined the DEA I thought that by putting my life on the line that I would make a difference. But it was there in Central America, in my six years that I realized that we were the enemy. We were sleeping with the enemy, we were involved in drug trafficking and when I tried to expose the whole issue, I remember Randy Kapster (?), a CIA official saying to me – “Nobody is going to listen to you. We’ve been doing this for years and nobody is going to ever, ever stop us.”
And he was absolutely right. Nobody has stopped them from doing their black ops worldwide. [crosstalk] and I saw DEA’s participation in refueling some planes of cocaine into the US and never been arrested, never been seized or anything.
[ ..] They were heavily, definitely involved in drug ops.
AJ: And you had individuals tell you, “Hey buddy, you are never going to stop us.”
CC: That’s right. I had a CIA official by the name of Randy Kapster(?) who was down there for close to 7-8 years involved in covert operations. He was involved in training death squads and basically about anything you can do covertly in Central America, he was involved in it.
AJ: I have about an hour long video that’s full of clips of you on national television going over much of this in years past and they are unable to even challenge you. You got to be a little bit worried about your safety, sir.
CC: Recently, to be honest with you, I’ve had some [ ] follow me around. I could tell they’re government because of my experiences with how when you approach them, they turn their face and they are on their cellphone. I’ve been under surveillance for quite a while now..
AJ: But you’re not afraid. You were a highly decorated sniper in Vietnam.
CC: Exactly, my point is this, since Vietnam, I’ve been on borrowed time. So, I’ve made my peace with God, I will fight to the end and I will never, ever commit suicide.
AJ: I want to say that, too. I will never commit suicide. Kevin, you want to ?
KB: It’s a triple non-suicide pact. I will never commit suicide.
CC: We are in this for the long haul. We need to fight these people to the very end. And whatever we have available, with what little we have, we need to continue fighting or it will just get worse. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better – if it gets better.
AJ: Talking about Gary Webb, Cele, he’s dead, shotgun to the face. And they described his face, from the sources, and you got a call just two hours after they found him, you were notified. And that his face was basically unrecognizable. A shotgun doesn’t do that if it’s point-blank. A shotgun only does that from a few feet away – for the pattern to expand. People don’t normally commit suicide with a shotgun to the face. Can you comment on what you learned about this?
CC: I got a call from Michael Ruppert who got his information right away after this incident and he knew that a note had been left and so forth. And that he was planning to move that morning and had the movers coming in. And they found that note on the door. Allegedly, that saying to not come in, to call 911 and call an ambulance. Why on earth if you are going to commit suicide would you bring an ambulance? If you shoot yourself with a 12-guage shotgun ….
AJ: Well that sounds like a classic mafia activity blowing somebody’s face off.
CC: To be honest with you, I really think when I think about government people, I think about Felix Rodriguez and his goon squads, that’s been involved in all kinds of assassinations - be they foreign or domestic. You know, Felix and his group are very well documented as assassins.
AJ: Well it’s like Barry Seal. They just marched up and machine-gunned him
CC: Exactly, and they blamed a couple of Columbians for that but there are always people who are willing to take the fall for the Agency.
AJ: Unbelievable. Again Cele, just for the record, tell us about your position in the DEA.
CC: I was a senior agent in El Salvador. We had two agents covering the four countries in Central America. I was assigned to cover El Salvador.
AJ: Well to be clear, I had read in mainstream media reports that you were described as the senior DEA officer in Latin America, are those incorrect?
CC: No, those are correct. You know I spent my time in New York City and domestically but I was the senior agent and I was in charge of El Salvador. And, you know, we went out there and conducted investigations and...
AJ: And so you signed on, you signed on to fight drugs. When did you find out that it was the government controlling it?
CC: From the very git-go. When I got into Guatemala City and J Robert Stea(?) said to me, “You know, there are some funny things going on in El Salvador and just don’t step on anybody’s toes. Don’t report anything and everything comes to me” and so forth. And sure enough, my source of information was the guy who did all the flight plans for the Contra pilots that were heavily involved in drug trafficking. And it was very well documented – money being seized in the U.S. and drugs being seized in the U.S. that came out of Alipondo{?}. There is no doubt about that. And we ourselves, we re-fueled some of those planes with the anticipation that they would be seized in the U.S. but…
"the drug dealers profit from the crisis they create" they get tax dollars as prisons are privatized and they own the companies that get the contracts serving the prisons just as they created hitler and saddam and osama and then get gov contracts fighting them
Coroner: Gary Webb's Death Confirmed as Suicide
Editor and Publisher | December 15 2004
Comment: We're still treating this as very suspicious. They have flip-flopped AGAIN. First it was multiple gunshot wounds, then it was just one and now it's multiple again. The coroner is right we have seen multiple wounds before in suicides, but only in Arkansas. Would somebody stealing your motorcycle really drive you over the edge? Remember what 'Freeway' Ricky Ross said? "The last time I talked to Gary he was excited and happy about life. He was thriving and looking towards the future." We owe it to Gary to exhaust all possibilities, that's what he would have wanted being the meticulous researcher he was.
Related: Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered
NEW YORK The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.
"The cause of death was determined to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head," said a statement issued by the Sacramento County Coroner's Office. "Information and evidence gathered at the scene of death, including a handwritten note indicating an intention on the part of the decedent to take his own life, resulted in 'suicide' as the determined manner of death."
The statement was issued because of numerous calls to the Coroner's Office following a Bee report Sunday that Webb's death was caused by more than one wound. A former San Jose Mercury News reporter, Webb was found dead in his Carmichael, Calif., home Friday morning.
Webb gained national attention in the 1990s after writing a series of stories for the Mercury News linking the CIA to Nicaraguan Contras trying to overthrow the Sandinista government and to drug sales of crack cocaine flooding South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s.
The Mercury News and others later questioned the conclusions in Webb's reporting, and he left the San Jose newspaper in 1997 after being moved to a suburban bureau. The paper later published an apology.
Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, told the Bee Tuesday that Webb, 49, had been distraught for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," Bell said.
The Bee also reported that Webb had paid for his own cremation earlier in the year and had named Bell months ago as the beneficiary of his bank account. He had sold his house last week, because he could no longer afford the mortgage, and was upset that his motorcycle had been stolen last week.
He had apparently laid out his driver's license before taking his father's .38-caliber pistol, which he kept in his nightstand, to shoot himself.
Coroner Robert Lyons said his office had been swamped with calls. "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots," he said, "but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility."
Rense.com
Webb Obit - 'Died Of Gunshot
WOUNDS To The Head'
From Charlene
Sacramento Bee
12-14-4
"Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said.
Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office said Saturday."
Note the plural "wounds". An actual suicide from a gunshot to the head wouldn't leave the victim in any state to pull the trigger a second time. Vince Foster, care to comment?
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11744167p-12630255c.html
From Astroworld.us -
Posted by shylurker on December 13, 2004
In the Sacto Bee (I posted it above somewhere), they referred to 'woundS'. I emailed the person in charge of obits, but haven't heard anything back yet. ?????
Posted by shylurker on December 13, 2004
I just heard from the obit guy. He said the coronor told them "he has multiple wounds". In other words, the coronor did NOT note the origin of the wounds.
http://www.astroworld.us/archives/000456.html#000456:
Discussion at Democratic Underground on Webb's 'wounds' -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_
mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1065543&mesg_id=1065543
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