FORMER BAD BOY ARTIST CONFESSES TO 1993 MURDER, BEING HELD WITHOUT BAIL...(VIDEO)

Former Bad Boy Artist, G. Dep, confessed to a 17-year old murder, according to the NY Post. Reportedly, the 36 year old rapper walked into NY's 25th precinct and confessed his guilt to what was being considered a "cold case".

Interestingly, G. Dep had been arrested more than 25 times since 1993 with no connection made between him and said murder. He is currently being held without bail after being booked on murder charges.

Pop the Trunk for more on his Bad Boy career, details about his murder confession + video from a documentary short about him that was released earlier this year, prior to his confession...


The Harlem, NY emcee made most of his noise in the '90's when he was one of the most well-known (2nd generation) rappers on Bad Boy Records, owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. He signed on the dotted line in 1998 at the age of 18 with a big future ahead of him. He appeared on Gangstarr's Moment of Truth album, and found success on Black Rob's hit track, "Let's Get it". He released one album, Child of the Ghetto, on Bad Boy's label in 2001, which received a mild commercial response.


Via The NY Post:

"I shot and killed someone 17 years ago," Coleman told a cop in the station house.

As Coleman continued to reveal more details of the Oct. 19, 1993, murder of John Henkel outside the James Weldon Johnson Houses -- things only the killer would know -- the officer reached out to investigators at the 23rd Precinct, where the crime took place.

"It was just eating away at him," said a police source.

Coleman, who grew up in the projects, told cops he was riding a bike when he rolled up on Henkel, 32, on Park Avenue and East 114th Street and announced a robbery.

Coleman told Detective William Dunn that Henkel resisted and grabbed his .40-caliber gun.

He allegedly admitted that he pulled away and shot his victim three times in the chest.

Coleman said he fled and tossed the weapon into the East River.

Henkel was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

When the detective reviewed the cold-case file, he was amazed to discover that Coleman's tale matched up.

Coleman, who has racked up more than 25 arrests since 2003 for drugs, burglary and grand larceny, was charged with murder, and is being held without bail.

"My client is presumed innocent, and the case is going to grand jury," said Coleman's lawyer, Michael Alperstein.

Coleman, who rapped under the name "G-Dep," was signed in 1998 to a $350,000, five-album deal with Combs' Bad Boy Records. His first album, "Child of the Ghetto," was released in 2001.

The song "Let's Get It" featured Coleman trading rhymes with Combs and fellow Bad Boy artist Black Rob.

Coleman no longer has ties to the label, a spokewoman said.

Earlier this year, Media Gasface released a documentary short on G. Dep called "Night Nurse" as a part of their series, "New York Minute". Check it out below for a little more insight on G. Dep's story. It's an artsy piece but also very dark. (A serious side-eye goes to the man with the baby out at 1AM looking for his murder victim to-be).

104 - Night Nurse from ARTE New York Minute on Vimeo.

*UPDATE*

Travell Colema (G. Dep's real name) has since spoken to The Post and had this to say about his confession and subsequent arrest:

Via Bossip:

The guilt-ridden rapper who confessed to a 17-year-old murder told The Post yesterday he didn’t know his victim had died when he decided to come clean on the cold case.
Trevell Coleman — whose rap name is G-Dep — said cops dropped the bombshell after he went into the 25th Precinct station house Wednesday to admit to the Oct. 19, 1993, shooting of John Henkel. “I was surprised — for some reason, I really didn’t think that he died,” the bald and bearded Coleman said in a jailhouse interview. “When they told me, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not going home after this.’ “

Manhattan DA spokeswoman Erin Duggan said Coleman, 36, has now been charged with murder in the case. He faces life in prison. The rapper — who signed with Sean Combs’ Bad Boy label in 1999, was dropped a few years later, and last August signed with Famous Records — said his dark secret “weighed on me.” It got so bad for him, he confessed despite the objections of loved ones. “I told my mom and my girlfriend that I wanted to confess, and they both told me to leave it in the past,” he said. “[My girlfriend] is pretty peeved.”

Lyvonnia Copeland, 40, the mother of his three kids, declined to comment yesterday. Coleman said he’s been dogged by drug addiction, and that at the time of the shooting, “I didn’t think about it.”
“That’s just the life I was living back then,” he said. “I started to wonder if all the bad things that happened to me in my life were karma for what I did . . . you start to think ‘My happiness is because of someone else’s sadness.’ “I thought that if I turned myself in, it might give me closure.”

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly called Coleman’s motivations “uncertain — maybe he had a pang of conscience,” but said: “We’ll take it any way we can get it.” Coleman’s criminal record includes nearly 30 arrests, a law-enforcement source said. “This guy had particularly bad luck with getting caught,” the source said, noting his most recent bust in November for trespassing with drugs on city-housing property.

“I haven’t been living right,” Coleman told The Post. “I always had people around me that were good people, but I was doing the wrong thing.” Though he said his confession confounds everyone — “People in [jail] don’t understand how you can confess,” he said — to Coleman, it makes perfect sense. “I’m just trying to get right with God,” he said. Coleman said his career was just “little shows here and there. The only thing I regret is that I have to leave my kids,” he said.

Family friend Thomas Frederick, 51, said the Harlem-born rapper’s descent had been distressing for a neighborhood that had idolized him. “He was like a celeb to the community,” he said. “But after his grandmother who raised him died about four years ago, he was heavily into PCP — like he wanted to leave this world.”

SMH. (Crack) Cocaine's a helluva drug.

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