Bloodline Crimes: Blood Money: The Master P and C-Murder Family Fracture

Morgan Wood (0:02)

This episode contains graphic depictions of violence, murder, and disturbing content involving the death of a minor. The case discussed involves ongoing legal proceedings and family conflicts. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

January 12th, 2002, Avondale, Louisiana. 16-year-old Steve Thomas' bedroom walls told a story. Posters of C-Murder covered every surface. The rapper mid-performance, album covers from Life or Death, and Bossolini magazine cutouts carefully arranged. Steve had decorated the shrine himself, spending his allowance and birthday money on merchandise from his favorite artist. Steve wasn't a troubled kid. He wasn't involved in gangs or drugs. He was a normal teenager who loved hip-hop, played basketball with his friends, and helped his mother, Delores, around the house.

His parents, George and Delores Thomas, had raised him in a working class black neighborhood, just outside New Orleans, teaching him respect, hard work, and faith. But Steve had one obsession, C-Murder.

The rapper from New Orleans who had made it big with his brothers, Master P and Silk the Shocker. To Steve, C-Murder wasn't just entertainment. He was proof that kids from neighborhoods like theirs could make it, could build something, could escape.

That Saturday night, January 12th, Steve Thomas heard that C-Murder was performing at the Platinum Club in Harvey, just a few miles from his house. The club was above Rainbow Lane's Bowling Alley, a venue Steve had passed by a hundred times. He was only 16, too young to get in legally, but this was C-Murder, his idol, the man whose lyrics he knew by heart. Steve borrowed a friend's ID. He told his parents he was going out with friends. At 16, he thought he was invincible. He thought meeting his hero would be the best night of his life. Steve had no idea he had less than five hours to live.

By midnight, the Platinum Club was packed. As many as 300 people crammed into a space that could barely hold 200 The air was thick with smoke, sweat and anticipation. C-Murder was on stage performing hits from his Platinum albums. The crowd knew every word. Their hands in the air, bodies pressed together on the dance floor. Steve Thomas had made it inside. He was living his dream, watching his idol perform just feet away. During a rap contest portion of the show, Steve, eager, excited, just wanting to be close to the man he admired, stepped off the stage. He moved towards C-Murder's entourage, perhaps hoping for an autograph, maybe just wanting to be near his hero. What happened next would be debated in courtrooms for 20 years. But one thing is certain, 16-year-old Steve Thomas would never go home.

Around 1 a.m., an altercation erupted near the dance floor. Witnesses would later describe Steve suddenly surrounded by C-Murder's entourage at least 15 grown men, members of the rapper's security and crew. They began attacking the teenager with shocking brutality. Kenneth Jordan, who was at the club that night, would later testify about what he saw. A child being punched, kicked, and stomped out by a group of adult men. Steve Thomas, 5'8, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet, didn't stand a chance against 15 attackers. The beating was vicious. Steve tried to protect himself, tried to curl up, tried to survive. But the blows kept coming. He fell to the floor, bloodied and defenseless, his face swelling, his body going limp from the assault.

Then the beating stopped. For a moment, there was near silence in the chaos. Steve Thomas lay on his back, on the club floor, barely conscious, surrounded by the men who had just brutalized him. And then C-Murder, according to multiple witnesses, pulled out a handgun. Garnell Jordan Sr., a bouncer at the Platinum Club, was standing close enough to see everything. He would later tell a jury, I saw Mr. Miller. He meant C-Murder, whose real name is Corey Miller. Pull out a silver gun and shoot the victim while he was lying on his back, defenseless.

Kenneth Jordan, another witness, saw the same thing. He would testify that he had no doubt about who pulled the trigger. Steve Thomas, the teenager who had come to see his idol perform, who had decorated his bedroom walls with posters of C-Murder, who had borrowed an ID just to be in the same room as the rapper he admired, lay on the floor of the Platinum Club with a gunshot wound to his chest.

The bullet had entered his chest and torn through his lung. As panic erupted in the club, as people screamed and ran, as C-Murder and his entourage fled the scene, Steve Thomas was dying on the floor, surrounded by strangers. Paramedics rushed Steve to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, less than a mile away. For an hour, doctors fought to save the 16-year-old's life, but the damage was too severe. The bullet had destroyed too much. At 2:31 a.m. on January 13th, 2002, Steve Thomas was pronounced dead.