"Wanted Dread or Alive" Belly It
On the debut of Herb and Legends Season 1 "Wanted Dread or Alive" The tragic tale of Peter Tosh, a seminal figure in reggae music, unfolds amidst the backdrop of a violent night in Kingston, Jamaica, on September 11, 1987. Host Henry K explores the harrowing events surrounding his assassination, which not only claimed the life of an influential musician but also raised profound questions regarding justice and the political landscape of the time. We explore the complexities of Tosh's legacy, marked by his passionate advocacy for equal rights and his defiance against oppressive systems. The narrative will scrutinize the circumstances leading to his death, the aftermath of the trial, and the lingering silence surrounding the true motives behind this violent act. Join us as we embark on a journey to uncover the truths hidden within this unsolved tragedy, aiming to resurrect the narrative that powerful forces have sought to obscure.
Produced by Henry K in association with Voice Boxx Studios, Kingston Jamaica
Featured music Peter Tosh "Legalize it" & "Equal Rights"
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Transcript
I say everybody get down on the ground.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:You think this is a joke?
Speaker A:Get flat, mister.
Speaker A:Get flat, man.
Speaker A:Hey, Leopold, it's where the bum buckler.
Speaker A:It's a belly.
Speaker A:No, what the Ras are doing?
Speaker A:Tell me where the money.
Speaker A:There.
Speaker A:It's where the money.
Speaker B:There we go.
Speaker B:Keep money at the yard.
Speaker B:Lepo, you can't do that to this thing.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker A:Shut up your mouth.
Speaker A:It's you who caused this.
Speaker A:Hey, boy.
Speaker C:Oh.
Speaker A:You let your woman control the money?
Speaker A:Or you let your woman control your money?
Speaker B:No, Lefo, don't do it.
Speaker C:In the dimming light of a hot September Jamaican evening, a brutal drama was about to unfold.
Speaker C:A story of betrayal, of desperation and the violent end of a musical revolutionary.
Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:Gunshots shattered the peaceful night on Plymouth Avenue in the upper middle class suburb of St.
Speaker C:Andrews in Kingston.
Speaker C:When the echoes finally faded, seven people were shot, three killed, including Peter Tosh, the original Wailer freedom fighter, outspoken activist.
Speaker C:A room where music and friendship had been shared was now the scene of a horrific crime.
Speaker C:A man was arrested, convicted and died in prison for the murders.
Speaker C:Yet the trial left more questions than answers.
Speaker C:I'm Henry Kay, and after spending three decades living and producing music in Kingston, Jamaica, I've learned there's a heartbeat beneath every song.
Speaker C:Living archives of whispered secrets and unresolved tensions.
Speaker C:Just waiting for someone to pull back the curtain and listen to what's been said.
Speaker C:Maybe you're like me, drawn to the spaces in between the notes, the pregnant pauses where unspoken truths are revealed.
Speaker C:Some mysteries were never meant to be completely solved.
Speaker C:They're meant to be felt, to resonate in that liminal space between shadows and light, between truth and legends, urban legends.
Speaker A:Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Speaker D:Entertainer and reggae star Bob Marley, Rita Marley, and the manager of the Whalers, Don Taylor, are now patients in the University Hospital after receiving gunshot wounds during a shooting incident which took place at Marley's home at 56 Hope Road.
Speaker D:Tonight.
Speaker E:How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?
Speaker D:The crossing of another Jamaican superstar.
Speaker D:Reggae dynamo Peter Tosh, one of the original winners, had passed away.
Speaker C:By the gun.
Speaker C:By the gun.
Speaker A:Glory to John.
Speaker C:Let him be praised because his righteousness govern the world.
Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:His early years growing up in the parish of Westmoreland were a testament to the complex rhythms of rural Jamaican life.
Speaker C:A landscape marked by both profound beauty and systematic economic struggle.
Speaker C:Rejected by his father, a local pastor, who Peter described as spreading a lot more than the word of God.
Speaker C:Abandoned by his mother, who was emotionally and financially unfit to care for the child, he was sent to nearby Grange Hill to be raised by his aunt, a devout Christian who forced her young nephew to weekly church services.
Speaker C:And while Peter detested the preaching and sermons that he often viewed as hypocritical, it was in the church he gained a knowledge and appreciation for music.
Speaker C:While he was still young, Peter learned quickly that survival required more than just physical endurance.
Speaker C:It demanded a radical reimagining of possibility.
Speaker C: Jamaica in the: Speaker C:A place where echoes of plantation economics still reverberated through generations of black Jamaicans seeking their own definition of freedom.
Speaker C:One day, after being mesmerized watching a musician playing guitar in a local market, Peter went home and built his own guitar from a sardine pan, broom handle and some fishing line.
Speaker C:For young Peter Tosh, his definition of freedom would be music.
Speaker C:At the age of 15, after his aunt passed away, Peter Tosh made the pivotal decision to move to Trenchtown.
Speaker C:It was more than just a geographical transition.
Speaker C:This was an ambitious act of cultural migration.
Speaker C:A journey from rural marginalization, where he saw no future, to the pulsing heart of Kingston's musical revolution.
Speaker C:A new genre of music had emerged from the ghettos called ska, Reggae's predecessor, and it was taking Jamaica and the world by storm.
Speaker F: Since: Speaker F:People hearing it became caught up in a frenzy and couldn't help moving to this pulsating, almost religious feast.
Speaker F:This is Gap.
Speaker C:Trenchtown wasn't just a neighborhood.
Speaker C:It was a crucible for artistic rebellion.
Speaker C:A place where young men like Tosh could turn their economic disposition into powerful cultural expression.
Speaker C:Here, music became more than entertainment.
Speaker C:It was a weapon of resistance, a means for financial stability and a way of articulating the complex political and social realities of a generation emerging from the colonial shadows.
Speaker C: group the Wailers in the year: Speaker C:This wasn't merely a musical group, but a philosophical collective.
Speaker C:Young men, brothers who understood that their art could be a revolutionary language.
Speaker C:Tash brought to this partnership his musicianship and a fierce intellectual rigor that complemented Marley's charismatic spirituality.
Speaker C:Where Marley could charm Tash would challenge Where Marley sought universal connection, Tosh demanded radical accountability.
Speaker C:This friction, this yin yang, is what made the Wailers a once in a generation phenomena.
Speaker C:In the unforgiving slums of Trenchtown, surrounded by the raw energy of Kingston's emerging musical ecosystem, Tasha's vision crystallized.
Speaker C:He was no longer just creating music.
Speaker C:He was crafting a new language of human dignity and self awareness, a sonic representation of spiritual liberation that would resonate far beyond Jamaica's shores, eventually washing up on the south coast of Long island in a quiet suburban enclave known as the Five Towns, where I grew up.
Speaker C: In the summer of: Speaker C:The pier was the actual first stop for millions of new migrants arriving for the first time to America at the turn of the century before being ferried across the river to Ellis island for processing Pure.
Speaker C:84 was rich in history, hope and symbolism.
Speaker C:That night, when Peter Tosh took the stage, it was more than just a concert.
Speaker C:For many in the crowd, including myself, there was an awakening under those Manhattan stars.
Speaker C:I was just 16, hungry for something beyond the suffocating limitations of everyday suburban Long island life.
Speaker C:When Peter Tosh would show us all that music could be a way to emancipate yourself.
Speaker C:Regardless of who you are or where you came from, we all have the ability to transcend our physical boundaries.
Speaker C: ic that captured live tour in: Speaker C:When he walked out, he was more than a musician.
Speaker C:He was a revolutionary, a messenger draped in defiance, riding his signature unicycle, burning a giant spliff of sensimilia.
Speaker C:Long before legalization, which was a giant effort to the system that he so despised, his presence commanded the stage with a gravitas that silenced the crowd instantly.
Speaker C:His dreadlocks cascaded in the Hudson breeze like ancestral roots.
Speaker C:His frame lean and powerful, radiating an intensity that spoke of resistance before he even sang a note.
Speaker C:And his voice, oh, that sweet, sweet baritone.
Speaker C:It wasn't merely singing, it was testifying.
Speaker C:Each lyric a liberation cry, each phrase a meditation on human dignity.
Speaker C:And between songs, Tash would preach his words sharp intellectual weapons cutting through political hypocrisy, religious manipulation, systematic oppression, all his greatest hits.
Speaker C:When he played the song legalize it the crowd erupted and sang along with every word.
Speaker C:We weren't just hearing a song about marijuana.
Speaker C:We were witnessing a philosophical statement about personal freedom, about challenging systems that criminalize the poor and disenfranchised.
Speaker C:And at the time, that was a progressive and courageous stance.
Speaker C: ng was originally released in: Speaker C:Peter was mocked, belittled, denigrated for advocating that cannabis had healing properties and medicinal uses, especially by doctors and the scientific community.
Speaker C:And now that that same pharmaceutical industrial complex is reaping in billions in profit off of cannabis.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker C:Suddenly it's become a miracle cure all for the 21st century.
Speaker C:I guess we can finally congratulate the modern day medical establishment for finally catching up with the ancient wisdoms of the Rastafari elders.
Speaker C:But not before musicians like Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Toots Hibbert were beaten for possession of herb and served time in prison for their stance, sacrificing valuable years of their careers.
Speaker E:Everyone is crying out for peace.
Speaker E:None is crying out for justice.
Speaker E:I said everyone is crying out for peace.
Speaker E:I say none is crying out for justice.
Speaker E:But there will be no peace till man gets equal rights and justice.
Speaker C:When Tosh sang his song Equal Rights, it felt like a manifesto.
Speaker C:The words penetrated as deep as the sound.
Speaker C: d Bob Marley and the Wailer's: Speaker C:Its most defining song.
Speaker C: the century back in the year: Speaker C:But I always thought that Peter Tosh's Equal Rights better reflected the universal truth at the core of Rege's message.
Speaker C:He sings, everyone is crying out for peace.
Speaker C:None is crying out for justice.
Speaker C:But there won't be peace until we have equal rights and justice.
Speaker C:That simple, profound and prophetic truth has never been more relevant.
Speaker C:And whether we like it or not, it's the prerequisite for living in a world with one love and one heart.
Speaker C:And what about the man who spent his life fighting for equal rights and justice for other people?
Speaker C:Where is the justice for the great Peter Tosh?
Speaker C:His brutal assassination was not just the end of a brilliant musician's life, but a violent interruption of a revolutionary narrative and a profound metaphor for how power responds to genuine resistance.
Speaker C:And what does his silencing say about the truths he dared to voice?
Speaker C:Peter Tosh, along with bandmates Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, sang the words that not all that Glitters is gold.
Speaker C:Half the story has never been told.
Speaker C:They understood the truth was ugly and dangerous and does not fit into neat little boxes.
Speaker C:And people, for the most part, as the cliche says, can't handle the truth.
Speaker C:No, they can't handle the truth.
Speaker C:Yet the truth is that one of my musical heroes, Peter Tosh, didn't deserve to die like he did, beaten and shot in the back of the head while lying face down on his living room floor.
Speaker C:No, man, he didn't deserve that.
Speaker C:And the real injustice is that those behind his murder never paid a price for their crimes.
Speaker C:And the true motive for his killing has never been revealed.
Speaker C:Until now.
Speaker C:This is an invitation to take a journey with me into an unsolved tragedy that extends far beyond a single violent night in the suburbs of Kingston.
Speaker C:And I'm not promising all the answers, but what I'm offering is something far more profound.
Speaker C:A collective excavation sifting through the scattered fragments, whispered secrets and official silence.
Speaker C:Our goal isn't just to solve a murder, but to resurrect a narrative that powerful forces tried to bury.
Speaker C:This isn't just an investigation.
Speaker C:This is a reckoning.
Speaker C:There are some documents that breathe and some documents that have more silence than words.
Speaker C: The: Speaker C:It's a keyhole into a much darker narrative of power, violence, and the dangerous intersection of music, politics and the Jamaican underworld.
Speaker C:Each page, in a way, feels like a carefully curated performance, revealing just enough to satisfy legal requirements, while at the same time concealing the blood stained tapestry of Peter Tosh's final moments.
Speaker C:And as I read the document, I'm going to react and comment along the way, because I want you to pay attention not just to the words, but to the silences.
Speaker C:Supreme Court Criminal Appeal148.88.
Speaker C:The Honorable Mr.
Speaker C:Justice Carey, the Honorable Mr.
Speaker C:Justice Forte, and the Honorable Mr.
Speaker C:Justice Morgan.
Speaker C:Regina vs Dennis Loban.
Speaker C:Let me just say the irony cuts deep when you read those words at the top of the document.
Speaker C:Regina versus Dennis Loban.
Speaker C:Regina.
Speaker C:Latin for Queen.
Speaker C: And you might Wonder why a: Speaker C:But that's the thing about colonial power.
Speaker C:It just doesn't pack up and leave when the flag comes down.
Speaker C:Jamaica's independence, like Peter Tosh's own story carries the complicated weight of colonial legacy.
Speaker C: nd claimed its sovereignty in: Speaker C:Even today, King Charles III is technically the head of state, and the United Kingdom's Privy Council can overturn Jamaica's Supreme Court decision.
Speaker C:The very system Tosh spent his life fighting, what he called the Babylon system, still held the pen that wrote the final chapter of his story.
Speaker C:And the cruel poetry of it all shouldn't escape anyone.
Speaker C:Here's a man who devoted his life to breaking free from the monarchy.
Speaker C:Yet even in death, the Crown maintains control of his story.
Speaker C: The: Speaker C:But the thing is, this isn't a book, it's a podcast.
Speaker C:So let's hear what this Babylon system has to say as we peel back the carefully constructed layers of the official narrative.
Speaker C: June: Speaker C:The Honorable Mr.
Speaker C:Justice Carey JA we now give our reasons for refusing this application for leave to appeal.
Speaker C: June: Speaker C:Count one, alleged the murder of Wilton Brown.
Speaker C:Count two, related to Winston McIntosh, which is the real name of Peter Tosh, the internationally known reggae singer.
Speaker C:Count three was in connection with the death of Free Eye Jasani Kabakajirai, the Rastafarian nomenclature of Jeff Dixon, a well known broadcaster and disc jockey.
Speaker C:So as we dive into the court's decision, the document reveals the human cost of that night on Plymouth Avenue.
Speaker C:As we're introduced to the other two murder victims, Jeff Fri Dixon, described simply as a well known broadcaster and disc jockey, was so much more.
Speaker C:He was one of the island's most influential and revolutionary thinkers.
Speaker C:And he and Tosh were more than just friends.
Speaker C: nning to stabilize in the mid-: Speaker C:The timing of their murders raised questions that the court never touched.
Speaker C:Then there's Wilton Doc Brown, herbalist, spiritual healer, practitioner of the dark arts, what they call in Jamaica, obeah.
Speaker C:There were spiritual dimensions of this crime, secret stories of supernatural Forces and ancient practices.
Speaker C:It's no secret that Peter felt his life was in danger, calling upon his ancestral spirits for protection.
Speaker C:But those closest to him felt that was exactly what led to his demise.
Speaker C:Back to the document.
Speaker C:The prosecution led evidence that about 7.30pm on 11 September, Peter Tosh, his common law wife, Marlene Brown, and their visitors, Michael Robinson, Wilton Brown and Santa Davis, were enjoying a quiet evening in the privacy of their living room at their home at Plymouth avenue Barbican in St.
Speaker C:Andrew.
Speaker C:One of the guests led in the applicant, Leppo, whom he knew before, and two other men who arrived with the applicant.
Speaker C:Their interest was not to watch the television program by satellite in which the other visitors were engaged.
Speaker C:These intruders brandished guns.
Speaker C:Householders and visitors alike were peremptorily ordered to get down on the floor.
Speaker C:The command was belly it hardly English or Jamaican English, but menacingly and strikingly clear in its purport.
Speaker C:The applicant as leader, demanded money.
Speaker C:And they were told by Tosh and indeed by his wife, Marlene Brown, that they had none.
Speaker C:But this was incomprehensible because Tash had just returned from tour abroad with United States currency.
Speaker C:Nor did the applicant, Lepo, take kindly to Marlene Brown's explanation for this regrettable state of affairs.
Speaker C:She advised that Leppo's brother had visited earlier in the week and had been given money.
Speaker C:Leppo expressed the view that she was wholly to blame for Peter Tosh's financial incapacity to maintain, quote, unquote, we meaning presumably anybody who came by and asked her continual explanation appeared to irritate and anger the applicant.
Speaker C:Then he turned his attention to Tash himself, demanded to know whether he had given his wife so much authority over them.
Speaker C:Then he threatened to kick him.
Speaker C:The scene described in these court papers reads like street theater.
Speaker C:Lepo Laban conspicuously pointed out as the leader of the gang by the court, barking belliot in patois, a language the victims understood all too well.
Speaker C:While five people lay face down, guns trained on them, an almost absurd argument breaks out between Marlene Brown, Peter's much younger common law wife, and Leppo about borrowed money and personal finances.
Speaker C:It's like a deadly episode of Real Housewives of Kingston playing out against the backdrop of an execution.
Speaker C:And what about those other two gunmen who I'll call the unknown assailants?
Speaker C:For now, they're like the shooter on the grassy knoll, but in plain sight, shadows at the center of a deeper conspiracy, with contradicting reports emerging whether they were ever identified or not.
Speaker C:The official narrative wrapped in Queen's English and legal formality feels too neat, too convenient.
Speaker C:The court got so many details wrong, or perhaps deliberately misinterpreted them.
Speaker C:They claimed Peter had just returned from touring the US when, in fact he'd only gone up to discuss the tour with no advance payment.
Speaker C:Small details, perhaps, but they hint at a larger pattern that fits their robbery gone wrong narrative.
Speaker C:But let's get back to that night.
Speaker C:These proceedings were interrupted by a knock.
Speaker C:Thereafter, Frye, also known as Jeff Dixon, and his wife were ushered into the room and ordered to lie face downwards on the floor.
Speaker C:Mr.
Speaker C:Dixon was unwilling to comply, despite the menace of guns and jabs from one of the guns of one of the intruders.
Speaker C:Eventually, he responded to the advice of Marlene Brown.
Speaker C:Thereafter, persons in the room were robbed of jewelry and one of the men, having found a machete, used it to beat Marlene Brown.
Speaker C:She was forced to the ground and shot, she said, in her head, the bullet, fortunately for her, only grazing her skull.
Speaker C:She was thus able to be alive to recount these events.
Speaker C:So is it just me, or does something peculiar emerge in the Supreme Court decision?
Speaker C:What starts out as a murder case morphs into a Marlene Brown biopic.
Speaker C:Fascinating, as she takes center stage in this legal drama.
Speaker C:There's Marlene standing up to Leppo.
Speaker C:Marlene convinces Fri to listen to the intruders.
Speaker C:Marlene faces down a machete and Marlene taking that first bullet, a graze to the skull, she said.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker C:Let me read that line again.
Speaker C:She was forced to the ground and shot, she said.
Speaker C:I find those two words so puzzling.
Speaker C:Let that sink in a minute.
Speaker C:We are at the Supreme Court level, the final word on justice.
Speaker C:And they're using, she said about a gunshot wound.
Speaker C:This isn't some barroom tale.
Speaker C:This is a murder case that's already seen a full trial.
Speaker C:There should have been evidence, photographs, medical reports, doctor testimony, hard evidence that transforms, she said, into established fact.
Speaker C:And I'm not suggesting that she wasn't shot.
Speaker C:But then why this strange choice of words by Justice Carry?
Speaker C:Was it a mere slip of the legal pen or something more deliberate?
Speaker C:And we'll take a closer look at Marlene Brown, the role she played that night on Plymouth Avenue, and the role she's played ever since that night on Plymouth Avenue.
Speaker C:But let's get back to that night.
Speaker C:After the first shot, there was a barrage of shots.
Speaker C:All the men must have fired.
Speaker C:Everyone lying on the floor was shot, three of them fatally, each of whom form the basis of account in this indictment.
Speaker C:Another witness who lived to tell the tale was Michael Robinson.
Speaker C:He, too, is well acquainted with the applicant.
Speaker C:The widow of Jeff Dixon did not know Leppo before, and it doesn't appear that she was invited to attend an identification parade.
Speaker C:None of the witnesses to the indictment were acquainted with the other two gunmen.
Speaker C:And once again, language dances around certainty like a nervous witness.
Speaker C:Quote, all men must have fired, the document states.
Speaker C:Must have.
Speaker C:In a case where three people were killed, why this strange ambiguity?
Speaker C:It's as if the court is tiptoeing around definitively stating on the official record that these two unknown assailants fired their weapons for sure.
Speaker C:A fact that we know to be true.
Speaker C:So who are they protecting?
Speaker C:These two shadowy figures that float through the case like ghosts at a crime scene?
Speaker C:Or the justices protecting themselves?
Speaker C:And the chaos of that night on Plymouth Avenue becomes more murky with every detail.
Speaker C:Victims face down on a floor, unable to see their attackers.
Speaker C:A barrage of gunshots shatter the night.
Speaker C:Screaming chaos.
Speaker C:Who shot whom?
Speaker C:Can anyone really be certain?
Speaker C:But wait, there's more.
Speaker C:Let's talk about Jeff Dixon's widow.
Speaker C:The document states she did not know the applicant, Leppo, prior to that evening.
Speaker C:And it doesn't appear she was invited to attend the identification parade.
Speaker C:It doesn't appear she was invited.
Speaker C:We're talking about one of four surviving witnesses to a murder of a global music icon.
Speaker C:How is there no clear record of whether she was asked to identify the killer of her own husband?
Speaker C:And the court dismisses her unfamiliarity with Leppo before that night as irrelevant.
Speaker C:But isn't that exactly why her identification would have been crucial?
Speaker C:The only thing that these justices seem to be absolutely certain of is that none of the witnesses knew the other two gunmen.
Speaker C:How convenient.
Speaker C:The narrative wraps up neat and tidy.
Speaker C:It's just Dennis Loban, the brutal killer of his friends and benefactor, Peter Tosh.
Speaker C:Case closed, appeal denied, justice served.
Speaker C:Except Leppo has his own story of where he was that night, and it places him far from Plymouth Avenue.
Speaker C:Stay tuned for the next episode.
Speaker C:The alibi.
Speaker D:Sat.
