Michael K. Williams’ shocking death in September 2021 left admirers of his work (particularly in The Wire and Lovecraft Country) feeling gutted. That’s particularly the case because his Lovecraft performance was so raw and emotional (and should have won him an Emmy). Not only that, but Williams opened up to Men’s Health about how the show’s “generational trauma” affected him heavily, to the point where it “kicked the door off the hinges” for him.
In the aftermath of filming Lovecraft, as Williams told Men’s Health, he relapsed back into drugs and began to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings and therapy. Sadly, the investigation into Williams’ death reveals that he wasn’t able to kick those demons, and as the Daily Beast reports, four men have now been arrested in connection with the drugs that killed the iconic actor who portrayed Omar Little in The Wire. As the Beast reveals, there’s a The Wire feel in this case. Here, officers were able match up key moments in surveillance footage to make an arrest. Now, this moment in the HBO show didn’t happen, but there was enough on camera to make an arrest.
The full report at The Daily Beast is well worth reading, but the detailed description of the surveillance footage points towards Williams buying “heroin laced with fentanyl and carfentanil” (the lethal mix pinpointed by the medical examiner for Williams’ cause of death) from Irvin Cartagena, an alleged dealer known as “Green Eyes.” The two men didn’t appear to know each other, but Green Eyes wasn’t very savvy, given that he’d previously been busted in the same location. Not only that, but investigators focused upon when Williams exchanged phone numbers with Green Eyes. Here’s more:
While an episode of The Wire shows a drug crew throwing rocks to break a surveillance camera, Green Eyes and those with him seemed not at all worried that the transaction was being recorded.
And even though Green Eyes had been busted at this very spot six months before, he did not hesitate to conduct this exchange with Williams in plain sight. The whole scene appeared as relaxed as if dealing dangerous narcotics were as completely legal as selling milk at the Alegria Grocery next door.
Williams and Green Eyes were so at ease that they paused to take out their phones to exchange numbers, Green Eyes dialing first. Williams showed him his screen and Green Eyes pointed to it, apparently confirming his number.
From there, detectives looked at Williams’ phone and matched up a call to that moment on the footage, and from there, the footage showed how Williams headed back to his apartment, where his lifeless body was found the next day. The Daily Beast notes that Green Eyes “vanished” from the location (where he didn’t seem to care about surveillance footage) after the news of Williams’ death broke. You can read the full report here.
(Via The Daily Beast)
