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Post by TheCapricornPrince on May 8, 2005 0:59:24 GMT -5
From what I have read this was a decent thread. I have not read it all. When I get time I will. But it seems there was some meeting of the minds amidst the interruptions.
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Post by TheCapricornPrince on May 8, 2005 1:03:09 GMT -5
I agree Sarah. Joyce was my biggest reservation in discussing this subject with Drex from the start. I knew it would be reduced to her trivial whining and moaning. Reggie felt the same way. Absolutely. I told Drexell up front those were my reservations. I can't wait to read this thread in it's entirety.
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Post by EmergingRuffian on May 8, 2005 1:51:06 GMT -5
Welcome home CP!
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:07:52 GMT -5
Addie is in the hospital and has been since Thursday, w/o access to a computer.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:24:49 GMT -5
Thanks Beez for allowing me to post, Happy Mother's Day!
Cited: The Detroit News Sunday June 2, 1991 He never lost his voice Drug overdose? Cocaine probably killed singing star, examiner says.
By Tarek Hamada, Kate DeSmet and Susan Whitall The Detroit News
Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin died Saturday in Philadelphia of an apparent drug overdose. He was 50. “It looks like a drug death,” said a Philadelphia medical examiner. “Probably cocaine. Even a small amount of cocaine can kill you.” The cause of death will be officially determined once the medical examiner’s office receives the results of toxicology tests, which could take several days, police said. A limousine driver brought Ruffin, who wearing a lime-green shirt, multicolor shorts and sneakers, to the emergency room of the University of Pennsylvania at 2:55 a.m. Saturday, saying he was suffering from a drug overdose. Ruffin was pronounced dead an hour later, hospital officials said. “The driver basically said, ‘He’s in bad shape. He was with the Temptations. He name is David Ruffin,’” said the medical examiner, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Then he left.” The FBI confirmed Ruffin’s identity through fingerprint, police said. Ruffin, who a family member said had been living with a girlfriend in Philadelphia for about a year, liked to travel around the city in rented limousines, said Bob Knight, one of his two managers. He had returned to Philadelphia on May 17 after a month long tour of England with two other ex-Temptations, Eddie Kendrick and Dennis Edwards. “I can’t handle any comment right now,” Kendrick said by telephone from Atlanta. ‘I talked to him yesterday and he was feeling alright.” In recent years, Ruffin hadn’t been as successful as he was in his 1960s heyday with the group. He had struggled with drug abuse for more than two decades. But in six years with the Temptations, he delivered more classic music than most singers do in a lifetime. It was Ruffin who broke the Temptations string of bad luck when he joined the group in 1963.He sang with them on their first hit, The Way You Do The Things You Do. A Mississippi native, Ruffin, first sang there with a gospel group, the Dixie Nightingales. The Ruffin family moved to Detroit in the late ‘50s and Ruffin cut some records with little success for Anna Records, Berry Gordy’s sister Anna’s label. Founding Temptation Otis Williams lived on Philadelphia, just a block from Euclid, where the Ruffin family lived. According to Williams’ 1988 book Temptations, Ruffin and his older brother, Jimmy, would come to the Williams’ kitchen and try to out sing each other. Then one night at a Temptations gig at Chappy’s Lounge, Ruffin jumped onstage and tore the house down with a trick he often used in the later Tempts shows: He’d throw the microphone into the air, catch it, and fall down into full splits. According to Williams’ account, co-existing in a band with a Ruffin was never smooth. His ego was as large as his talent, leading to friction in the band when the other members felt success had gone to Ruffin’s head. At one point Ruffin refused to ride with the other four Tempts in their limousine, opting for his own limo with a mink-lined floor and his name painted on the side. Kendrick was always afraid Ruffin was more interested in a solo career than his future with the Temptations, but ultimately it was the group that cut Ruffin loose. In 1967, he missed a Temptation show to attend a girlfriend’s opening. The band agreed too let him go in 1968. As a solo artist, Ruffin scored in 1969 with a typically gut-wrenching vocal on My Hold World Ended (The Moment You Left Me), and in 1975 with Walk Away From Love. His life away from the group was not as structured as Ruffin needed to produce quality music. His career was in decline until 1982, when he and Kendrick rejoined the rest of the band for a Reunion tour and album. Despite the recent improvement in his career, family and friends said Saturday that Ruffin was battling a cocaine addiction until his death. “He always tried and always struggled with drugs,” said his ex-wife and friend, Sandra Ruffin, of Detroit. “He was a wonderful person, but he just was outmatched (by his addiction).” His aunt by marriage, Lillie Ruffin of Ecorse, said she wasn’t surprised by her nephew’s death. “I’m not shocked,” she said, noting they had talked about his drug problem when he came to dinner a year ago. “I knew he was using to much drugs.” When she asked him why he took drugs, “he told me, ‘It’s a certain comfort.’” Lillie Ruffin said. “I said, ‘Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?’ He said he didn’t think so.” Ruffin first checked into a drug treatment center in 1967, three years after joining the group. In May 1988, a Detroit Recorder’s Court judge found him guilty of using cocaine and gave him two years’ probation on the condition he get treatment and perform community service singing. But Ruffin walked away from the $350-a-day Areba Casriel Institute in Manhattan, owing thousands in patient fees. At the time, the center’s director said Ruffin’s drug abuse problem dated back more than 20 years. Ruffin – whose real name was Davis Ruffin – violated his probation three times, skipped Narcotics Anonymous meetings and could not be found at an address he’d left with the court. One probation officer in 1989 commented in exasperation: “He’s tried everyone’s patience.” At the time of his death, “he was making money and working steady,” Sandra Ruffin said. Although Ruffin, Kendrick and Edwards could not legally use the name, “they were still the Temptations.” “He was a likeable, loveable person,” said his former wife. “Very good-hearted. The only downfall he had was the drugs. He was really trying. After 24 years with the drugs, he just couldn’t conquer it.” “But he never lost his voice.” Funeral arrangements are pending.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:27:28 GMT -5
Cited: The Detroit Free Press Monday, June 3, 1991 Ruffin’s friends say singer was killed $35,000 missing: Police seek two men with ex-Temptation as he collapsed at a drug house.
By Brenda Ingersoll
PHILADELPHIA – Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin was carrying $35,000 when he when he collapsed in a crack house of an apparent drug overdose, authorities and friends said Sunday. The money is missing, prompting his friends to suspect someone purposely gave the former Motown star an overdose to get the money. “As far as I’m concerned, it was murder,” said Tharon Hill, a friend of Ruffin’s for 30 years and former road manager for the Four Tops. Diane Showers, 38, who had lived with Ruffin in Philadelphia for two years, said that despite her pleadings, Ruffin continued to use drugs when he had money. Still, Showers insisted Ruffin was too expert a drug user to accidentally overdose. “He may be somewhat irresponsible, but he’s not crazy,” Showers said. Police want to know what happened to the money Ruffin was supposed to be carrying and what happened to two men who were believed to be with Ruffin at a drug house when he collapsed. One Philadelphia police detective said he does not believe Ruffin was intentionally given the overdose. “If I were a guessing man,” he said, “I’d say the money was taken after the overdose happened – that it was an opportunity thing.” Ruffin, 50, was taken by limousine to the emergency room of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia at 2:55 a.m. Saturday and died an hour later. The cause of death is undetermined, pending toxicology test results. Officials said hospital security guards lifted his unconscious body from the car. The driver told them Ruffin’s name then sped off. Ruffin brought the Temptations their first big hit, My Girl, in 1964, and nine more top 10 R&B hits in the next four years. He struggled with drug abuse more than 25, and entered his first drug rehabilitation clinic in 1967. Ruffin was arrested in 1987 and 1988 for cocaine possession, and spent time in a Detroit rehabilitation center in 1989. Ruffin grew up in Meridian, Miss. He said he smoked marijuana first at 16 and used cocaine for the first time at age 24. Last month, Ruffin and two other former Temptations, Eddie Kendrick and Dennis Edwards, finished a month long tour of England, returning to the United States in mid-May. Ruffin stayed behind in England an extra day to collect the group’s earnings, including $15,000 in cash that Kendrick and Edwards had earned. Although Philadelphia Police said they believed most of the money Ruffin was carrying was in traveler’s checks, friends said most of it was cash. Ruffin was suppose to wire Kendrick and Edwards their money after he got to Philadelphia. Edwards, 48, said by telephone from his St. Louis Mo., home Sunday that he and Kendrick debated trusting Ruffin. ‘But David was doing so well,” Edwards said. “He said, trust me, so we trusted him. The last 30 days were the best days we spent with him. He was drug -free in Europe. He sang better than he ever sang in his life.” Shortly after Ruffin’s return, he gave the cash to Butch Murrel, owner of Murrel Limousine Service, for safekeeping, Murrel said Sunday. Murrel, a friend of Ruffin’s, said he often took care of business details for Ruffin, in addition to letting him use his limousines for free. It was a Murrel limousine that dropped Ruffin off at the hospital. Police and Murrel said the driver was not a Murrel employee, but a man both Murrel and Ruffin knew, named Donald Brown. About a week ago, Ruffin asked Murrel for the cash he was holding. Several sources said Ruffin kept the cash in a money belt and in a briefcase he always carried. Friday afternoon, Ruffin dropped in to see Murrrel at the limousine service Murrel operates out of his home. Later, Ruffin borrowed a stretch limousine. The next morning, Murrel said Brown returned with the limousine. “When the guy brought the car back to me, he told me David got sick and he took him to the hospital,” Murrel said. “I figured if he (Ruffin) needs me, he’d call me, I didn’t thin he was dead.” Later Saturday morning, Murrel said he got a phone call from Kendrick. “Eddie was concerned about the briefcase and the money,” Murrel said. “He said, ‘Go get that briefcase out of that (drug) house.’” Murrel said he sent a driver to the drug house, where he found the briefcase. Ruffin’s passport, asthma medicine and other papers were in it, but there was no money. An investigator for the Philadelphia County Medical Examiner’s Office said Ruffin had less than $50 in his pocket when he died and no money belt. Ruffin’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday at Bethel AME Baptist Church in Detroit, Showers said.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:40:47 GMT -5
Thanks Beez for allowing me to post, Happy Mother's Day! Cited: The Detroit News Sunday June 2, 1991 He never lost his voice Drug overdose? Cocaine probably killed singing star, examiner says. By Tarek Hamada, Kate DeSmet and Susan Whitall The Detroit News Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin died Saturday in Philadelphia of an apparent drug overdose. He was 50. “It looks like a drug death,” said a Philadelphia medical examiner. “Probably cocaine. Even a small amount of cocaine can kill you.” The cause of death will be officially determined once the medical examiner’s office receives the results of toxicology tests, which could take several days, police said. A limousine driver brought Ruffin, who wearing a lime-green shirt, multicolor shorts and sneakers, to the emergency room of the University of Pennsylvania at 2:55 a.m. Saturday, saying he was suffering from a drug overdose. Ruffin was pronounced dead an hour later, hospital officials said. “The driver basically said, ‘He’s in bad shape. He was with the Temptations. He name is David Ruffin,’” said the medical examiner, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Then he left.” The FBI confirmed Ruffin’s identity through fingerprint, police said. Ruffin, who a family member said had been living with a girlfriend in Philadelphia for about a year, liked to travel around the city in rented limousines, said Bob Knight, one of his two managers. He had returned to Philadelphia on May 17 after a month long tour of England with two other ex-Temptations, Eddie Kendrick and Dennis Edwards. “I can’t handle any comment right now,” Kendrick said by telephone from Atlanta. ‘I talked to him yesterday and he was feeling alright.” In recent years, Ruffin hadn’t been as successful as he was in his 1960s heyday with the group. He had struggled with drug abuse for more than two decades. But in six years with the Temptations, he delivered more classic music than most singers do in a lifetime. It was Ruffin who broke the Temptations string of bad luck when he joined the group in 1963.He sang with them on their first hit, The Way You Do The Things You Do. A Mississippi native, Ruffin, first sang there with a gospel group, the Dixie Nightingales. The Ruffin family moved to Detroit in the late ‘50s and Ruffin cut some records with little success for Anna Records, Berry Gordy’s sister Anna’s label. Founding Temptation Otis Williams lived on Philadelphia, just a block from Euclid, where the Ruffin family lived. According to Williams’ 1988 book Temptations, Ruffin and his older brother, Jimmy, would come to the Williams’ kitchen and try to out sing each other. Then one night at a Temptations gig at Chappy’s Lounge, Ruffin jumped onstage and tore the house down with a trick he often used in the later Tempts shows: He’d throw the microphone into the air, catch it, and fall down into full splits. According to Williams’ account, co-existing in a band with a Ruffin was never smooth. His ego was as large as his talent, leading to friction in the band when the other members felt success had gone to Ruffin’s head. At one point Ruffin refused to ride with the other four Tempts in their limousine, opting for his own limo with a mink-lined floor and his name painted on the side. Kendrick was always afraid Ruffin was more interested in a solo career than his future with the Temptations, but ultimately it was the group that cut Ruffin loose. In 1967, he missed a Temptation show to attend a girlfriend’s opening. The band agreed too let him go in 1968. As a solo artist, Ruffin scored in 1969 with a typically gut-wrenching vocal on My Hold World Ended (The Moment You Left Me), and in 1975 with Walk Away From Love. His life away from the group was not as structured as Ruffin needed to produce quality music. His career was in decline until 1982, when he and Kendrick rejoined the rest of the band for a Reunion tour and album. Despite the recent improvement in his career, family and friends said Saturday that Ruffin was battling a cocaine addiction until his death. “He always tried and always struggled with drugs,” said his ex-wife and friend, Sandra Ruffin, of Detroit. “He was a wonderful person, but he just was outmatched (by his addiction).” His aunt by marriage, Lillie Ruffin of Ecorse, said she wasn’t surprised by her nephew’s death. “I’m not shocked,” she said, noting they had talked about his drug problem when he came to dinner a year ago. “I knew he was using to much drugs.” When she asked him why he took drugs, “he told me, ‘It’s a certain comfort.’” Lillie Ruffin said. “I said, ‘Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?’ He said he didn’t think so.” Ruffin first checked into a drug treatment center in 1967, three years after joining the group. In May 1988, a Detroit Recorder’s Court judge found him guilty of using cocaine and gave him two years’ probation on the condition he get treatment and perform community service singing. But Ruffin walked away from the $350-a-day Areba Casriel Institute in Manhattan, owing thousands in patient fees. At the time, the center’s director said Ruffin’s drug abuse problem dated back more than 20 years. Ruffin – whose real name was Davis Ruffin – violated his probation three times, skipped Narcotics Anonymous meetings and could not be found at an address he’d left with the court. One probation officer in 1989 commented in exasperation: “He’s tried everyone’s patience.” At the time of his death, “he was making money and working steady,” Sandra Ruffin said. Although Ruffin, Kendrick and Edwards could not legally use the name, “they were still the Temptations.” “He was a likeable, loveable person,” said his former wife. “Very good-hearted. The only downfall he had was the drugs. He was really trying. After 24 years with the drugs, he just couldn’t conquer it.” “But he never lost his voice.” Funeral arrangements are pending. "Former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin was carrying $35,000 when he when he collapsed in a crack house of an apparent drug overdose, (((authorities and friends said Sunday)))." Did someone miss an opportunity when they spoke to the press Saturday afternoon, (in an aticle that ran on Sunday) to mention the stolen money? Mr. David was pronounced legally dead at 3:55 a.m. Saturday morning June 1, 1991. Those interviewed on Saturday appeared in the following days newspaper. I think it is fair to ask if Ms. Bowen is the first to have alerted authorities.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:43:35 GMT -5
The Philadelphia Daily News Tuesday, June 4, 1991 Singer’s Last Hours Overdose called massive He must have built up strong tolerance in past, doctor says
By Edward Moran and Joe O’Dowd Daily News Staff Writers
For the amount of crack cocaine David Ruffin reportedly smoked early Saturday, the shock was not that he died, but that he made it to the hospital alive. Ruffin and a friend shared 10 vials of the smokable, highly potent cocaine derivative at a 25 minutes at a West Philadelphia dope den on 52nd Street near Columbia Avenue, police said. Minutes after smoking the crack, Ruffin took $200 from a briefcase that police said may have contained an unknown amount of British traveler’s checks, became sick and passed out. The popular Motown singer died in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania early Saturday. “Ten vials of crack cocaine is a tremendous concentration,” Hahuemann University pharmacologist Dr. Charles DiGregorio said yesterday. He said people seldom smoke more than three vials “at any given period,” but it’s possible for a person to build a tolerance to the drug and survive exposures to high levels. Police said the details of how much cocaine Ruffin had smoked were given them yesterday by the alleged owner of the drug house, William Nowell, 44, as authorities attempted to reconstruct the hours before Ruffin died. The medical examiner’s office ruled that Ruffin, the driving force behind the 1960’s group the Temptations, died of an adverse reaction to crack cocaine. The death was ruled accident. Results of toxicology tests won’t be available for about two weeks, the ME’s office said. Police are still trying to find out what happened to a large sum of money Ruffin was said to have had on him when he went to the drug house Friday night. Investigators said Ruffin might have had ass much as $40,000 in a money belt. The money probably came from a month-long tour of Great Britain that Ruffin made with two other former Temptations, Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards. Ruffin is believed to have had the cash in a money belt, but he had only $53 in his pockets when he was taken to the hospital, police said. Ruffin had been living in Philadelphia since 1989 with his girlfriend, Diane Showers, and was getting ready for another tour. Nowell was picked up by police shortly before 10 a.m. yesterday at a house near Quincy to Germantown, taken to West Detective Division, 55th and Pine Streets, and questioned, police said. Investigators said Nowell had told them that he had been with Ruffin and Donald Brown, 35, of Redfield Street near Master, at the Parkside Inn, 52nd Street and Parkside Avenue, on Friday night but had left and returned home. Ruffin was driven to Nowell’s West Philadelphia house by Brown in a rental limousine he had borrowed from a friend, police said. Neighbors of the three-story brick and stucco home said they were used to the limousines and expensive cars parked outside the house. Some called it a crack house for celebrities. Nowell told police that when Ruffin arrived at the house, he was “already f----- up.” Nowell said Ruffin arrived around 2 a.m. and by 2:25 had shared 10 vials of crack cocaine. After passing out, Ruffin was carried from the house by Brown and driven to the hospital at 2:55 p.m. He died an hour later, police said. Ruffin’s girlfriend and others said Ruffin had had a chronic drug problem for many years. His manager, Robert Redfield, said Ruffin was arrested twice in Detroit for possession, once in 1988 and again in 1989. Redfield said that Ruffin had spent a month in a drug rehabilitation program before the British tour and appeared to be in his best physical condition in years. The manager said, however, that there were “rumors” that Ruffin had lapsed back into drug use. “In all honesty, we don’t know,” he said. “He just recently returned from a month in the U.K. He was very positive and not involved with anything on the trip,” Redfield said. “Everyone around him said he was the best they had ever seen him. Redfield said Ruffin’s death “has been a total shock to us. At 6 p.m. [Friday] he was in touch and made arrangements for the balance of his tour.” Redfield said he believed that Ruffin my have been intentionally overdosed. “The money has to have something to do with it,” he said, “especially since it is gone.” Funeral services for Ruffin will be held Monday in Detroit. He will be buried there. Staff writer Jack McGuire contributed to this report.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:47:41 GMT -5
Cited: The Philadelphia Daily News [2] June 4, 1991 The temptation was too great By Kurt Helne And Robin Palley Daily News Staff Writers She was 14. He was 27. She was Diane Showers, a teenybopper who worked without pay as a disc jockey’s errand girl. He was David Ruffin, superstar, a Temptation, appearing with the red hot Motown group in West Philadelphia after driving from his Detroit home in a mink-lined limousine. She used her WDAS radio connection to see the show. She got his autograph. It said, “May you someday be my girl.” He probably scribbled the same note to all the girls. But in 1967, Diane Showers took him at his word. It was her fantasy. And years later, it turned real. David Ruffin the superstar moved into Diane Shower’s well-tended Wynnewood twin the summer of 1989. But there was a dark side. A terrifying, self-destructive streak as threatening to the music legend’s life as his no-show stage appearances were too his career. He suffered from asthma, but puffed Lark cigarettes until his chest wheezed like an old man’s. He hung out not with other recording artists, but with regular folks, some of them crack heads. He smoked cocaine for years, and plenty of it. Nobody—not the woman he professed to love, not his ex-wife or three children, not those in the record industry close to him—could part Ruffin from his dope. It killed him over the weekend. “I was hopeless,” Showers, 38, said last night. “If I had my choice, he would have stayed right here in this house.” She tried to teach him about natural highs, like the way the breeze sings off a magnolia tree in her front yard and the flowery taste of the cantaloupes he craved. But it was not up to Showers. She said she neither drinks, smokes cigarettes nor uses drugs, and didn’t tolerate Ruffin doing drugs at home. She said she begged him to stay home and skip the days-long crack binges into which he’d sometimes sink. She’d comfort him with her worry. “But he’d always tell me. ‘Look I left home when I was 14 years old.’” She pleaded with him to get treatment, then recruited his ex-wife and daughters To ask a court to commit him to an institution. “I told them he needed to be protected from himself,” she said, shaking her head. “We fussed. We tried.” Ruffin’s answer, “There’s more drugs in a treatment center than on the street.” One of his best friends in Philadelphia, former Motown producer Weldon Arthur McDougal III, also said he was helpless to help his pal deal with the dope demon. “I fell kind of hurt,” McDougal said, “because I fell I turned him out. When we got together, I wasn’t fun. Lecturing and telling him, ‘Don’t do so much, don’t do that. But he’d leave. He never said, ‘Don’t bother me, I don’t want to hear it.’ He’d just say, ‘You right man’ and he’d leave.” Showers said Ruffin often performed while high, “but he never missed a beat.” He did miss more than a few performances, though, because he just didn’t feel like showing up, his fiancée said. His undependability tossed his career onto hard times. But, in the end, other members of the group realized that no Temptations’ reunion could work without the high-profile Ruffin. Diane Showers last saw the man of her dreams n May 26, his last Sunday on earth. He watched some TV. Took a shower. “He was fine.” Then, around 8 p.m., he abruptly got up, told Showers he loved her, and “just left” without giving her his usual hug before going out. She didn’t ask where he was going. She knew. He spoke with Showers’ young grandson on Wednesday, checking for messages. That was, the last anybody heard from him. “So unnecessary,” sighed Showers.” “So hard to believe, said McDougal. I’m sorry that he had to go that way, really” McDougal said. “I hope it teaches people a lesson that with drugs, you can’t survive. You just can’t.” It's an discourse analysis thing...I'm not saying a word.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 9:54:52 GMT -5
Cited: The Philadelphia Daily News [2] June 4, 1991 The temptation was too great By Kurt Helne And Robin Palley Daily News Staff Writers She was 14. He was 27. She was Diane Showers, a teenybopper who worked without pay as a disc jockey’s errand girl. He was David Ruffin, superstar, a Temptation, appearing with the red hot Motown group in West Philadelphia after driving from his Detroit home in a mink-lined limousine. She used her WDAS radio connection to see the show. She got his autograph. It said, “May you someday be my girl.” He probably scribbled the same note to all the girls. But in 1967, Diane Showers took him at his word. It was her fantasy. And years later, it turned real. David Ruffin the superstar moved into Diane Shower’s well-tended Wynnewood twin the summer of 1989. But there was a dark side. A terrifying, self-destructive streak as threatening to the music legend’s life as his no-show stage appearances were too his career. He suffered from asthma, but puffed Lark cigarettes until his chest wheezed like an old man’s. He hung out not with other recording artists, but with regular folks, some of them crack heads. He smoked cocaine for years, and plenty of it. Nobody—not the woman he professed to love, not his ex-wife or three children, not those in the record industry close to him—could part Ruffin from his dope. It killed him over the weekend. “I was hopeless,” Showers, 38, said last night. “If I had my choice, he would have stayed right here in this house.” She tried to teach him about natural highs, like the way the breeze sings off a magnolia tree in her front yard and the flowery taste of the cantaloupes he craved. But it was not up to Showers. She said she neither drinks, smokes cigarettes nor uses drugs, and didn’t tolerate Ruffin doing drugs at home. She said she begged him to stay home and skip the days-long crack binges into which he’d sometimes sink. She’d comfort him with her worry. “But he’d always tell me. ‘Look I left home when I was 14 years old.’” She pleaded with him to get treatment, then recruited his ex-wife and daughters To ask a court to commit him to an institution. “I told them he needed to be protected from himself,” she said, shaking her head. “We fussed. We tried.” Ruffin’s answer, “There’s more drugs in a treatment center than on the street.” One of his best friends in Philadelphia, former Motown producer Weldon Arthur McDougal III, also said he was helpless to help his pal deal with the dope demon. “I fell kind of hurt,” McDougal said, “because I fell I turned him out. When we got together, I wasn’t fun. Lecturing and telling him, ‘Don’t do so much, don’t do that. But he’d leave. He never said, ‘Don’t bother me, I don’t want to hear it.’ He’d just say, ‘You right man’ and he’d leave.” Showers said Ruffin often performed while high, “but he never missed a beat.” He did miss more than a few performances, though, because he just didn’t feel like showing up, his fiancée said. His undependability tossed his career onto hard times. But, in the end, other members of the group realized that no Temptations’ reunion could work without the high-profile Ruffin. Diane Showers last saw the man of her dreams n May 26, his last Sunday on earth. He watched some TV. Took a shower. “He was fine.” Then, around 8 p.m., he abruptly got up, told Showers he loved her, and “just left” without giving her his usual hug before going out. She didn’t ask where he was going. She knew. He spoke with Showers’ young grandson on Wednesday, checking for messages. That was, the last anybody heard from him. “So unnecessary,” sighed Showers.” “So hard to believe, said McDougal. I’m sorry that he had to go that way, really” McDougal said. “I hope it teaches people a lesson that with drugs, you can’t survive. You just can’t.” It's an discourse analysis thing...I'm not saying a word. Aw heck, I gotta, if all the other friends are thinking [at the time] he could have been overdosed and robbed, why isn't the stolen money mentioned in this article that ran on Tuesday, June 4th 1991? Is this a fair question?
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Post by SarahLee on May 8, 2005 9:58:32 GMT -5
From what I have read this was a decent thread. I have not read it all. When I get time I will. But it seems there was some meeting of the minds amidst the interruptions. Welcome Back Capricorn Prince . This is a interesting thread. I look forward to hearing your views.
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Post by SarahLee on May 8, 2005 10:01:25 GMT -5
Addie is in the hospital and has been since Thursday, w/o access to a computer. I knew that Inthewings was that damn Jody. She can change her moniker but her dumb rhetoric is the same. What a loser.
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Post by SarahLee on May 8, 2005 10:02:35 GMT -5
This is a lot of reading Drex. I'll be back.
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Post by LuvinDR on May 8, 2005 10:07:25 GMT -5
Hi Drex, Maybe this investigation topic should be started as a new thread because peepers keep getting off the subject and starting mess. Just a suggestion By the way, I see we are in the same field of work. I also work in the State system (in Fl) and I have a MS in CJ. My family has a reunion scheduled for summer 2006 in Detroit. I have never flown before, but I won't miss visiting Detroit (God's will). Drex, You know there is a limit on the amount of money you can bring into the states. I don't know the amount, but I don't think David could have traveled with 40 G's. Maybe he did have travelers checks on him and 10-15 G's. In that case, he might have easily spent that money and the briefcase contained the remainder in traveler's checks. Murrell could have said he saw the money because David told him to say that just to keep Dennis and Eddie calm. Before you respond, consider starting another thread since this one keeps being hijacked.
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2005 11:54:35 GMT -5
Hi Drex, Maybe this investigation topic should be started as a new thread because peepers keep getting off the subject and starting mess. Just a suggestion By the way, I see we are in the same field of work. I also work in the State system (in Fl) and I have a MS in CJ. My family has a reunion scheduled for summer 2006 in Detroit. I have never flown before, but I won't miss visiting Detroit (God's will). Drex, You know there is a limit on the amount of money you can bring into the states. I don't know the amount, but I don't think David could have traveled with 40 G's. Maybe he did have travelers checks on him and 10-15 G's. In that case, he might have easily spent that money and the briefcase contained the remainder in traveler's checks. Murrell could have said he saw the money because David told him to say that just to keep Dennis and Eddie calm. Before you respond, consider starting another thread since this one keeps being hijacked. I will go to another thread if you start one and this is alright with Beez. From this point on I will answer any question related to the discussion of Mr. David, but I am not going to respond to threats and defamation. LuvinDR, you hit the nail on the head with your logic.
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