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Post by Drex on May 8, 2009 14:52:57 GMT -5
"It was nearly 3 a.m. when the gray stretch limousine pulled up to the emergency-room entrance at Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania Hospital. When attendants looked inside they saw a tall, gaunt black man slumped unconscious in the back seat with no identification and $53 in his pockets. He died an hour later. An FBI check of fingerprints confirmed the name--and an inglorious end for one of the fabled voices in pop music. David Ruffin's anguished, gospel-bred baritone propelled The Temptations to the top of the charts in the 1960s. Police say he passed out early on the morning of June 1 after smoking crack at a house in West Philadelphia.
Investigators are still trying to piece together the 50-year-old Ruffin's last hours. An estimated $40,000 he was carrying when he was stricken has disappeared. Linster (Butch) Murrell, a friend who lent Ruffin the limousine on the evening of May 31, says Ruffin drove off with a man named Donald Brown.
1. Police believe Ruffin purchased cocaine somewhere and took it to the West Philadelphia house to smoke. Ruffin and another occupant of the house reportedly shared 10 vials of crack in less than a half hour, an enormous intake, experts say.
2.Brown drove Ruffin to the hospital and returned the limo to Murrell. Police questioned Brown twice but have not charged him with a crime. Ruffin's death is listed as accidental.
It was the end of a long slide for the son of a Mississippi preacher. Ruffin helped The Temptations become one of the first R&B acts to achieve "crossover" success with white baby-boomer teens. "My Girl," their early 1965 breakthrough, was followed by a string of hits over the next four years. The group's enduring appeal was enshrined in the 1983 movie "The Big Chill," when the cast danced to "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," one of Ruffin's best vocal turns. "Nobody could sing like David Ruffin," says Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas, one of Motown's top groups.
But Ruffin grew restless as part of the group. He also developed a cocaine habit, first entering treatment in 1967. A year later, he and The Temptations parted company. He had modest solo success but never freed himself from drugs. He was working regularly at the end--a British concert tour with ex-Tempts Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards had just wound up--
3. but he was still hooked. Since 1989, he lived off and on in Philadelphia with Diane Showers, who met him as a 14-year-old fan. "I told him he needed to go back to Mississippi where he could have solitude," she says. Last week radio playlists were peppered with Ruffin's old tunes. Michael Jackson volunteered to pay for his funeral in Detroit this week, which was expected to draw a galaxy of stars from Motown's heyday. Reeves wishes the tributes had come earlier. "Before he died he should have been aware of how many people loved him."
1. Why did Nowell say David took $200 out of the briefcase and flopped it down on the table. Why did Nowell give it back to the driver Brown?
2. At this time, did Brown tell Murrell about leaving behind the briefcase? If not, how did Murrell know where to send Bishop to retrieve it?
3. Who said this to Newsweek or the PPD? He was still hooked. Ms. Shwers said he left her house on Sunday night May26th, she said he left to go use, but we now know he left to go be with another lady. The lady he was with said he was not using Monday through Wednesday, May 29th. Where is the proof he was still hooked except for the drugs found in his body upon his death?
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Post by Drex on May 8, 2009 14:57:34 GMT -5
"It was nearly 3 a.m. when the gray stretch limousine pulled up to the emergency-room entrance at Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania Hospital. When attendants looked inside they saw a tall, gaunt black man slumped unconscious in the back seat with no identification and $53 in his pockets. He died an hour later. An FBI check of fingerprints confirmed the name--and an inglorious end for one of the fabled voices in pop music. David Ruffin's anguished, gospel-bred baritone propelled The Temptations to the top of the charts in the 1960s. Police say he passed out early on the morning of June 1 after smoking crack at a house in West Philadelphia. Investigators are still trying to piece together the 50-year-old Ruffin's last hours. An estimated $40,000 he was carrying when he was stricken has disappeared. Linster (Butch) Murrell, a friend who lent Ruffin the limousine on the evening of May 31, says Ruffin drove off with a man named Donald Brown. 1. Police believe Ruffin purchased cocaine somewhere and took it to the West Philadelphia house to smoke. Ruffin and another occupant of the house reportedly shared 10 vials of crack in less than a half hour, an enormous intake, experts say. 2. Brown drove Ruffin to the hospital and returned the limo to Murrell. Police questioned Brown twice but have not charged him with a crime. Ruffin's death is listed as accidental. It was the end of a long slide for the son of a Mississippi preacher. Ruffin helped The Temptations become one of the first R&B acts to achieve "crossover" success with white baby-boomer teens. "My Girl," their early 1965 breakthrough, was followed by a string of hits over the next four years. The group's enduring appeal was enshrined in the 1983 movie "The Big Chill," when the cast danced to "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," one of Ruffin's best vocal turns. "Nobody could sing like David Ruffin," says Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas, one of Motown's top groups. But Ruffin grew restless as part of the group. He also developed a cocaine habit, first entering treatment in 1967. A year later, he and The Temptations parted company. He had modest solo success but never freed himself from drugs. He was working regularly at the end--a British concert tour with ex-Tempts Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards had just wound up-- 3. but he was still hooked. Since 1989, he lived off and on in Philadelphia with Diane Showers, who met him as a 14-year-old fan. "I told him he needed to go back to Mississippi where he could have solitude," she says. Last week radio playlists were peppered with Ruffin's old tunes. Michael Jackson volunteered to pay for his funeral in Detroit this week, which was expected to draw a galaxy of stars from Motown's heyday. Reeves wishes the tributes had come earlier. "Before he died he should have been aware of how many people loved him." 1. Why did Nowell say David took $200 out of the briefcase and flopped it down on the table. Why did Nowell give it back to the driver Brown? 2. At this time, did Brown tell Murrell about leaving behind the briefcase? If not, how did Murrell know where to send Bishop to retrieve it? 3. Who said this to Newsweek or the PPD? He was still hooked. Ms. Shwers said he left her house on Sunday night May26th, she said he left to go use, but we now know he left to go be with another lady. The lady he was with said he was not using Monday through Wednesday, May 29th. Where is the proof he was still hooked except for the drugs found in his body upon his death? Please please know that when I asked these questions, it is not because I believe any of their stories or their quotes, one contradiction after another....I want others to see how many holes and unanswered questions their are and how at times their statements don't add up.  |
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Post by Drex on May 11, 2009 15:35:20 GMT -5
Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
> Deceased: EX-TEMPTATION DAVID RUFFIN DIES TAKEN TO HOSPITAL BY DRIVER WHO
CITED DRUGS
> Date: June 2, 1991
>
> David Ruffin, the former lead singer of the Temptations, died at the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania early yesterday morning, an hour
after a limousine driver told emergency room doctors that his famous
passenger had taken a drug overdose. He was 50.
>
> Ruffin's distinctive baritone - at times gritty, at times soaring - led
the Temptations to a string of enduring hits in the 1960s, such as "My
Girl," ''Since I Lost My Baby" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
>
> Ruffin's star would never again be so bright. After four years with the
Motown group, he left for a solo career in 1968. When busted for possession
of crack cocaine in 1988, Ruffin told a judge he was penniless and living in
a friend's mobile home outside Detroit.
>
> But he had just returned last month from a successful tour with former
Temptations Eddie Kendricks and Dennis Edwards that took them to the Sands
in Las Vegas, the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and the United Kingdom, and his
career was again on the ascent.
>
> "He had a lot to look forward to because they started to really be in
demand," said Bob Redfield, his personal manager. "Wherever they went, they
were well-received. They were revered and he sang great."
>
> According to Philadelphia police detectives, the limousine pulled up to
HUP's emergency room entrance at 2:55 a.m. yesterday and the driver
identified his slumped passenger and said Ruffin had overdosed. Authorities
were awaiting results from an autopsy yesterday.
>
> The emergency room staff carried Ruffin into the hospital and tried to
resuscitate him but failed, police said. He was pronounced dead an hour
later, at 3:55 a.m.
>
> The driver left quickly, without giving any other information about
Ruffin, police said. Ruffin had several friends in the city, said Redfield,
of Star- Vest Management in East Brunswick, N.J.
>
> Ruffin's girlfriend, Dianne Showers, who said she had lived with the
singer in Philadelphia since July 1989, said she was greatly saddened but
not shocked by his death. She said Ruffin had used cocaine in the past.>
> "He walked in the line of fire," Showers said. "I asked his ex-wife and
daughters a lot of times to have him committed somewhere for approximately
two years. . . . He usually denied that he was doing anything. ."
>
> Showers said she and Ruffin were considering marriage in January 1992. "He
was very special in my heart, very special," she said. "I loved him so
much."
>
> Ruffin was wearing bright, multicolored Bermuda shorts, white sneakers and
a lime-green sport shirt, and carried no identification. When doctors
released his body to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, it was
tagged, "John Doe."
>
> His fingerprints were taken at the coroner's office and sent to the FBI.
Later yesterday, the FBI identified the prints as belonging to Davis Eli
Ruffin - the singer's real name - born Jan. 18, 1941, in Meridian, Miss.
>
> Yesterday afternoon, a local police chaplain visited his stepmother,
Earline Ruffin, 92, in Meridian, where she raised David, and his two older
brothers and sister. One brother, Jimmy, was also a popular singer.
>
> "I certainly would be glad if they could send his body to Meridian so they
could sing one of his songs over his body," his stepmother said by telephone
yesterday. "I would just love for him to come back to Mount Salem Methodist
Church."
>
> It was in that church's choir that the preacher's young son first sang to
an audience. Earline Ruffin remembered when he won a wristwatch at a talent
competition there.
>
> "I was surprised at how he turned out in life," she said. "He wanted to
play all the time. He could sing like a mockingbird."
>
> Ruffin joined the Temptations in 1964, replacing Eldridge Bryant, and the
band's popularity quickly took off with "My Girl," their first record to top
both the pop and R & B/soul charts. It was followed by four hits in a row:
''It's Growing," "Since I Lost My Baby," "My Baby" and "Get Ready."
>
> The Temptations drew sellout crowds with their silky voices and slick
stage show. As the singers would whirl in perfect order, Ruffin - the
reed-thin acrobatic one in thick-rimmed black eyeglasses - would drop to one
knee and extend a hand toward the crowd.
>
> Ruffin seemed at home onstage, and onstage at home. He was often spotted
being ferried around the Motor City in a mink-lined, chauffeur-driven
limousine with his live-in girlfriend, the Philadelphia-reared singer Tammi
Terrell, according to Nelson George's book Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise
and Fall of the Motown Sound.
>
> By 1968, Ruffin grew weary of being one of five equals in the band, and
talked about leaving for a solo career. The other Temptations didn't try to
talk him out of it.
>
> He left that summer and had but two major hits in a decade on his own: "My
Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)" and "Walk Away From Love."
>
> In 1982, he rejoined the band for a reunion tour, along with Kendricks.
The next year, the band and its two most notable former members, Kendricks
and Ruffin, took part in a television special, celebrating Motown's 25th
anniversary and contributed songs for a commemorative album. After he and
Kendricks recorded an album with Hall & Oates at New York's Apollo Theatre
in 1985, Ruffin was in the news again in 1988. He was arrested in Detroit on
crack cocaine possession charges.
>
> He was sentenced to two years' probation and 50 hours' community service
for using the drug. After violating his probation by testing positive for
opiates, he was ordered into a drug treatment center.
>
> When Ruffin emerged in October 1989, he announced, "I'm clean."
>
> Author: Daniel Rubin and Thomas J. Gibbons Jr., Inquirer Staff WritersThe
Associated Press contributed to this article.
> Section: LOCAL
> Page: B01
________________________END___________________
This is the first article printed in Philly. No mention of the money, no mention the real facts were Ruffin had left and was with another woman. No mention Showers already had the briefcase and it was empty of cash (According to her and Murrell).....What is missing in this story, besides the cash, "all one-hundred dollar bills."
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