Killing ‘Kato’: the story of Latin Kings boss Rudy Rangel Jr.’s murder
Rudy "Kato" Rangel Jr., the Latin Kings gang leader who was shot to death on June 4, 2003. | Cook County state's attorney's office
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BySam Charles
@samjcharles | email
Rudy Rangel Jr. liked to keep his hair short. So Rangel, a leader of the Latin Kings, one of Chicago’s biggest street gangs, had been going several times a month to Nationwide Cutz, a barbershop operating out of a trailer near Roosevelt and Sacramento on the West Side.
On June 4, 2003, late in the evening, the gang leader known as “Kato” was in the barber chair, his back to the open door, game 1 of the NBA finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets on the TV.
Outside, a 21-year-old, recently paroled ex-con named Donell “Squeaky” Simmons walked through the alley to the shop, a red, white and blue Nets cap on his head and a pistol at his waist.
Two men were sitting on the stairs to the barbershop, waiting to get in, when Simmons walked up. “Let me get by,” Simmons told them.
Donell “Squeaky” Simmons. | Chicago Police Department
In a few moments, Rangel, 30, lay dying.
Now, 15 years later, nine members of the Four Corner Hustlers, including Labar “Bro Man” Spann, leader of the gang, await prosecution next year in one of the biggest gang trials ever in Chicago. Rangel’s killing and five other murders are at the heart of the sweeping racketeering conspiracy case set to be heard in federal court in September 2019.
Though Simmons and two others went to prison in Rangel’s death, some details of the high-profile killing — rapper DMX later recorded a tribute to Rangel called “A’Yo Kato”— never came out.
Authorities said the shooting resulted from an attempted jewel robbery. But interviews and thousands of pages of records from the U.S. attorney’s office, the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Cook County medical examiner’s office reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times suggest another possible motive: that the murder was contracted after Rangel stole 150 kilos of cocaine. Based on those records, this is the story of the killing of Rudy “Kato” Rangel Jr.
• • •
Born on Thanksgiving Day 1972, Rangel grew up in LeClaire Courts on the Southwest Side but ended up traveling in lofty circles in two worlds: crime and rap music.
As a kid, he was friends with Pedro Flores and Margarito Flores — twin brothers from Little Village who grew up to be the biggest drug traffickers in the city before they got caught and agreed to help the Justice Department build the case that led to the arrest of Mexico drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
At 17, Rangel pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and got a year’s probation. In 1993, he was convicted of attempted murder, aggravated battery, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed violence and got seven years in prison.
Rangel married someone from the neighborhood: Valerie Gaytan, daughter of a Chicago cop. He had a tattoo on his chest for her: “Destined Forever My Queen Valerie.” Soon after Rangel’s killing, though, Gaytan took up with Margarito Flores. Before going into federal protective custody, they spent time at Guzman’s cartel fortress in Mexico, which she wrote about in the 2017 book “Cartel Wives.”
Pedro Flores (left) and his twin brother Margarito Flores, once Chicago’s biggest drug traffickers. | Sun-Times files
Rangel had friends and aspirations in the music business, rubbing elbows with hip-hop heavyweights including DMX and Fat Joe, who, in a radio interview last August, called him “a beautiful dude.” A friend told police Rangel had two performers he was in negotiations with Dreamworks to record.
• • •
Rangel, who traveled with a bodyguard, liked flashy jewelry. In the spring of 2003, he drove to Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp at Cermak and Canal to meet “John,” a Latin King who’d told him he’d sell him a stolen, diamond-laden Franck Muller watch worth $125,000 for $25,000. Rangel bought it.
The parking lot of Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp, where Rudy Rangel Jr. bought a Franck Muller watch for $25,000. | Sam Charles / Sun-Times
Martise Nunnery — 26, asthmatic and a member of the Unknown Vice Lords — told authorities “John” told him about selling the watch to Rangel and that he’d seen him wearing that, a diamond bracelet and a platinum necklace with a pendant. Nunnery figured the jewelry was worth at least $240,000.
In May 2003, Nunnery got in touch with a guy named Marcus Ware, who hung around the barbershop at Roosevelt and Sacramento and had two drug convictions and one on a weapons charge. The next time he saw Rangel at the barbershop, Nunnery told Ware, call him, he wanted to talk about the music business.
Ware said Nunnery told him he’d pay him $1,500 to $2,000. He figured Nunnery was going to rob him — but not just for the jewelry. In trial testimony, Ware said Nunnery told him he “was intending to kill [Rangel] because Nunnery was going to get $190,000 and 15 kilos of cocaine.”
Nunnery reached out to Spann, feared leader of the brutal Four Corner Hustlers, which claimed large swaths of the West Side. In June 1997, at 18, Spann was charged with murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm but found not guilty, though his two co-defendants were convicted and each got 60-year prison sentences.
The following year, Spann was charged with aggravated battery to a peace officer, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He got probation.
Martise Nunnery. | Illinois Department of Corrections
Even while held at the Cook County Jail, Spann — who has used a wheelchair since being shot more than 15 years ago — has found himself in trouble. He’s been reprimanded for threatening correctional officers, attacking one with his wheelchair and fashioning a shiv out of pens and medical tape — for which he received minimal punishment.
The indictment last September targeting the Four Corner Hustlers includes six murders. Spann was linked to all six.
Spann, whose attorney Tod Urban didn’t return messages seeking comment, already is facing as much as 70 years in prison, having pleaded guilty three months before the indictment to being a felon in possession of a weapon, obstruction of justice involving witness tampering and cocaine possession with intent to distribute.
Nunnery had known Spann just a few months. In the weeks before Rangel’s killing, he told authorities, he told Spann “that I had a lick up for somebody that had a lot of jewelry.”
Spann already was planning to rob Rangel, according to Nunnery.
“When I described the chain that the guy had, he was, like, ‘Yeah, I know who that is, we was just trying to rob him,’ ” Nunnery told a prosecutor.
Nunnery said his job was to locate Rangel, and Spann’s was to get someone to rob him. Spann knew Simmons and told him he’d pay him up to $30,000 for the job, according to Nunnery.
Simmons told detectives that, in May 2003, Spann told him about talk of Rangel having stolen 150 kilos of cocaine and hired him to kill Rangel.
“Bro Man told Donell about a ‘lick’ that a Puerto Rican had done for 150 kilos of cocaine,” a detective wrote after interviewing Simmons. “Bro Man said a ‘Cuba mother—— or Mexican’ ‘wanted dude taken care of.’ Bro Man asked Donell to kill the dude for ten to thirty thousand dollars.”
Late that May, Ware, Nunnery and Spann picked up Simmons at his West Side home, according to a prosecutor’s report. “They rode around in the car and Bro Man was just talking about hitting this lick or committing the robbery and Martise kept adding that ‘We’re going to pay you. We got you,’ ” the prosecutor wrote after an interview with Simmons.
Nunnery didn’t want to just wait to hear from Ware that Rangel had shown up at the barbershop. So he started looking for Rangel himself around Fullerton and Clybourn, near a recording studio Rangel had.
A few days after Nunnery, Ware and Spann had picked up Simmons, Simmons later told the prosecutor, he was picked up at home again. Ware, Spann and a third man were driving around, Simmons said, then Spann called Nunnery, and they headed to Roosevelt and California.
“Donell states that as they rode in the car, he saw Martise on the sidewalk shaking the dude’s hand. Donell states that Bro Man said ‘That’s him right there,’ pointing to the dude on the sidewalk shaking Martise’s hand. Donell states that the dude was Kato, now known as Rudy Rangel, and this dude is the guy Bro Man was telling Donell to shoot at,” the prosecutor wrote.
“Donell states that Bro Man told Donell that he wanted Donell to pop him. Donell states that ‘pop him’ meant to kill him and ‘him’ was the dude they call ‘Kato.’ ”
Simmons had been paroled just months before. In a deal with prosecutors, he’d pleaded guilty to aggravated discharge of a firearm, was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2002 and paroled from the Vandalia Correctional Center on Feb. 26, 2003.
• • •
On June 4, 2003, Nunnery was at work at a cellphone store when he got the call from Ware he’d been waiting for: Rangel was at the barbershop.
He told authorities Spann picked him up, and they called Simmons to let him know they were coming to get him. Simmons was walking to a liquor store at Madison and Keeler when he saw Nunnery driving a red Ford Taurus with Spann in back and another man in the front. He got in next to Spann.
Outside the barbershop, they saw Rangel’s blue SUV, drove a block west and turned, parking just north of the alley, according to what Nunnery and Simmons told authorities.
“Donell states that Bro Man handed the gun to Donell. Donell states that as Bro Man handed the gun to him, Bro Man told Donell, ‘Don’t miss. Come back. We’ll be right here waiting for you.’ ”
“Man, Shorty, don’t miss him,” Nunnery said.
Simmons took the gun and got out.
Killing 'Kato': the story of Latin Kings boss Rudy Rangel Jr.’s murder
Rudy "Kato" Rangel Jr., the Latin Kings gang leader who was shot to death on June 4, 2003. | Cook County state's attorney's office
Subscribe for unlimited digital access.
Try one month for $1!
BySam Charles
@samjcharles | email
Rudy Rangel Jr. liked to keep his hair short. So Rangel, a leader of the Latin Kings, one of Chicago’s biggest street gangs, had been going several times a month to Nationwide Cutz, a barbershop operating out of a trailer near Roosevelt and Sacramento on the West Side.
On June 4, 2003, late in the evening, the gang leader known as “Kato” was in the barber chair, his back to the open door, game 1 of the NBA finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets on the TV.
Outside, a 21-year-old, recently paroled ex-con named Donell “Squeaky” Simmons walked through the alley to the shop, a red, white and blue Nets cap on his head and a pistol at his waist.
Two men were sitting on the stairs to the barbershop, waiting to get in, when Simmons walked up. “Let me get by,” Simmons told them.
Donell “Squeaky” Simmons. | Chicago Police Department
In a few moments, Rangel, 30, lay dying.
Now, 15 years later, nine members of the Four Corner Hustlers, including Labar “Bro Man” Spann, leader of the gang, await prosecution next year in one of the biggest gang trials ever in Chicago. Rangel’s killing and five other murders are at the heart of the sweeping racketeering conspiracy case set to be heard in federal court in September 2019.
Though Simmons and two others went to prison in Rangel’s death, some details of the high-profile killing — rapper DMX later recorded a tribute to Rangel called “A’Yo Kato”— never came out.
Authorities said the shooting resulted from an attempted jewel robbery. But interviews and thousands of pages of records from the U.S. attorney’s office, the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Cook County medical examiner’s office reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times suggest another possible motive: that the murder was contracted after Rangel stole 150 kilos of cocaine. Based on those records, this is the story of the killing of Rudy “Kato” Rangel Jr.
• • •
Born on Thanksgiving Day 1972, Rangel grew up in LeClaire Courts on the Southwest Side but ended up traveling in lofty circles in two worlds: crime and rap music.
As a kid, he was friends with Pedro Flores and Margarito Flores — twin brothers from Little Village who grew up to be the biggest drug traffickers in the city before they got caught and agreed to help the Justice Department build the case that led to the arrest of Mexico drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
At 17, Rangel pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and got a year’s probation. In 1993, he was convicted of attempted murder, aggravated battery, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed violence and got seven years in prison.
Rangel married someone from the neighborhood: Valerie Gaytan, daughter of a Chicago cop. He had a tattoo on his chest for her: “Destined Forever My Queen Valerie.” Soon after Rangel’s killing, though, Gaytan took up with Margarito Flores. Before going into federal protective custody, they spent time at Guzman’s cartel fortress in Mexico, which she wrote about in the 2017 book “Cartel Wives.”
Pedro Flores (left) and his twin brother Margarito Flores, once Chicago’s biggest drug traffickers. | Sun-Times files
Rangel had friends and aspirations in the music business, rubbing elbows with hip-hop heavyweights including DMX and Fat Joe, who, in a radio interview last August, called him “a beautiful dude.” A friend told police Rangel had two performers he was in negotiations with Dreamworks to record.
• • •
Rangel, who traveled with a bodyguard, liked flashy jewelry. In the spring of 2003, he drove to Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp at Cermak and Canal to meet “John,” a Latin King who’d told him he’d sell him a stolen, diamond-laden Franck Muller watch worth $125,000 for $25,000. Rangel bought it.
The parking lot of Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp, where Rudy Rangel Jr. bought a Franck Muller watch for $25,000. | Sam Charles / Sun-Times
Martise Nunnery — 26, asthmatic and a member of the Unknown Vice Lords — told authorities “John” told him about selling the watch to Rangel and that he’d seen him wearing that, a diamond bracelet and a platinum necklace with a pendant. Nunnery figured the jewelry was worth at least $240,000.
In May 2003, Nunnery got in touch with a guy named Marcus Ware, who hung around the barbershop at Roosevelt and Sacramento and had two drug convictions and one on a weapons charge. The next time he saw Rangel at the barbershop, Nunnery told Ware, call him, he wanted to talk about the music business.
Ware said Nunnery told him he’d pay him $1,500 to $2,000. He figured Nunnery was going to rob him — but not just for the jewelry. In trial testimony, Ware said Nunnery told him he “was intending to kill [Rangel] because Nunnery was going to get $190,000 and 15 kilos of cocaine.”
Nunnery reached out to Spann, feared leader of the brutal Four Corner Hustlers, which claimed large swaths of the West Side. In June 1997, at 18, Spann was charged with murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm but found not guilty, though his two co-defendants were convicted and each got 60-year prison sentences.
The following year, Spann was charged with aggravated battery to a peace officer, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He got probation.
Martise Nunnery. | Illinois Department of Corrections
Even while held at the Cook County Jail, Spann — who has used a wheelchair since being shot more than 15 years ago — has found himself in trouble. He’s been reprimanded for threatening correctional officers, attacking one with his wheelchair and fashioning a shiv out of pens and medical tape — for which he received minimal punishment.
The indictment last September targeting the Four Corner Hustlers includes six murders. Spann was linked to all six.
Spann, whose attorney Tod Urban didn’t return messages seeking comment, already is facing as much as 70 years in prison, having pleaded guilty three months before the indictment to being a felon in possession of a weapon, obstruction of justice involving witness tampering and cocaine possession with intent to distribute.
Nunnery had known Spann just a few months. In the weeks before Rangel’s killing, he told authorities, he told Spann “that I had a lick up for somebody that had a lot of jewelry.”
Spann already was planning to rob Rangel, according to Nunnery.
“When I described the chain that the guy had, he was, like, ‘Yeah, I know who that is, we was just trying to rob him,’ ” Nunnery told a prosecutor.
Nunnery said his job was to locate Rangel, and Spann’s was to get someone to rob him. Spann knew Simmons and told him he’d pay him up to $30,000 for the job, according to Nunnery.
Simmons told detectives that, in May 2003, Spann told him about talk of Rangel having stolen 150 kilos of cocaine and hired him to kill Rangel.
“Bro Man told Donell about a ‘lick’ that a Puerto Rican had done for 150 kilos of cocaine,” a detective wrote after interviewing Simmons. “Bro Man said a ‘Cuba mother—— or Mexican’ ‘wanted dude taken care of.’ Bro Man asked Donell to kill the dude for ten to thirty thousand dollars.”
Late that May, Ware, Nunnery and Spann picked up Simmons at his West Side home, according to a prosecutor’s report. “They rode around in the car and Bro Man was just talking about hitting this lick or committing the robbery and Martise kept adding that ‘We’re going to pay you. We got you,’ ” the prosecutor wrote after an interview with Simmons.
Nunnery didn’t want to just wait to hear from Ware that Rangel had shown up at the barbershop. So he started looking for Rangel himself around Fullerton and Clybourn, near a recording studio Rangel had.
A few days after Nunnery, Ware and Spann had picked up Simmons, Simmons later told the prosecutor, he was picked up at home again. Ware, Spann and a third man were driving around, Simmons said, then Spann called Nunnery, and they headed to Roosevelt and California.
“Donell states that as they rode in the car, he saw Martise on the sidewalk shaking the dude’s hand. Donell states that Bro Man said ‘That’s him right there,’ pointing to the dude on the sidewalk shaking Martise’s hand. Donell states that the dude was Kato, now known as Rudy Rangel, and this dude is the guy Bro Man was telling Donell to shoot at,” the prosecutor wrote.
“Donell states that Bro Man told Donell that he wanted Donell to pop him. Donell states that ‘pop him’ meant to kill him and ‘him’ was the dude they call ‘Kato.’ ”
Simmons had been paroled just months before. In a deal with prosecutors, he’d pleaded guilty to aggravated discharge of a firearm, was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2002 and paroled from the Vandalia Correctional Center on Feb. 26, 2003.
• • •
On June 4, 2003, Nunnery was at work at a cellphone store when he got the call from Ware he’d been waiting for: Rangel was at the barbershop.
He told authorities Spann picked him up, and they called Simmons to let him know they were coming to get him. Simmons was walking to a liquor store at Madison and Keeler when he saw Nunnery driving a red Ford Taurus with Spann in back and another man in the front. He got in next to Spann.
Outside the barbershop, they saw Rangel’s blue SUV, drove a block west and turned, parking just north of the alley, according to what Nunnery and Simmons told authorities.
“Donell states that Bro Man handed the gun to Donell. Donell states that as Bro Man handed the gun to him, Bro Man told Donell, ‘Don’t miss. Come back. We’ll be right here waiting for you.’ ”
“Man, Shorty, don’t miss him,” Nunnery said.
Simmons took the gun and got out.
Killing 'Kato': the story of Latin Kings boss Rudy Rangel Jr.’s murder
