Craig Mack
New Album in January
Whitney Houston secretly paid a $400,000 ransom demand to kidnappers who threatened to k!ll her ex-husband Bobby Brown, according to a new bombshell book by former gang member David Collins.
Brown was snatched and held “nekkid and hog tied” at gunpoint by members of a notorious New York street gang known as the Preacher Crew, according to the author.
He was later allowed to make one phone call to Whitney, in which he pleaded with her to personally deliver the ransom to an abandoned building in the Bronx.
Disguised in a wig and dark glasses, the terrified singer obeyed, and handed over a duffle bag containing the cash 24 hours later to 6ft 7in gang boss Clarence “Preacher” Heatley, says Collins.
He claims the kidnapping, which was never reported to police, happened in April 1993 when Whitney was at the peak of her fame with her film The Bodyguard and its soundtrack album, both huge hits. Unlike the movie, however, in which Kevin Costner co-starred as her heroic minder, Whitney was forced to face her then husband’s kidnappers alone to hand over the ransom before they were both allowed to walk away free.
Former gang member Collins claims in his autobiography, Preacher of the Streets, that Brown was snatched over a $25,000 debt to a New Jersey drug dealer. Heatley, currently serving life without parole after admitting being involved in 13 gang-related k!llings, allegedly paid the dealer and “took over the debt”.
Heatley – described by Collins as an eighteen-and-a-half stone “mountain of evil” – then told gang members he had a plan “to make a whole lot more than $25,000”. His henchmen were sent to a Manhattan nightclub, where they allegedly plied Brown with high-grade cocaine, later luring him to a Bronx apartment with the promise of more.
Collins claims Brown was taken to a sleazy, abandoned apartment that had been taken over by Preacher Crew members. There, he was “knocked out with one punch” by one of Heatley’s henchmen. “When he awoke, Bobby was nekkid and hog-tied, his mouth stuffed with a rag,” says Collins.
The Pre-acher then showed up and took the rag out of Bobby’s mouth. ‘It’s a shame we have to k!ll you,’ Preacher told Bobby. Bobby begged for his life and said Whitney could pay the debt.
“The Preacher left the room and his men then terrorised Bobby for two hours. They kicked him. They told him they would k!ll Whitney. One of them put a gun to his head. Bobby was weeping when the Preacher came back in the room, begging the Preacher to let him call Whitney.”
This, according to Collins, was the fear tactic Heatley believed would help him score a big financial hit. Brown was allowed to phone Whitney, telling her he would be k!lled unless she paid the gang. Heatley, according to Collins, then took the phone from Brown.
As Whitney pleaded with him to spare her husband, “they came to an agreement. She was personally going to bring $400,000 to get her man back. The next day, she did just that. She was wearing a wig. She paid the money. Bobby was free to go.”
Collins writes: “Once they were gone, Preacher sat there with the duffle bag of money and split it with his men. Preacher kept over $200,000 of it.” Collins believes both Brown and Whitney were lucky to escape shaken but virtually unscathed
shyt so prolific
in order to stop young black youths from dying is for a another black man or organization to take the trade from the Italian mob like Mr Matthews did.
