Walker was a suspected enforcer for the organization, which authorities said was becoming more violent as it expanded its operations beyond Southwest Philadelphia.

The trunking theory gained support as the homicide investigation unfolded.

Another Southwest Philadelphia drug dealer told police that on the morning Smith was killed, they'd had drinks together at the Gold Coast Bar at 40th Street and Lancaster Avenue. Smith had said that he was going to meet Walker that afternoon to settle a dispute over a $1,500 drug debt, the dealer said.

With that information and Smith's dying declaration, police picked up Walker and charged him with murder, robbery, unlawful restraint and firearms offenses.

The case against him became even stronger when his DNA matched a trail of blood leading from the vehicle and blood found on the backseat.

'Whatever we gotta do'

ATF and police investigative files, however, depicted him as a man suspected of calling the shots for an organization that abducted and ambushed rivals, killed competitors, and moved large quantities of cocaine and crack.

Ironically, that was the same picture Coles - as "Ace Capone" - painted in his 31-minute rap music video New Jack City: The Next Generation, in which he played the role of a Southwest Philadelphia drug lord.

The video featured music from rappers who recorded for Coles' Take Down Records label; a story line splattered with gangland-style assassinations; a sex scene involving nude go-go dancers gyrating to hip-hop; and street-smart Ace Capone as head of the notorious "Take Down Family."

"We do whatever we gotta do," gang leader Capone says as the story opens. This is followed by a scene in which a drug rival is brought to a basement, forced to beg for his life, and then shot in the head.

Investigators shook their heads at the audacity of it all. The words, the attitude and the violence were typical of what they had been seeing for months as they intensified the tracking of Coles and his associates.

Surveillance and tips from informants gave them a street-level view of the organization. This helped them set up hand-to-hand drug buys from street corner dealers. It also allowed them to more easily follow Coles - who seldom slept in one place for more than a few nights - as he moved around the city and into Delaware and New Jersey.

But by the spring of 2005, investigators determined that they needed more to make their case. They wanted to be inside the organization.

They wanted - needed - wiretaps.

The court-authorized tapping of Coles' cell phone began on May 19, 2005.

In the first 15 days, the ATF intercepted 4,300 calls, according to one affidavit. On average, Coles made or received about 280 calls a day.

One of the first conversations paid immediate dividends.

Three days earlier, Jamar "Mar" Campbell, a Coles associate, had been arrested in the parking lot of an apartment complex near the Granite Run Mall in Delaware County.

Tipped off by an informant, Delaware County detectives had nabbed the 6-foot, 220-pound Campbell carrying five ounces of cocaine and a .40-caliber Glock handgun.