Low-Rent Corporate Espionage

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Detective Quinn found this bill of lading on the floor behind the cash register in Barry's shop. On it was the address of Barry's warehouse, which he kept a secret to deter thieves.

Atlanta entrepreneur Mamadou Barry had just closed up his retail shop for the night. Then he returned to his apartment after a quick trip to the grocery store. That's when two attackers smashed a sliding glass door and burst inside. Investigators don't know who the men were, but think they tied Barry up and left him for dead in order to steal information about his business, perpetrating a kind of low-rent corporate espionage.

They bound his limbs with duct tape and extension cords, and put a plastic bag over his head. After handcuffing him to a grab rail in the bathtub,  they turned up the music on a boom box so the neighbors wouldn't hear his muffled cries for help.

Barry attempted to bite through the plastic bag, banging on the shower wall with his bound hands and feet. Meanwhile, the two men ransacked his home, desperately trying to find something.

No one came to Barry's rescue. Cops think he struggled for several days and suffered a slow, painful death.

Purple Hair Curlers

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Detective Quinn noticed this receipt laying on the floor in Barry's warehouse. It was for a cash purchase in a store at a popular Atlanta shopping center: three pairs Nike Air Jordan Melo 5.5s. And the timestamp on the receipt: 10:46 AM, November 28, 2005, more than a week after Barry was murdered.

Mamadou Barry was an entrepreneur tapped into Atlanta's urban youth culture. If purple hair curlers were the hot thing on the street, he sold purple hair curlers. So it's no surprise that he had stocked up on the must-have gift of the 2005 holiday season: a big shipment of "pocket bikes," miniature versions of real motorcycles worth several hundred dollars apiece.

Barry kept the location of the warehouse where he kept the bikes a secret, hoping to stay one step ahead of local thieves. But cops say someone must have known what Barry was up to.

Their investigation started at Barry's ransacked apartment, where they discovered his body in the bathtub. Detective David Quinn arrived eight days after Barry was last seen alive. Maintenance workers called authorities after neighbors reported a foul smell.

Investigators entered the apartment to find it ransacked, documents and papers scattered all over the floor. But at first glance, nothing appeared to be missing. "All they took were his keys," says Detective Quinn. "So I headed over to his shop to see if anything was missing."

When Quinn got there, he found Barry's car, unlocked, and quickly realized that someone had cleaned the place out.

There were no signs of forced entry. Missing were radio controlled cars, blank CDs and DVDs, and dozens of pairs of Nike tennis shoes -- Jordan Air Force Ones. Also missing were several "pocket bikes" --  witnesses say they saw someone loading up the bikes outside.

Save Your Receipts

At first glance, it looked like the thieves had gotten away clean. But they had unwittingly left one important piece of evidence behind, one that would tie them or someone they knew to the murder of Mamadou Barry.

"We found this bill laying on the shop floor behind the cash register," says Quinn. "It had the address of the local warehouse where Barry kept all his stock."

When Quinn arrived at the warehouse, he found the door ajar, but again, no signs of forced entry. Once inside, he discovered that someone had emptied the warehouse, too, including most of the shipment of pocket bikes.

Then Detective Quinn got another break. "I'm seeing nothing remarkable on the inside and then on top of the loading dock maybe 10, 15 feet inside the door, I see this piece of paper. It's just sticking out there looking at me."

It was a crumpled-up receipt for a purchase made in cash at an athletic store. The time stamp on the receipt: 10:46 AM, November 28, 2005, more than a week after Mamadou Barry was murdered.

"I want to know how this receipt ended up in my victim's business, long after he was murdered," says Quinn. The receipt came from FAME at Underground Atlanta, a popular tourist attraction and shopping mall. According to Quinn, surveillance video from the store shows several unidentified men shopping; a man in a jersey with either the number 19 or 49 apparently makes the purchase.

The receipt shows a sale for three pairs of kids' sneakers: Nike Air Jordan Melo 5.5s. Detective Quinn thinks that whoever bought the sneakers may have had something to do with Barry's murder, or at least knows somebody who did.

Quinn is also banking on one more piece of evidence: the stolen pocket bikes. Turns out they were all damaged during shipping, and had carburetor problems.

Detective Quinn thinks that the pocket bikes from Barry's shipment could be anywhere in Metro Atlanta, probably sold at flea markets and on street corners all over the city.

Wanted For:

• Murder

(Information valid as of April 4, 2009)

Associated Persons:

Marciell Easterling
Fugitive
»More information
Daquan Stevens
Fugitive
»More information

Television Airings:

• »April 4, 2009
• »February 6, 2009
• »December 2, 2006

AMW Radio:

• »April 07 2009
• »February 13 2009
• »January 10 2007

AMW Capture #992

Tip Cracks A Cold Case; Brings Down Murder Gang

When the ATF busted their suspect, they had no idea that the information he knew would lead to arrests in seven unsolved murder investigations. He told Atlanta police that he had a story to sell.

Cops say the man said he knew someone who was bragging.

A few months earlier, he said, his friend had spotted a police officer. He pointed the detective out, and said that the cop was working a case that had been on America's Most Wanted, and had gotten it all wrong.

He said the guys we profiled on television were the wrong people. He said that he had done it.

That man, Jeremy Dunn, who would become AMW Direct Result Capture #992, along with Marciell Easterling, #993, and Daquan Stevens, #994 -- have been indicted on counts stemming from the murder of Mamadou Barry, a hardworking Atlanta entrepreneur.

Authorities say it's not their only murder: they were part of a crew charged with murdering seven people in two years.

The Mamadou Barry case, cops say, was stone cold.

Police had found a receipt in Barry's warehouse dated long after he was last spotted. The receipt came from FAME at Underground Atlanta, a popular tourist attraction and shopping mall.

According to Detective David Quinn, surveillance video from the store shows several unidentified men shopping.

And that's who police were trying to track down, hoping they would be the key to unlocking this case - but it led nowhere.

After a tipster fingered Dunn, though, Quinn and the ATF's Violent Crime Impact Team Initiative, a multi-jurisdictional task force designed to reduce homicides and other firearms-related violent crime in 25 cities, had a new angle to check out.

It turned out, investigators say, that the receipt was from a group of people that the suspected killer had robbed -- and accidentally dropped after committing the crime. The clues led to a group of thugs and killers known as the International Robbing Crew (IRC).

Cops say that the IRC gang was so vicious that even local street criminals complained about the group. And what started out as a 35-count indictment against nine people has grown even larger; the Fulton County, Ga. D.A.'s office hit 11 people with a 55-count indictment, and the investigation still isn't finished. To date 15 people have been indicted.

All it took was one tip to close Mamadou's case, police say. Mamadou was the first of seven murders, but closing that one case brought in the rest.