Notorious Washington, D.C. drug kingpin Rayful Edmond III died of a heart attack months after he was released from federal prison. He was 60.
Kristie Breshears, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, confirmed his death on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
Edmond’s brother said he died of a heart attack.
Edmond served 35 years of a life sentence before he was moved from prison in August to a community confinement (halfway house) in Nashville ahead of his release in 2025.
“Back better than ever,” Edmond said in a video uploaded to social media in August.
Edmond is credited with introducing crack cocaine to the D.C. area during the crack epidemic of the 1980s. The resulting crime wave helped D.C. earn the reputation as the “murder capital of the United States.”
Federal prosecutors alleged that Edmond trafficked hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the Washington, D.C. area in the 1980s.
As a security precaution during his trial, Edmond was transported on a helicopter from prison to the courthouse every day.
He pled guilty to drug charges in 1989 and was sentenced to life without parole in a federal prison.
Edmond continued to run his drug empire from a Pennsylvania federal prison with the help of fellow inmates from Colombia.
Court documents said Edmond ran the “largest cocaine distribution operation in the history of the nation’s capital.” He was responsible for bringing thousands of pounds of Colombian cocaine to Northeast Washington, D.C.
Edmond was also an informant who gave the feds information on 2 homicides. He testified at one of the murder trials.
With Edmond’s help, the feds arrested 8 drug dealers in the D.C. area and recovered $190,000 in cash.
In 2021 a judge reduced Edmond’s sentence from life without parole to 20 years with lifetime parole. He received credit for the 18 years he’d already served.
