Tamara Greene

Case background and investigation

Tamara Greene was a 27-year-old mother of three who worked as an exotic dancer in Detroit under the stage name "Strawberry." In the early hours of April 30, 2003, she was sitting in her car with her boyfriend near the corner of Roselawn Street and West Outer Drive. According to WDIV (ClickOnDetroit), she had pulled to the curb to drop him off when a white Chevrolet Blazer came around the corner and someone inside opened fire. Wikipedia's account of the case puts the time at about 3:40 a.m. and says she was hit multiple times by rounds from a .40-caliber pistol.

Her killing drew unusual attention because of a rumor that had been circulating in Detroit for months. Former members of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's security detail alleged that a party with dancers had been held at the Manoogian Mansion, the mayor's official residence, in the fall of 2002, and that Greene had performed there and been assaulted by the mayor's wife. Those claims were never substantiated. Michigan's attorney general at the time, Mike Cox, and the Michigan State Police investigated and reported finding no evidence that the party took place.

Greene's family nonetheless believed the homicide investigation had been hampered. Attorney Norman Yatooma, representing her children, brought a $150 million federal lawsuit against the City of Detroit and Kilpatrick, alleging that officials had obstructed the police inquiry into her death. The suit did not accuse any named person of the shooting itself.

On November 1, 2011, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen dismissed the case. As Michigan Public reported, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had not produced sufficient evidence that the investigation was sabotaged; the city had argued that a review of thousands of pages of police and fire records and millions of computer files failed to support either the party rumor or the obstruction claim. According to Wikipedia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit later affirmed the dismissal.

No one has ever been arrested or charged in Greene's death, and police have not publicly identified a suspect. WDIV reported in 2019 that Yatooma had put up a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and that Crime Stoppers said an anonymous donor had doubled it. Yatooma told the station that people who contacted his team with information were afraid to come forward.

More than two decades later the case remains an open, unsolved homicide with the Detroit Police Department. The allegations that surrounded it remain unproven, and the official findings on record are that no evidence of the rumored party was found and that the family's obstruction claims were not supported in court.