How a Rich Suburban Girl Became a Drug Kingpin

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Getty Images Ever since the murder of Rian Thal two weeks ago in Philadelphia, everyone wants to know how this girl from a wealthy suburb ended up a high-stakes drug trafficker in the city’s hip-hop scene—but it’s not as unusual as you might think.

In the early evening light of Saturday, June 27, four men barely disguised by low-drawn baseball caps casually strolled into a Philadelphia luxury apartment complex, took the elevator to the seventh floor, and shot up-and-coming club promoter, 34-year-old Rian Thal, in the head. Multiple surveillance cameras captured the seeming ease with which the killers performed. On their way out, one shooter nearly walked into a man carrying a piece of furniture, smoothly side-stepped around him, and slid anonymously out the door.

A sign reading “Under Constant Video Surveillance” is prominently displayed at the entrance to the apartment complex where this took place, and on June 27, those cameras paid off: Last week, 25-year-old Katoya Jones, seen in the video letting the killers into the building, was charged with murder and conspiracy. According to police, Jones, who also lived at the Piazza, is the girlfriend of North Philly drug dealer James "Poo" Wilson, 36, who masterminded the plot. Wilson is still at large.

Click Image Below to Watch the Surveillance Video of Rian Thal's Alleged Killers

Katoya Jones, now charged with murder, appears to let a man in a white shirt into Rian Thal's building. He, in turn, lets two more men in. The three men then go up to the seventh floor, where they allegedly kill Thal in the stairwell to the left of the elevators.

The Piazza wasn’t meant for cold-blooded drug crimes. An 80,000-square-foot plaza ringed by clothing boutiques, art galleries and trendy restaurants, real-estate heavy-hitter Bart Blatstein dropped $500 million to make it not just an apartment complex, but an ongoing cultural event.

Nor was Thal the type of woman most people think of when they imagine a drug kingpin. A petite, blond, perpetually smiling product of an upscale Philadelphia suburb, her neighbors mainly remembered her as a cat lover whose drug of choice was nothing stronger than chocolate candy. Thal’s Twitter feed featured posts like, "Oh my god I am having a foodgasm, chocolate chip bread pudding!!!!!"

Yet when police arrived at her building, they found four kilos of cocaine in Thal’s penthouse apartment, along with $100,000 in cash. Newspaper reporters scrambled to her MySpace page, and found glamorous pictures of Thal out on the town with the city’s hip-hop and sports stars. She was big enough that the nightclub she promoted, Plush, had advertised a joint birthday party on July 18 for Thal and James "Kamal" Gray, a member of famed Philly hip-hop group The Roots.

Thal’s moneyed high gloss, it turned out, stemmed from her underworld involvement, which went back at least a decade. She was an improbable real-deal, big-time trafficker who had once been convicted of smuggling meth into the U.S., and, in a separate incident, was kidnapped and then released by another drug dealer, possibly as part of a disputed deal.

And now around Philadelphia, even as the details of the case are still unfolding, the question is on everyone’s lips: How did this white girl (in the hip-hop clubs, she was actually known as “white girl”) from the wealthy suburbs get to this level of the drug game in the first place? Having previously been in a similar position myself, let me try to shed some light on how someone like Thal could end up a big shot in that world.

It’s not as surprising as you’d think that someone like Thal, a reported casual coke user, would find herself being asked if she wanted to start participating in deals. I once knew a coke dealer—not a barroom nickel and dimer, but the kind of dude who could get you kilo if you needed it—and there were moments of opportunity when I, too, was asked if I wanted to get in on the game. Did I want to front five grand and go in on a niner? The question came up more than once.

So when I read about Rian Thal’s murder, I wondered how long ago it was that someone put a similar question to her. Did she want to get in on a brick? Would she mind if someone stashed a couple at her crib, along with some cash?

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