One of the founding members of the infamous Best Friends drug organization which ruled urban Detriot's multi-million dollar crack trade from the mid to late '80s. Holloway grew up with legendary Detroit figures such as the late Richard "Maserati Rick" Carter "also a founding member of Best Friends," and boxing legend Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns. After working briefly as a postal clerk, Holloway was convicted and sentenced to federal prison after being convicted of burglary in 1980. Holloway's initial prison stay was lengthened after picking up a second conviction for drug trafficking.
Upon his release in 1985, Demetrius managed the Chalk & Cue pool hall on West 7 mile Road for William Van Lewis. It was from Lewis that Holloway learned the ins and outs of quasi legitamacy and used the pool hall as a front for a burgeoning drug business. By 1986 Holloway and Carter were running a multi-million dollar drug operation which allowed Demetrius to open 3 sporting goods stores, in addition to purchasing several acres of land in Alabama while setting up Renters Paradise to oversee several Detroit Apartment buildings which allowed him to claim a legal $17,000 in monthly income. Holloway also claimed to be a professional gambler a habit or business which he claimed to the tune of $288,000 to $780,000 on federal tax returns filed in the late '80s.
Holloway was known to make frequent trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City New Jersey where he once returned with winnings totalling $125,000 after a weekend jaunt. As the '90s came to a close the high profile living and constant battles with drug rivals and authorities led Holloway to stage his own disappearance from and east Detroit hamburger stand. At the time of his disappearance Holloway was fighting the seizure of two of his sporting goods stores, a Mercedes Benz and more than $90,000 in cash. Part of which was taken in 1986 when he was arrested for disorderly conduct.
At the time of his arrest, Holloway was carrying $35,000 in cash and lost another $92,000 when federal authorities arrested him outside of a known crack house. Further heat was brought down on Best Friends when customs officers began arresting women bound for Detroit from the Bahamas with kilo packages of cocaine. According to federal documents these women had been paid upwards of $2,000 dollars per trip. In court documents, Holloway admitted to being associated with or knowing members of other Detroit drug gangs including the Curry and Chambers brothers, White Boy Rick Wershe, Frank Usher, Seal Murray and of course Maserati Rick Carter.
Beyond these demaging admissions, Demetrius invoked his 5th amendment rights in anserwing questions about his finances and drug ties. Holloway was deal a stunning blow when his life long friend and partner Maserati Rick Carter was shot and killed as he recouperated from another shooting in September of 1988 in a Detroit hospital. Following Carter's death, the first person the Carter family contacted was Demetrius Holloway who soon thereafter arranged his own abduction. Absent for several months from the striff and conflict which had claimed his pal, Holloway travelled to Las Vegas where he married his girlfriend Wanda Jean Hardaway the sister of Charles "Chuckie" Hardaway, another reputed drug figure.
32 year old Demetrius Holloway was gunned down at 4 p.m Monday October 8,1990 in a shooting almost as brazen as the one that claimed Maserati Rick more than two years prior. Holloway was shot as he picked out a new pair of socks in the Broadway Department store. Demetrius who was felled by two shots to the back of the head, had a pistol in his possession as well as $17,000 in cash but did not have the chance to defend himself. Holloways murder was believed to have been ordered by Big Ed Hanserd another Eastside drug dealer who was known to have been a rival of Holloway and Carter.
