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Specializing in the importation of heroin, Harold Morton came to dominate Detroit's urban drug trade during the '70s. Morton was a key cog in the heroin fraternity which included such notables as New York's Frank Matthews, Leroy "Nicky" Barnes and Ish Muhammed and Frank James, Chicago's Willie "the wimp," D.C's., Mace Brown, Earl Anthony Garner, Warren Christopher Robinson and Linwood Gray, Philadelphia's Black Mafia godfather and L.A's., Thomas "Tootie" Reese. Morton employed a crack team of gunmen to enforce his will and collect debts chief among them Frank "Nitti" Usher and Chester Campbell Wheeler.
Morton's reign ended shortly after he was arrested along with Hilda Singleton aka Hilda Hughes and charged with conspiracy in the 1977 murder of 24 year old Sandra Jones. Morton paid Michigan taxi driver Thornell McKnight the paltry sum of $3,500 to kill Jones after she had agreed to testify against Morton in an international smuggling trial. Jones had been arrested along with Morton as the pair retrieved her baggage containing a load of European heroin at Kennedy Airpport in New York. The November 18, 1977 arrest broke the back of Morton's organization and set in motion a series of events which led to Morton's downfall. An investigation into the activities of L.A's Tootie Reese snagged Morton and several of his associates. After having been found guilty in Jones murder Morton was sentenced to life in federal prison where he continues to serve his time at the Federal facility in Milan Michigan. |
