January 30, 2021 – Slain old-school Gangster Disciples leader, Earnest (Smokey) Wilson ordered the murder of a rival gang member in an Illinois state prison 40 years ago this week. Smokey Wilson was the GD’s boss of Chicago’s Northside turf.
Black Disciples soldier George (Bed Bug) Bailey was beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat inside his cell at Stateville Prison in Crest Hill, Illinois on January 29, 1981 after refusing Wilson’s order that he resign his post as a cellblock porter. Bed Bug Bailey defied Smokey Wilson’s edict, tried to lead a revolt against Smokey’s hold on prison contraband and paid for it with his life.
Smokey Wilson himself was gunned down in Chicago on May 18, 2018 at age 65. His murder was included in this week’s bust of over a half-dozen Gangster Disciples on federal drug and racketeering counts. Gangster Disciples street bosses Anthony (Crazy Tony) Dobbins and Warren (Big Head G) Griffin are charged with summoning Wilson to a meeting to discuss GD business and shooting him to death instead.
The Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciples used to be under the same gangland umbrella, but the union began to fray following the death of Black Disciples boss David Barksdale (kidney disorder) in 1974. GD founder and boss Larry Hoover (incarcerated for the last 48 years) is alleged to have chosen Dobbins and Griffin as GD street bosses in 2014, per this week’s indictment.
Smokey Wilson was serving time in Stateville for a 1976 manslaughter conviction when he green-lit the Bed Bug Bailey hit. Bed Bug Bailey was one of the highest-ranking Black Disciples members housed in the facility’s Unit B West and him and Smokey Wilson jostled for power in the prison wing they shared.
On January 15, 1981, per court records, Wilson convened a meeting of the unit and announced that any Black Disciples that held jobs as prison porters, allowing them free roam in the unit, were either to resign or renounce BD Nation for GD Nation. Three Black Disciples resigned immediately. Bed Bug Bailey refused.
In fact, days later, Bed Bug Bailey convinced the three BDs that had resigned to reclaim their porter jobs and began organizing nightly “BD power” chants in the unit that commenced at 8:00 p.m. every evening, according to ATF files. Gangster Disciples enforcer Freddy (Bobo) Collins physically attacked Bed Bug Bailey in the prison yard on the afternoon of January 21, 1981 and got sent to the “Hole” for a week, per prison discipline logs.
During that week, Smokey Wilson met with Stateville’s Black Disciples boss, Dirk (The Don) Acklin, and tried to get Bailey in-check through proper channels to no avail, jailhouse informants told investigators. The emboldened Bed Bug Bailey was living on borrowed time.
On the night of January 29, Smokey Wilson decided to act: per court filings, he had a powwow in his cell with several of his Gangster Disciples lieutenants, including Bobo Collins — who just got back from a week’s worth of solitary confinement — and as the group smoked marijuana and discussed killing Bed Bug Bailey with a baseball bat or a knife shank, he proclaimed “it was time to get Triple B (Bailey).”
At 9:52, Collins, wielding a bat and another high-ranking Gangster Disciple named Charles (Sundown) Harris, brandishing a shank, entered Bailey’s cell and attacked him. Collins clubbed him multiple times over the head with his aluminum bat. Bailey died a week later on February 5. Wilson, Collins and Harris were convicted of murdering Bailey in 1983.
Wilson was paroled in 1998 and came back to Chicago where he returned to his headquarters in the Cabrini Green Projects. His jailing in the summer of 2001 on a gun possession charge sent him back to prison and Cabrini Green’s drug terrain into turmoil. At least a half-dozen gangland killings in the coming months and years were traced to Smokey’s absence, CPD narcotics officers speculated.
After Cabrini Green was torn down and Smokey Wilson came back to Chicago in 2016 from his second stint behind bars, he bumped heads with the new GD administrators, per court records. Crazy Tony Dobbins, who lived in East St. Louis, Illinois, was given GD street boss duties for the entire region in September 2014 and “OG” Smokey Wilson didn’t take kindly to taking orders from a newer shot-caller like Crazy Tony, according to FBI documents. Wilson couldn’t get along with Dobbin’s main lieutenant in Chicago, Fred (Little Red Beard) Smith, either which further cemented his fate.
The post The Stateville Prison Baseball Bat Murder: Black Disciple “Bed Bug” Bailey Beaten To Death By GDs appeared first on The Gangster Report.