Q&A: Author unpacks the life, times and tragic murder of gifted Tyrone Everett
One of boxing’s most notable tragedies was the violent death of Tyrone Everett.
The gifted, rising 130-pound contender from Philadelphia ended up on the wrong end of a bad decision in his bid to take Alfredo Escalera’s title in November 1976. Six months later he was gone, a victim of murder by the hand of his girlfriend.
Everett was only 24, which leaves us to wonder what he might have accomplished in his career and life.
Those who around in the late 1970s remember Everett, his grisly demise and the trial that followed but not much had been written about him. That’s one reason author Sean Nam tackled the subject in his new book, “Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, Fixed Fights, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.”
Boxing Junkie caught up with Nam for a Q&A on a journey that has produced the definitive work on Everett.
Boxing Junkie: What led you to write a book about this topic in particular?
Nam: Tyrone Everett is hardly a known quantity, even among boxing aficionados, but he has stood out nonetheless as one of the more unsettling tragedies in the sport. He was brash, handsome, and incredibly vain, and in his brief ascent to local sporting stardom in Philadelphia, Everett did not shy away from a lifestyle that exemplified the “Live Fast, Die Young” dictum.
His lone title shot, in 1976, against Alfredo Escalera, was considered a travesty: Everett lost a decision despite soundly out-boxing the Puerto Rican champion for the majority of the 15 rounds, prompting outcries of skullduggery. Indeed, the late Harold Lederman, who attended the fight, once described it as one of the greatest injustices in the ring he had ever witnessed.
Then there was the matter of Everett’s sensational death, six months later, at the hands of his live-in girlfriend, Carolyn McKendrick, who shot him in the face with a pistol. Everett was only 24 years old. The ensuing trial was a tabloid circus. Everett’s sexuality came under heavy scrutiny, as the lone witness to the shooting was a gay, crossdressing drug pusher, whom McKendrick alleged had been in bed with Everett on the morning of the shooting. You can imagine the prurient effect that would have had on the jury and the droves of spectators that thronged the courtroom daily in 1977, when non-binary gender concepts were at best still fringe. But Everett’s sexual predilections were far from the only issues that were being dangled daily to the public. He was also accused of beating McKendrick and dealing drugs himself.
So, from a dramatic standpoint, there was a lot to unpack here, and I thought I could add something new to a story that had been obscured and distorted over time.
Boxing Junkie: How long did you spend researching it?
Nam: Research got underway sometime late 2019. But it was that first pandemic lockdown, in 2020, where the bulk of the writing took place. All in all, I would say it took close to two years researching, interviewing, and writing the book. And that does not include the many months of fine-tuning not just the prose but also designing the cover, nabbing photo rights, chasing book blurbs, and developing the general layout of the book.
Boxing Junkie: How good was Everett as a boxer?
Nam: Very good, in short. His combination of quickness, defensive responsibility, and sneaky power, made him a prickly proposition for many fighters. Everett was a southpaw, an anomaly in a prizefighting milieu that featured mainly bruisers and bangers. Those close to Everett understandably believe that he could have achieved a Hall of Fame-worthy career, that he could have defeated the likes of Alexis Arguello and Roberto Duran, two fighters that were actually on Everett’s radar at the time. Would he have defeated them? Hard to say, and that’s why his death is such a tantalizing subject. If he had hung around for a few more years, there would have been no shortage of compelling fights to make. Boxing was on the upswing. Network television was beginning to get back into boxing and Atlantic City — a stone’s throw from Philadelphia — was emerging as a boxing powerhouse. There would have been ample opportunity for Everett to leave behind a legitimate fighting legacy.
Boxing Junkie: I know the book explores the murder but it’s also a tragedy in terms of what could’ve been, isn’t it?
Nam: Yes. I’ve described Everett as analogous to the Icarus myth: He got too close to the sun. I’m also reminded of a haunting phrase by Billy Giles, the trainer of Hector Camacho, another brash and flashy fighter who had close ties with the street and suffered an ignominious death. Asked by the great New York Times boxing beat writer, Michael Katz, to predict how Camacho would end up, Giles once remarked, “Like Tyrone Everett, maybe worse.”
Boxing Junkie: What was the most surprising thing you learned in the process?
Nam: There are so many. But one thing I was intrigued by was how popular Tyrone was in his heyday. He was part of this revolution in Philadelphia boxing in the 1970s that hinged on some terrific middleweight talents, including “Bad” Bennie Briscoe, Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, and Willie “The Worm” Monroe, but he is rarely mentioned when that era up in casual conversations. Marvelous Marvin Hagler wasn’t from Philadelphia, but he fought there several times; you could argue he made his bones there as a fighter. So within this bubbling middleweight culture, you had Everett, who, in addition to being a defensively-oriented southpaw boxer, was a natural lightweight. But it turns out while Everett chafed against the orthodoxy of his time in many ways, he was actually a legitimate, if still relatively modest, box office draw, on the local level. (His fight with Escalera holds the boxing record for indoor attendance in the state of Pennsylvania). Outside of Briscoe, Everett was probably the best boxing attraction in Philadelphia at the time, with many of his fans hailing from his own neighborhood. (Remember, Joe Frazier did not fight at all in his hometown during this period, as the heavyweight game existed in an altogether different sphere.) By the time he fought Escalera for the title, Everett had outgrown the local scene on the East Coast. His promoter, Russell Peltz, started approaching some of the major fight handlers in California to entice their fighters to come fight Everett, who was fast becoming the kind of fighter in whom there is much risk but relatively little reward.
Boxing Junkie: Were you able to break new ground?
Nam: Yes, I think I do. There were rampant rumors that Everett’s murder was premeditated — that it was the product of underworld retaliation. In the book, I present context that had been missing from the Tyrone Everett story, namely, his associations with the Black Mafia, a harrowing organized criminal consortium that controlled the drug trade in Philadelphia in the 1970s. The key word is “organized.” The Black Mafia had the backing of the Nation of Islam, which offered the kind of institutional, ideological, and corporate underpinnings that distinguished the Black Mafia from more ragtag outfits. In the public consciousness, the Black Mafia is most famous for carrying out an order to take the life of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose allegiance to an NOI apostate made him persona non grata to NOI founder Elijah Muhammad. They failed in their mission to eliminate Abdul-Jabbar but made national news headlines, anyway, for the carnage they inflicted on Abdul-Jabbar’s fellow devotees, which included the death of several children. (See the Hanafi Muslim Massacre of 1973.)
Everett’s connection with the Black Mafia stems from the girlfriend who killed him, Carolyn McKendrick, who at the time was still married to a key member of that grisly group, Ricardo McKendrick. News reports at the time described McKendrick as a relatively anodyne figure, a husband who had done some time on a drug charge. In retrospect that was total understatement. In the book, I tease out a web of underworld relationships that, in the main, illustrate, I believe, how tightly yoked Tyrone was to the streets, despite his statements to the contrary. An intriguing postscript emerged more than a decade ago, when Ricardo McKendrick and his son (Ricardo McKendrick Jr.) were arrested by federal agents in a drug sting that turned up over 600 pounds of cocaine.
I argue that the Black Mafia is crucial to understanding the context of Everett’s death because as much as he was finding success in the ring, it is clear that he was still deeply intertwined with the street life that led to his undoing. For more on the Black Mafia, I highly recommend Sean Patrick Griffin’s thorough book, Black Brothers Inc.
Boxing Junkie: What was the most satisfying thing about the process in the end?
Nam: I did not set out to valorize Tyrone Everett. But I do think I have enhanced the life of a forgotten fighter who has otherwise been relentlessly vulgarized for the past five decades.
Boxing Junkie Did she do it? Or do we have to read the book?
Nam: I think there is little doubt that Carolyn McKendrick murdered Tyrone Everett. But that’s not to say that her motives are completely clear. She did five years. (In the book, I describe my brief interaction with her.) And there are so many questions from the trial that remain unresolved to this day — like the nearly 40 plastic packets of heroin that were found on the dining room table in the house where Everett died. I think the details that I offer in the book, especially the ones regarding the Black mafia, compel us to think differently about what happened to Everett.
