The Infamous...Steven Sealey

by Ran Britt

Steven Sealey was born in 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in the Columbia Point housing projects, located in the city's Dorchester neighborhood.  During his childhood, Sealey began a lifelong friendship with fellow Boston native and future pop superstar Bobby Brown, who grew up in the Orchard Park housing projects located in the city's Roxbury neighborhood.

In 1981, a teenaged Sealey began a working for Dwayne "Wonderful Wayne" Davis, one of the co-founders of Detroit-based Young Boys, Inc. drug organization. Earlier that year, Davis had led his faction of YBI, dubbed "the H2O crew", into making inroads into Indianapolis, Indiana, Cincinnati, Ohio, Seattle, Washington and Boston. Sealey worked as Davis' driver and bodyguard after the latter established a satellite operation in Columbia Point. On September 28, 1982, months after a return trip from Boston alongside other associates, including Sealey, Davis was shot to death in Northwest Detroit. Following Davis' murder, Sealey and the other members of H2O returned to Boston, renamed the H2O crew "the Bomb Boys" and picked up where Davis left off. 

At some point Sealey picked up the nickname "Stevie Shots". 

In 1988, Bomb Boys leader Toby "Big Blood" Johnson was killed, reputedly by other members of the organization, and Sealey subsequently changed the group's name to the Columbia Point Dawgs. On June 20 of that year, Bobby Brown's sophomore solo album, Don't Be Cruel, was released and went on to sell 7 million copies. Don't Be Cruel, featuring Brown's signature song, "My Prerogative", which reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, became the best-selling album of 1989. Following the 1991 life sentence of Roxbury drug kingpin Darryl "G-d" Whiting, the CPD rushed to fill the vacuum left by the former's 100-man New York Boys organization. 

In 1993, Sealey began serving a two-year prison sentence following a conviction for weapons violations. 

Sealey eventually became engaged to Brown's sister, Carol and when Brown hired him as a bodyguard, Sealey moved to Atlanta, Georgia.

Bobby Brown

In 1995, Sealey is alleged to have ordered the robberies of local drug dens and stash houses operated by rival organizations. 

On September 28, 1995, Sealey rode with Brown, who was driving pop superstar Whitney Houston's (his then wife) $400,000 cream-colored Bentley, to Boston's Biarritz Lounge, located a block from the Orchard Park housing project where Brown grew up. Brown signed several autographs for fans before the two decided to depart. Minutes before 1 a.m., as the pair were seated in the Bentley preparing to leave, a triggerman with a shaved head shot Sealey at least three times in the face, head and chest using two firearms and relieved him of a gold chain before fleeing the scene. Brown was uninjured. When paramedics arrived, they gave Sealey emergency treatment on the sidewalk before transporting him to Boston City Hospital, where he was pronounced dead five hours later.  Firefighters at the station across the street from The Biarritz witnessed the shooting and reported that an individual, believed to be another of Brown's bodyguards, returned fire. Local police searched for the lone assailant in the Orchard Park housing development, where Brown's mother resided at the time. 

John "Black" Tibbs, 23, was convicted for Sealey's September 1995 murder. Tibbs was subsequently sentenced to 27 years in federal prison. His getaway driver, Cedric "Cookie" Phillips, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the killing. 

Sealey's shooting is believed to have been connected to a rumored drug war between the Point Dawgs, who were under investigation by the FBI, and Tibbs' rival organization from the Orchard Park housing project.

Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston