Eddie James "Stretch" Pugh IV and Barron Lecour "Bam" Borden had a reputation as gangsters long before they were charged in last week's double kidnap

Eddie James "Stretch" Pugh IV and Barron Lecour "Bam" Borden had a reputation as gangsters long before they were charged in last week's double kidnapping and slaying.
Jerome Lorrain, special agent in charge of the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, said Thursday in U.S. District Court in Gulfport that Pugh bears tattoos showing his allegiance to the Los Angeles-based Inglewood Bloods, a violent street gang experts say has for years claimed to control the suburb of Inglewood.He also has tattoos on his chest claiming affiliation with the 9th Ward Soldiers, a New Orleans-based neighborhood group that is not considered a formal organized street gang, according to the New Orleans Police Department, though a federal agent said such groups are usually affiliated with drug activity. Borden, 33, has a rap sheet dating back at least to the early 1990s, and has a long-standing reputation as a gangster, according to the lone survivor in the Oct. 8 double kidnapping and murder that originated in New Orleans and ended in Jackson County's Latimer community.
Pugh, Borden, and Pugh's girlfriend, Torenda A. "Tory" (Brooks) Whitmore, 39, are charged with capital murder in Jackson County in the death of South Carolina native Byron Kelsey McCoy, 29, who was visiting the survivor, Rahman MoGilles, in New Orleans at the time.The three face federal charges in the kidnapping of MoGilles, one of Pugh's childhood friends, and McCoy, a friend of MoGilles who'd come to New Orleans to see about getting into a family business there. MoGilles and McCoy met in college in Atlanta.After a preliminary hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert H. Walker ordered the men held without bond, though the three are already ineligible for bond because of the state capital murder charge.At Thursday's hearing several people showed up in support of the suspects, though none wished to comment.During the hearing the FBI's Lorrain said Pugh had been driving from New Orleans to California to report to a probation officer there over the last four months, and he and Whitmore had recently moved in with Pugh's mother in New Orleans, where the alleged kidnapping originated.The federal agent noted the suspects all gave different stories immediately after their arrest, but all three eventually said the reason for the kidnapping was because Pugh thought MoGilles and McCoy were either working with police or trying to rob them of drugs and money.MoGilles told authorities he went to Pugh's home to smoke some marijuana, though Pugh and Borden said MoGilles was there to try to sell them four or five pounds of high-grade marijuana for about $15,000.