Rapper Tupac Shakur died in a drive-by shooting three decades ago. Now, the man charged in his 1996 Las Vegas killing is facing trial.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, is charged with murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in Shakur’s death. Jury selection begins Monday, with the trial scheduled to last about a month.
The trial will take place in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, with Judge Carli Kierny presiding. Jury selection is set to begin Monday.
Legal proceedings will break open one of the hip-hop industry’s longest-standing mysteries, which has gripped the public since the mid-’90s. Tupac Shakur, who also went by the stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, is generally considered one of the most influential rappers of all time.
Shakur, who was 25 when he died, was shot on Sept. 7, 1996, by assailants who pulled up next to his black BMW in a white Cadillac while he was riding with music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight to Club 662, where Shakur was scheduled to perform. Shakur, who was in the passenger seat, was shot multiple times and died in hospital six days later. Knight survived.
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The case was never solved, but in recent years, public statements and a tell-all memoir co-authored by Davis, who was one of four men inside the white Cadillac, reignited interest in it.
Davis co-wrote the memoir Compton Street Legends, which outlines the role he played in the fatal incident. The book says Davis obtained a handgun from an associate and placed it on the back seat of the Cadillac but did not reveal who fired the weapon.
Davis was a leader of the South Side Compton Crips at the time of Shakur’s death. He was arrested in 2023 and pleaded not guilty to his murder charge.
Public seats inside the courtroom will be few and far between and available by lottery. A separate room in the court building will be open to the public and show a live feed of the trial.
Lawyers will not argue that Davis is the one who pulled the trigger on Shakur, The Associated Press reported, but that he ordered and orchestrated the killing and likely provided the weapon.
Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, who was killed in a gang-related shooting in Compton, Calif., two years after Shakur’s death, has long been suspected of being the individual who pulled the trigger, but was never charged in relation to the crime.
Two other men — Deandrae “Freaky” Smith and Terry “Bubble Up” Brown — were in the car with Davis and Anderson when the shots were fired. Both have since died.
Between 35 and 45 witnesses are expected to testify during the trial, including people who had seen Shakur and Davis in the moments leading up to the shooting and others who were close to both men at the time.
The witness list includes former Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman, members of Shakur’s family, and South Side Crip affiliate Denvonta Lee, as well as former police officers, detectives and gang experts, though not everyone on the list will necessarily take the stand.
Leonard Jefferson, a California man who captured the last known photograph of Shakur minutes before he was shot, is also expected to testify.
Lee previously told a grand jury that rival gangs, the Crips and Mob Piru, were connected to feuding record labels Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records at the time of the shooting. Shakur was signed to Death Row Records but had been under several others during his career.
Though he wasn’t present when the shots were fired, Lee also testified that Anderson did not have a clear shot, so Smith took the gun and pulled the trigger. He also said Davis was in charge and gave the gun to Anderson, who gave it to Smith.
Knight is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for running over and killing a Compton businessman outside a burger stand in January 2015. He previously said he would not testify in Davis’s case but is the last living witness to the shooting.
Davis’s defence attorney Michael Sanft told The Associated Press that Knight would be a good witness for Davis’s defence if he did testify.
— with files from The Associated Press
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