LAS VEGAS (Court TV) — Thirty years after rapper Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas, Duane “Keffe D” Davis is standing trial for his death.
Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis appears in court. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/POOL)
Davis, 63, was indicted in 2023 on one count of murder with a deadly weapon and has pleaded not guilty. Davis was well-known as one of the last living witnesses to the shooting that killed Shakur. On Feb. 7, 1996, Shakur was in a BMW with Marion “Suge” Knight in a convoy of cars when a white Cadillac pulled up next to his car and began shooting. The rapper died one week later in the hospital.
Investigators knew about Davis for years before his indictment; the defendant even admitted to being in the Cadillac in interviews and a 2019 tell-all book, “Compton Street Legend.” In that memoir, Davis said that he was in the front of the vehicle and that one of two people in the back seat of the car had fired the shots. The book also claims that Davis talked to investigators about his presence at the scene in 2010 when he was facing life in prison on unrelated drug charges. “They offered to let me go for running a ‘criminal enterprise’ and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders,” he wrote, alluding to the murder of Christopher Wallace, known as “Biggie Smalls” or “The Notorious B.I.G.,” who was shot and killed six months after Shakur. “They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out.” Davis is the only surviving person who was inside the Cadillac.
In pretrial filings, Davis’s defense has argued his statements should not be used against him, contending that his descriptions of the shooting were “done for entertainment purposes and to make money.” His defense has also cited an immunity agreement, signed years earlier, with federal and local prosecutors. Prosecutors have countered that the immunity was limited and that they had strong evidence against the defendant.
Months before Davis’s arrest, police raided his home in Nevada, seizing multiple computers, a cellphone, a hard drive and bullets. A detective involved in the search reported finding two bins of photographs that included magazines and numerous clippings related to Shakur’s 1996 death.
At the time of his death, 25-year-old Shakur had released four studio albums. He was nominated for six Grammy Awards; his song “How Do U Want It/California Love,” which debuted after his death, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
