Tupac Shakur Murder Trial: Duane “Keffe D” Davis Convicted in 1996 Killing of Rapper

Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been convicted in the murder trial of Tupac Shakur, a Las Vegas jury ruled on Monday, marking the first conviction since the rapper’s infamous death 30 years ago.

The trial, which began 30 years after Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996, was originally expected to last a month, though jurors heard closing arguments after two weeks of testimonies. The prosecution had called over two dozen witnesses, including police officers and investigators.

Davis, who was previously a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, was first arrested in 2023 on a murder charge, and while he wasn’t accused of pulling the trigger himself, he stood accused of operating as the “shot caller” and orchestrating the murder after his nephew, Orlando Anderson, got into an altercation with Shakur in Las Vegas.

Shakur’s murder had long been one of the most infamous unsolved cases in pop culture, and Davis had long been associated with the case. He’d previously said in interviews that he provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting, and he released a memoir in 2019 that detailed similar claims. Those admissions served as key pieces of evidence in the prosecution’s case, though Davis’ defense team sought to distance him from the claims, arguing they were lies meant to help him sell more books.

During opening statements, his defense team called Davis’ claims “bullshit,” further saying Davis “was never charged for any of what he said during that time period, and it’s because they knew he was full of crap.”

Shakur’s death has long been entangled both with gang violence, and the intense East Coast/West Coast hip-hop rival of the ’90s. Shakur’s record label Death Row, led by Suge Knight, who was driving the car the night Shakur was shot, had been affiliated with the bloods. Rival Bad Boy Records, founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs, had alleged ties to the crips. Davis had previously said combs offered $1 million for Shakur’s death, though Combs, who’s currently in prison on prostitution charges, has long denied the claims.