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A Las Vegas jury has convicted Duane 'Keffe D' Davis of a single count of murder with a deadly weapon in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, bringing a decades-old case to a close after less than three hours of deliberation.
Duane ' Keffe D' Davis has been found guilty in Las Vegas of a single count of murder with a deadly weapon in connection with the 1996 killing of legendary rapper Tupac Shakur.
The 63-year-old Davis was convicted on Monday after a jury deliberated for less than three hours following a weeks-long trial. He could be sentenced to life in prison. The verdict brings to a close one of the most famous unsolved cases in American music history, a mystery that has captivated hip-hop fans, true crime enthusiasts, and investigators for nearly three decades.
During closing arguments, chief deputy district attorney Binu Palal told jurors that Davis had acquired a gun and 'went hunting' for Shakur and Death Row Records cofounder Marion 'Suge' Knight after the two men beat up Davis's nephew earlier that night. Palal urged the panel to hold Davis accountable, telling them, 'He is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur. Tell him you hear him. Find him guilty.
' Prosecutors argued that although Davis's story had shifted over the years, he had repeatedly placed himself inside a white Cadillac from which the fatal shots were fired. While he did not pull the trigger, prosecutors said evidence showed he called for the gunfire as a powerful gang leader whose instructions the younger men in the car, including his nephew, were expected to follow.
Defence lawyer Michael Sanft challenged the prosecution's case, asking jurors whether any evidence showed that Davis had ever called the shots before or after the shooting. Sanft emphasised the absence of physical evidence linking his client to the crime, noting that investigators had not produced phone records or other documentation placing Davis in Las Vegas on the night of the attack.
He characterised the memoir Davis co-authored and his public statements as dramatised bravado intended to generate money rather than recount the truth. The panel of 16 jurors, four of whom served as alternates, heard testimony from 24 prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses over nine days of proceedings.
Shakur, widely regarded as one of the most influential rappers of all time, was in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, when he stopped at a red light and a white Cadillac pulled up beside him. Gunfire erupted, and he died six days later from his wounds. Knight was also wounded but survived.
No one had been charged in the rapper's death for years until Davis began making public statements asserting that he was in the Cadillac and handed the gun to others in the back seat, framing the shooting as retaliation for the earlier beating of his nephew. Witnesses during the trial described the hostile rivalry between Los Angeles gang sects, including the Mob Piru and Davis's Southside Compton Crips, and explained how the gangs became affiliated with Knight's Death Row Records and Sean 'Diddy' Combs's Bad Boy Records.
In a rebuttal, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo pointed to a scrapbook Davis kept containing articles about Shakur. Palal also held up Davis's 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, and played an interview in which Davis encouraged people to buy it to learn the 'real truth.
' Although the book contains a disclaimer stating that some facts were changed, prosecutors argued that the central account remained consistent. In multiple interviews, Davis said he handed the gun to the back seat, but in other accounts, including his book, he declined to identify who actually pulled the trigger.
The conviction follows years of attention from investigators, journalists, and the public, and represents a rare resolution in a case long associated with conspiracy theories and competing narratives about one of hip-hop's most enduring tragedies
Tupac Shakur Duane Davis Keffe D Las Vegas Murder Trial
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