Who killed Tupac? What to know about the trial of Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis

What the report says

Three decades after the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, Nevada, the first criminal trial connected to the case is set to begin, with Duane “Keffe D” Davis as the defendant. Al Jazeera reports that the 63-year-old former California gang leader is charged with murder with a deadly weapon tied to alleged gang activity. Prosecutors say Davis organized the killing by supplying the gun, though they are not alleging he fired it.

The case centers on Davis’s own public statements. According to the article, his 2019 memoir and later interviews described events on the night Shakur was shot after a confrontation at the MGM Grand following a Mike Tyson boxing match. Prosecutors are expected to argue that those admissions support their case, while the defense has tried to keep the memoir out of evidence and is expected to challenge whether Davis’s accounts were truthful.

Shakur, widely known as Tupac or 2Pac, was one of the most influential rappers of the 1990s and had deep ties to the violence and rivalries that shaped West Coast hip-hop. He was shot in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996, and died six days later at age 25. The article says the trial, expected to last four to six weeks, could finally clarify one of music’s most enduring mysteries, although the outcome will depend on whether jurors accept the prosecution’s interpretation of Davis’s statements and the surrounding evidence.