A Las Vegas jury found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of murder for orchestrating the killing of rap legend Tupac Shakur, ending one of the country’s most notorious cold cases nearly 30 years later.
After just three hours of deliberation, jurors convicted Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader, of facilitating the 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas that left the iconic rapper dead at the age of 25.
The verdict came after a two-week trial in which prosecutors argued that Davis had ordered the killing in revenge for Tupac beating up his nephew – a case they made by citing the man’s own repeated public statements tying himself to the famous crime.
Davis’ defense attorneys argued that those statements were essentially fictional, aimed at helping to boost his notoriety and sell books. But prosecutors told the jury Davis had told the truth in an effort to profit from his crime: “Tell him you hear him. Find him guilty.”
Shakur, then a rising superstar in the rap world, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996. The shooting took place on Sept. 7, 1996; he died six days later. His death, which came amid the infamous East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud, was followed months later by the shooting of rival The Notorious B.I.G. No one was charged with either killing, and the pair of cold cases became a fixture in American cultural history.
But in September 2023, prosecutors unveiled a murder indictment against Davis, a former Crips gang leader in 1990s Los Angeles, claiming he’d orchestrated the killing as revenge after Shakur’s entourage beat up his nephew earlier that night. They cited his own words as evidence, including a 2019 tell-all memoir and podcast interviews in which he candidly described his role in the crime.
Across two weeks of trial, prosecutors called 24 witnesses and played more than eight hours of recordings, mostly of Davis himself discussing his role in the killing. Defense attorney Michael Sanft presented only a brief defense, calling just three police investigators to testify about the killing and its aftermath.
Following the conviction, Davis, 63, could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The judge will weigh the potential sentence and hand down his decision at a later date.
