A Las Vegas jury on Monday found a one-time Compton gang leader guilty in the slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur, marking a turning point in a murder mystery that captivated the public’s attention for decades.
Jurors deliberated for just a few hours in the murder trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who was accused of orchestrating the fatal 1996 shooting of Shakur as the rapper sat in a BMW next to Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight. The 63-year-old Davis faces a life sentence.
After the verdict, members of Shakur’s family hugged the two prosecutors. Davis said he would appeal his conviction.
During the two-week trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Davis, as his gang’s shot caller, “went hunting” — arranging the rapper’s killing by getting a .40-caliber handgun and passing it to fellow members of the Southside Crips-Burris Street gang as they rode in a Cadillac near the Las Vegas Strip on Sept. 7, 1996.
The motive, prosecutors told jurors, was revenge. Hours earlier, after a Mike Tyson fight, Shakur, Knight and members of the Mob Piru gang associated with Death Row had beaten Orlando Anderson, a nephew of Davis, at the MGM Grand.
The Pirus, a Blood gang, had a longtime rivalry with the Southside Crips on the streets of Compton. That feud escalated as the Crips became the protection for East Coast rap and Sean Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment against Death Row’s Mob Pirus.
“Duane Davis, in the culture of gangs,” could not let the beating of his nephew stand, Clark County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Binu Palal told jurors. “He acquired a firearm, got his group together, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur or Mr. Knight.”
In closing their case, prosecutors told jurors they had not only heard Davis’ own incriminating words in two police interviews and a documentary, but also had been presented with a deluge of circumstantial evidence linking him to one of the most famous murders in modern history.
But Michael Sanft, Davis’ defense lawyer, argued that the prosecution had no forensics, no eyewitness and not a single shred of physical evidence placing Davis in the Cadillac with the shooter.
“The state wants you to believe this was a confession, that he was somehow there in person at the time of the shooting,” Sanft told jurors. “We can’t even put Davis in Las Vegas.”
Sanft claimed his client fabricated his story in a 2008 interview with Los Angeles police and federal authorities as part of their investigation into the 1997 slaying of rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, to avoid a life sentence for drug dealing. He later repeated parts of the fabricated stories to help sell his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” Sanft argued.
“You’re reading a book that is fiction and not fact,” Sanft told jurors.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said the speed with which the verdict was reached was “surprising” given the prosecution based much of its case on words spoken by Davis over the years.
“I give credit to the Clark County D.A. for bringing a very difficult cold case and getting across the finish line when every other prosecutor who considered it passed on it,” Rahmani said.
In landing the verdict, prosecutors showed Davis had to retaliate for his nephew’s beating. Davis and his gang had gone to Knight’s nightclub and stopped at a liquor store when they came upon Knight and Shakur’s procession of cars.
“They happen to run into Tupac Shakur and ‘Suge’ Knight going the opposite way … and in that moment, a decision is made not to keep going, but to make a U-turn around, pass a gun and shoot into Tupac and ‘Suge’ Knight’s car,” Palal said.
Shakur and Knight were both struck in the shooting. Knight survived, but Shakur died from his wounds in a Las Vegas hospital days later.
Palal told jurors that, in Nevada, being part of a conspiracy makes someone guilty of murder; “you don’t have to pull the trigger.” Making a U-turn, he added, was evidence of premeditation.
It was the investigation into the 1997 murder of Wallace in Los Angeles that ultimately led to the break in Shakur’s killing. Former LAPD Homicide Det. Daryn Dupree testified that Davis said during the 2008 federal task force investigation into Wallace’s killing that he knew about that shooting and then indicated: “We did the other one.” That statement shifted investigators’ focus to the Shakur killing.
In closing arguments, the prosecution played a recording of the federal task force interview in which Davis said Terrence Brown was the driver of the Cadillac that night, with Anderson and Deandrae “Big Dre” Smith in the back and himself in the passenger seat. Davis was given a proffer agreement for talking with the task force, meaning he agreed to provide information in exchange for possible benefit.
He told the task force that they only noticed their targets in the BMW because some women in a Chrysler Sebring were yelling at the rapper.
“Tupac gave himself away; otherwise, they would have got away,” Davis could be heard saying.
“If it had been on my side, I was going to blast,” Davis says on the recording. He says he then handed the gun to Smith, who didn’t want to shoot, so Anderson took the gun and fired.
“I saw a bullet go into Suge’s head. I thought he was dead,” Davis says on the recording. He goes on to describe Shakur diving toward the BMW’s back seat. Jurors also heard a 2009 Las Vegas Metro police interview and portions of a documentary on the killing.
Clark County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Marc DiGiacomo, the co-prosecutor, told jurors that with the publication of Davis’ memoir he had waived his rights under the 2008 proffer deal. Prosecutors could then use his interviews with the LAPD and Las Vegas police as evidence.
Palal also pointed to testimony from retired Compton Police Det. Robert Ladd as to the gang ties of Davis and his compatriots. Ladd testified that Davis was the shot caller of the Compton Southside Crips.
Ladd and an FBI agent both confirmed that Davis knew the Harlem drug dealer who allegedly provided the gun used in the shooting.
Palal said a wounded Shakur, while in an ambulance, told a police officer, “We’ll take care of it.” He reminded jurors that Ladd had testified the Mob Pirus targeted only the Southside Crips in the wake of Shakur’s shooting — out of the 50-plus gangs in Compton at the time.
Sanft, however, said there was no proof of a supposed instigating incident for the gang feud: Anderson allegedly snatching a Death Row chain from a Mob Piru at the Lakewood Mall. Prosecutors also could not show who was in the Cadillac, he said, and a female witness who saw the incident testified that she never heard anyone yelling Tupac’s name as Davis described to police and in his book.
Sanft cast Compton and Los Angeles police as dirty, specifically former LAPD Det. Greg Kading, who conducted the 2008 interview with Davis and later wrote a book on the killings of Shakur and Wallace.
Sanft questioned why jurors never heard from Kading or Knight, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in 2018.
He also noted that investigators never checked out a white Cadillac that witnesses described as being in the Death Row entourage vehicle procession that night.
He questioned why former Compton cop Reggie Wright Jr., the record label’s security head, left Shakur — who’d been repeatedly shot at — largely unguarded that night.
“Only one unarmed bodyguard for the most popular rap artist in the world,” Sanft said.
Prosecutors opted not to pursue a gang enhancement. Davis is set to be sentenced Oct. 13.