He was an ‘expert’ on the Tupac Shakur murder mystery. Now he’s on trial for killing rapper

For nearly three decades, a onetime Compton gang leader named Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been one of the most vocal theorists about one of the most debated celebrity killings ever.

Rapper Tupac Shakur was at the height of his fame when he was fatally shot Sept. 7, 1996, while riding to a Las Vegas nightclub in a BMW driven by Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight.

The events surrounding that night have been exhaustively investigated and recounted in numerous stories, documentaries and police investigations.

But the mystery about exactly what happened has endured.

This week, Davis is on trial in Las Vegas, accused of orchestrating the murder.

And prosecutors believe Davis himself will be the star witness who proves their case.

That’s because Davis has spoken extensively about his role in the case, including in interviews with Los Angeles police and the media, in a 2019 tell-all book and during several bragging interviews done to promote the publication.

Prosecutors aren’t accusing him of pulling the trigger. Rather, they say Davis masterminded the killing and provided the gun as an act of revenge over an escalating gang feud.

Davis has since disavowed some of his comments, but a judge ruled them admissible in court.

In his memoir “Compton Street Legend,” Davis said he and his crew were in Vegas with plans to watch Mike Tyson fight Bruce Seldon. They learned that Davis’ cousin Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson had been jumped by members of Knight’s Death Row Records camp while walking in the lobby of the MGM Grand.

Davis said he and his crew set out in search of Knight and Shakur. Davis wrote in the book that he tossed the gun he’d been given into the back seat of the white Cadillac in which Anderson and Deandrae Smith sat. They spotted the Death Row caravan stopped at a red light, with Shakur waving to fans while hanging out of the BMW window.

“Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath the seat … and that’s when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin’ back,” Davis wrote.

Legal experts said prosecutors will need more than Davis’ words.

“The D.A. is going to have to corroborate his admissions with independent evidence. Forensic and other scientific evidence may be tough to come by because the case is 30 years old, so the prosecution may have to rely on cooperator testimony, which is never easy if they’re former gang members,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said.

Shakur’s killing capped a series of escalating threats involving a group of people tied to Compton gangs, including Davis.

Rapper Tupac Shakur poses for a portrait at Club Amazon on July 23, 1993 in New York, New York.

(Al Pereira / Getty Images)

In 2008, Davis talked to authorities with the protection of a proffer from the Los Angeles Police Department, meaning his statements could not be used against him.

In that interview, then-LAPD Det. Greg Kading asked whether Anderson shot Shakur as revenge for the beating.

“He leaned over, and Orlando rolled down the window and popped him,” Davis replied. “If they would have drove on my side, I would have popped them. But they was on the other side.”

Davis would go on to repeat that story in a series of internet and blog interviews.

But in “Compton Street Legend,” Davis changed the story.

Kading, who wrote his own book on the case, has said for some time that Davis incriminated himself.

“He was the best witness against himself,” Kading told The Times in 2023 after Davis’ arrest. “Ego and greed caught up with him.”

Davis, now 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. In recent weeks, he’s denied being in the Cadillac or Las Vegas that night and, in interviews with Las Vegas TV stations, blamed a former head of Death Row Records security.

“I had nothing to do with nobody’s murder,” he told interviewers.

Prosecutors are expected to call witnesses to back up what Davis has said over the years. Davis’ lawyers will seek to show he is a fabricator — his bragging is all fiction. Davis has done the same with Las Vegas reporters.

“I did not write the book; a ghostwriter wrote that book,” Davis said in a recent jailhouse interview. “I was trying to make my family some money.”

His lawyer said that there is no gun and no forensics and that Knight is the sole living witness and has never identified Davis.

Prosecutors expect to call Denvonta Lee, a South Side Crips associate. In testimony to a Clark County grand jury, Lee said that the Crips and Mob Piru Bloods were tied to rival record labels Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records.

Although Lee wasn’t in the car, he testified that Anderson didn’t have a clear shot, so Smith took the gun and did the shooting. He also testified Davis gave the gun to Anderson, who then gave it to Smith, who has since died.

Rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight appears in court in 2018 for an unrelated case.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Prosecutors allege the shooting is rooted in the rivalry between the South Side Compton Crips and Mob Piru Bloods, which was deeply tied to Death Row Records, Knight’s record label.

Compton police detectives quickly tied the South Side Crips to the killing. An informant would tell them the attack was rooted in a chain-snatching at the Lakewood Mall two months earlier. Mob Piru Blood Travon Lane was at Foot Locker when a South Side Crip confronted him and took his Death Row Records necklace. Lane would spot his attacker in Las Vegas, and it turned out to be Davis’ cousin Anderson, the informant told police.

Knight was sentenced to prison in 1997 for a probation violation stemming from the beat-down of Anderson.

Knight is serving 28 years in a California prison after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in connection with the 2015 hit-and-run death of a man outside a Compton restaurant after a dispute related to the film “Straight Outta Compton.”

He said he is not involved in the Shakur trial.

“This trial has nothing to do with me and if somebody brings me there, it’s gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that,” Knight said last week in an interview with ABC News.