Tupac Shakur murder trial begins 30 years after the rapper’s death
Thirty years after Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas, a murder trial is finally here. It is expected to be a monthlong trial.
Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis’ trial over the fatal shooting of Tupac Shakur has begun its weekslong proceedings.
Jury selection took place the week of Aug. 10, and opening statements officially began Monday, Aug. 17, as prosecutors fight to prove Davis provided the gun and instructed members of the South Side Compton Crips street gang to shoot the legendary rapper on Sept. 7, 1996.
Davis was indicted in September 2023 and is facing one count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He is the only person who has ever been charged in connection with the murder and has pleaded not guilty.
Here’s how to watch the historic trial.
How to watch Tupac Shakur murder trial: Live stream
Throughout the next month, several experts and high-profile witnesses with knowledge of the shooting will take the stand, and USA TODAY is livestreaming the proceedings daily on YouTube.
Among the more than 200 names on the prosecution’s witness list are Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records cofounder Kirk Burrowes, Combs’ former bodyguard Eugene Deal, the co-author of Davis’ memoir Yusuf Jah and Shakur’s bodyguard at the time of his death, Frank Alexander. Many members of Shakur’s family are also expected to testify.
Marion “Suge” Knight, the cofounder of Death Row Records who was driving the car with Shakur and was also shot that night, is on the witness list as well. However, he has previously said he will refuse to testify.
What led to Tupac Shakur’s death?
Shakur died at the age of 25 while at the height of his career, which he built on his uniquely honest music about the Black male experience and the struggles that came with it. At the time, he was signed to Death Row Records, an alleged affiliate of the Bloods street gang, a rival of the Crips.
The 1996 fatal drive-by shooting came hours after Shakur and Knight beat up a Crips member, who was also Davis’ nephew, in a Las Vegas casino. Shakur died six days later, and Knight, who is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for a fatal hit-and-run in 2015, survived.
Many believe this was an act of retaliation by the Crips against the Bloods, but no one was arrested until Davis’ 2023 grand jury indictment.
What is Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis accused of doing?
In 2019, Davis co-wrote a memoir titled “Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops,” in which he admitted to being in the car and providing the weapon used to shoot Shakur.
Prosecutors later said during a trial readiness hearing in June, “Had Mr. Davis never opened his mouth, never written the book, he would probably not have been prosecuted for the crime.”
Davis’ lawyers previously petitioned to exclude his recount of the incident in the book from trial, arguing it could have been misrepresented because he had a co-author. They further moved to exclude “involuntary confession” Davis allegedly made in 2008 and 2009 police interviews, arguing he was “in a position that he was afraid for himself and his family.”
Prosecutors reportedly pushed back, saying “everything” in the book should be admissible because Davis “chose to release it to the public and profit off it” after having the opportunity to review and approve the manuscript before publication. The judge ultimately ruled in the prosecution’s favor.
How did a hip hop rivalry play a role in 2Pac’s killing?
Death Row and Bad Boy, along with their alleged affiliate gangs, had a long-standing rivalry throughout the ’90s. Two years before his killing, Shakur was shot five times at Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan while Combs and Bad Boy rapper Biggie Smalls, also known as The Notorious B.I.G., were upstairs.
Former Death Row security chief Reggie Wright Jr. also said during his 2023 grand jury testimony that he witnessed a heated exchange between Combs and Knight at the 1995 Source Awards after Knight publicly touted his label’s superiority over Bad Boy.
One month later, Knight’s close friend Jai Hassan-Jamal “Big Jake” Robles was shot and killed outside a party in Atlanta where members of Knight’s and Combs’ crews were in attendance. The same year, Shakur was signed to Death Row Records.
Shakur was then killed in 1996, and months later, Smalls died in a drive-by shooting many speculate was in retaliation by the Bloods and Death Row Records. Smalls was 24 at the time and, like Shakur, was at a massively successful point in his career. His death has never been solved.
Davis has since alleged Combs offered $1 million to kill Shakur and Knight. Burrowes made similar allegations, accusing Combs of orchestrating Shakur’s shooting in a 2003 lawsuit.
In a separate civil suit filed in 2025, Burrowes said he “witnessed instances in which Combs expressed paranoia and frustration over Shakur’s success, indicating a deep-seated need to diminish his rival’s influence.”
Combs, who is serving a 50-month prison sentence for his July 2025 conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, has denied he was involved in Shakur’s death. A spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has also told USA TODAY that Combs was never a suspect.
What did the prosecution and defense say in opening statements?
The prosecution gave their opening statement first, with Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal telling jurors: “Duane Davis made sure that the shooter was armed and ready to execute their revenge.”
Palal alleged that Knight employed members of the Bloods gang, also known as Mob Piru, as security for Death Row Records. Davis was allegedly “unofficial security” for Combs and his Bad Boy artists when they were on the West Coast to protect them from the gang rivalry.
While Tupac wasn’t a member of a gang, Palal alleged he was associated with the Bloods. Palal then recalled the series of events the night of the shooting, including Shakur and Knight’s fight with Davis’ nephew, and spoke about Davis’ alleged previous confessions.
In a secretly-recorded 2008 interview with detectives in Los Angeles about Smalls’ death, Davis – who Palal called a “large-scale drug trafficker” and was allegedly under investigation for a separate drug trafficking case – allegedly said he didn’t have information about Smalls, but he could tell them about Shakur’s murder.
In another interview in 2009 with Las Vegas detectives, Davis allegedly confessed to his involvement in the shooting again.
The defense’s opening statement came next and focused on the amount of time that passed between the murder and Davis’ arrest. “What they are telling you, they’re representing to be a fact when it really is fiction,” attorney Michael Sanft said of the prosecution.
Referring to the alleged 2008 and 2009 confessions, Sanft added: “Keffe was never charged for any of what he said during that time period, and it’s because they knew he was full of crap. Otherwise they would have.”
Sanft also criticized the process of the investigation, saying at one point that the since-retired Las Vegas detective Clifford Mogg, who took over the case in 2018, never attempted to verify if the claims made in Davis’ 2019 memoir were factual. Sanft called Mogg’s work “biased, sloppy and incomplete.”