A jury in Las Vegas has found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of orchestrating the 1996 murder of American rapper Tupac Shakur.
The 63-year-old Davis was convicted on Monday of one count of murder with a deadly weapon and faces a possible life sentence.
The jury, which deliberated for less than three hours after a weekslong trial, found Davis responsible for the shooting that claimed the life of Shakur, one of hip-hop’s most influential figures.
Following the verdict, Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, cried and embraced prosecutors, while Davis’ son covered his face with his hand.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal, in his closing argument, told the jury that Davis obtained a gun and “went hunting” for Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight.
Palal said the action followed an earlier confrontation in which Shakur and Knight had beaten Davis’ nephew.
“He is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur,” Palal told the jurors, urging them to return a guilty verdict.
Prosecutors argued that although Davis did not fire the shots himself, he was responsible for orchestrating the attack.
They said Davis had repeatedly placed himself inside a white Cadillac from which the gunfire came and had obtained the weapon used in the shooting.
According to prosecutors, the younger men inside the vehicle, including Davis’ nephew, regarded Davis as a powerful gang leader and would have followed his instructions.
Davis’ lawyer, Michael Sanft, however, challenged the prosecution’s case, asking jurors whether there was evidence that his client had ever ordered a shooting before or after Shakur was killed.
The jury consisted of 16 members, including four alternates. It heard testimony from 24 prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses over nine days.
Prosecutors said a gang enhancement charge would be dismissed due to difficulties involving witnesses.
The prosecution and members of Shakur’s family declined to make detailed comments immediately after the verdict, saying they would wait until Davis’ sentencing, scheduled for October.
Shooting remained unsolved for decades
Shakur was shot on Sept. 7, 1996, in Las Vegas after a white Cadillac pulled alongside the vehicle in which he was travelling with Knight.
The rapper sustained multiple gunshot wounds and died six days later. Knight was also wounded but survived.
No one was charged in the case for decades until Davis began making public statements about his involvement.
Davis said he was inside the Cadillac during the shooting and had handed a gun to people in the back seat. He described the attack as retaliation for the earlier beating of his nephew.
He is the only surviving member of the four men prosecutors said were inside the Cadillac.
The trial examined the longstanding rivalry between the Mob Piru and South Side Compton Crips gang factions in Los Angeles and their associations with rival record labels.
Mob Piru was linked to Knight’s Death Row Records, while the South Side Compton Crips had ties to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records.
The murder of The Notorious B.I.G., another prominent rapper who was killed six months after Shakur, was also raised during the trial. His death remains unsolved.
Defence challenges Davis’ statements
Sanft argued that there was no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder.
He told jurors that Davis’ public statements and the book he co-authored were exaggerated accounts designed to generate money and publicity rather than provide an accurate account of the shooting.
The defence also questioned the absence of evidence such as phone records showing that Davis had ordered the attack.
“They have nothing in this case that says that man was here in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996,” Sanft said during his closing argument.
Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo, in his rebuttal, pointed to a scrapbook Davis kept containing newspaper articles about Shakur.
“This guy’s scrapbooking his murder, for God’s sake,” DiGiacomo told the jury.
Prosecutors also relied heavily on Davis’ own words.
Palal presented Davis’ 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, and played an interview in which Davis encouraged people to buy the book to learn what he described as the “real truth”.
Although the book contains a disclaimer stating that some facts were changed, prosecutors argued that its central account of the shooting remained credible.
Davis had said in several interviews that he handed the gun to people in the back seat but declined to identify the person who pulled the trigger.
The conviction brings a major development in one of hip-hop’s most enduring murder cases, nearly three decades after Shakur was killed at the age of 25.
