Duane 'Keffe D' Davis found guilty of murder in Tupac Shakur case

Duane 'Keffe D' Davis has been found guilty of Tupac Shakur’s murder, which remained unsolved for nearly three decades.

The ex-gang leader and musician is accused of plotting the 1996 drive-by shooting death in Las Vegas. He is the only person ever charged in the murder of the hip-hop star.

A jury in Clark County, Nevada, deliberated for nearly three hours before finding Keffe D guilty of a single count of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, ending an 11-day trial.

He will face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing on October 13. He told the judge he “plans to appeal this matter.”

The prosecution said Keffe D was a “shot caller” in the South Side Compton Crips, alleging he “went hunting” for Tupac due to the fact that he was signed to Death Row Records. The label was run by Marion 'Suge' Knight, who was largely affiliated with Mob Piru, a Los Angeles gang with Blood alliances.

On the night of the murder, Suge and Tupac beat up Keffe D’s nephew, Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson, in retaliation for an alleged assault on another Death Row Records member. Later, a white Cadillac containing Keffe D, Baby Lane and others, pulled up beside Tupac and opened fire.

During the trial, Binu Palal of the Clark Country District Attorney’s Office told jurors that under the code of respect in street gangs, Keffe D could not allow the beating of his nephew to go without retaliation.

In 2019, Keffe D released his auto-biography, Compton Street Legend, which recounted the night of Tupac’s murder. In the book, he explains that he was in the front seat of the car and passed the pistol back, not naming who pulled the trigger.

The defence said his recounting of the shooting was “fiction” and not written by Keffe D himself due to the book listing a co-writer. Days later, on a phone call from prison, he admitted that he did write his own memoir.

Police say they long suspected Keffe D but did not have enough evidence to charge him until he went public with his story in media appearances and his book, which, along with tapes of his secret meetings with investigators, made up most of the prosecution’s case.

Prosecutors have not named the shooter, and the three other men in the car have since died. Under Nevada law, Keffe D can be charged with murder even if he did not pull the trigger.