Thirty years after Tupac Shakur’s killing can a murder trial offer justice?

Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis faces trial on Monday over rap star’s death that marked notorious chapter in hip-hop’s history

I n September 1996, rap star Tupac Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas strip, succumbing days later to his injuries. His killing, which remained unsolved for decades, gave rise to fervent conspiracy theories and conjecture.

Thirty years later, one man is facing trial for the ambush: Duane “Keffe D” Davis.

Authorities do not accuse Davis, a former gang leader, of firing the shots that killed Tupac. Rather, prosecutors allege he orchestrated the attack and provided the murder weapon.

Opening statements in the trial of Davis, 63, are set to begin on Monday, a long-awaited moment in the case.

The trial, expected to last four weeks, may not resolve the question of who killed Shakur, but members of his family have described it as the culmination of years of grief and trauma.

Davis has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. If convicted, he could face life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors have hinged their case on Davis’s 2019 memoir, in which he touted his status as one of the last surviving eyewitnesses to the deadly shooting.

During a trip to Las Vegas to watch a Mike Tyson boxing match, Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, got into an altercation with Shakur and his entourage, according to the memoir, titled Compton Street Legend.

Davis hatched a plan to find Shakur, his label head, Marion “Suge” Knight, and other Death Row Records affiliates, he wrote. He brought a 0.40 Glock into a car they were traveling in.

“The next few seconds all happened so quickly,” Davis wrote of the moment when his posse encountered Shakur’s crew.

“No words were exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was on! Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat. It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command to, ‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’ Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and that’s when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin’ back,” he continued.

Davis did not specify who reached for the weapon. Authorities suspect his nephew, who died in a 1998 unrelated shootout, or another passenger, Deandre “Big Dre” Smith, who died in 2004, pulled the trigger, according to court documents.

In his memoir, Davis wrote he felt “a deep sense of remorse for what happened to Tupac”, but maintained, “them jumping on my nephew gave us the green light to want to do something to their ass. Pac chose the wrong game to play …”

Davis’s defense attorneys have sought to rule the book as inadmissible, arguing that he and his co-author exaggerated and embellished details.

“Think of it this way: Shakur’s murder was essentially the entertainment world’s JFK assassination – endlessly dissected, mythologized, monetized – so it’s not hard to see why someone in Davis’s position might falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain,” his lawyers wrote in an earlier court filing.

The Nevada judge Carli Kierny denied their request, saying at a June hearing , Davis “promotes this book as his book. He encourages people to buy it to get the real truth.”

Prosecutors are expected to also present evidence from interviews Davis gave to law enforcement officials in 2008 and 2009. In the book, he characterized it as an “exceptional deal”, in which he shed light on the murder of Shakur in exchange for immunity on possible drug charges.

The state argued Davis’s previous media appearances and memoir publicizing details of the shooting opened the door for the police interviews to be considered in court.

During his life, Shakur was a polarizing figure. Fans saw him as a frank chronicler of inner-city life, while his detractors regarded his music as a glorification of drug use and gang violence. Despite his east coast roots, Shakur was an emblem of west coast hip-hop, joining Knight’s Death Row Records in their bitter and gang-intertwined rivalry with Sean “Puffy” Combs’s New York City-based Bad Boy Records.

“Tupac’s a great hero to a lot of people – part of his appeal was his sense of having a different kind of manhood,” said writer William Shaw, who interviewed Shakur in the mid-90s. The events preceding his death, though, played into the “over-macho” posturing and paranoia of the time.

That notorious chapter could be revisited during the trial.

Knight, who drove the vehicle Shakur was in and was shot, is on a list of witnesses. He is serving a 28-year sentence for a fatal hit-and-run in California. When asked by ABC News if he would testify at the trial, Knight said : “I don’t get paid to solve homicides.”

Tupac’s sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, and his stepbrother, Maurice Shakur, who recently brought a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Davis, could also potentially be called to the stand.

Jury selection wrapped last week, with fans sporting Tupac paraphernalia and some of Shakur’s relatives present at the Las Vegas courthouse.

Kendrick Lesane, Shakur’s cousin, called for justice, telling the Associated Press: “Whoever had anything to do with it, whoever set it up, whoever had any hand in it should be locked up in prison.”

Another cousin, William Lesane, espoused Tupac’s enduring legacy, saying to Fox 5 he has been surprised by the rapper’s loyal fan base over the years. “He is dead in the physical form but spiritually Tupac is still alive.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting