Duane “Keefe D” Davis is unfazed by the news that Suge Knight plans to name names in an upcoming memoir regarding the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur.
Knight is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for an unrelated 2015 fatal hit-and-run, but his book, “Your Pain is My Joy,” is set to hit shelves on August 4 through Gallery Books. The publication date lands just six days before Davis faces a jury for his murder trial on August 10.
Knight was behind the wheel of the BMW when Shakur was fatally shot on the Las Vegas Strip, shortly after their entourage clashed with another group inside a local casino. Knight has promised that his 352-page project will detail the exact timeline surrounding the assassination.
Michael Sanft, the defense attorney representing Davis, told the media that the book will have zero impact on their strategy or the jury selection. Sanft doubts prosecutors will even attempt to call Knight to the stand, noting that Knight’s story about that night has changed too many times over the last thirty years to hold up under cross-examination.
The defense’s confidence is striking, given that Davis has repeatedly bragged about his involvement in the killing. In various media appearances and recorded police interviews with Los Angeles and Las Vegas gang task forces dating back to the early 2000s, Davis stated he orchestrated the hit, supplied the weapon, and sat in the Cadillac where the gunfire originated.
In those recordings, Davis named his nephew, Orlando Anderson, as the trigger man. Anderson was killed in an unrelated gang shooting in 1998.
Sanft argues that these past confessions were completely fabricated by Davis in a desperate bid to cash in on the tragedy and secure fame. The attorney is confident that the state of Nevada lacks the hard evidence needed to secure a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, choosing to view his client as a storyteller rather than a killer.
