Jurors at the Keffe D trial have now heard the defendant tell investigators in 2008 that he handed over the gun used to kill Tupac Shakur. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, is the first and only person ever charged in connection with the September 7, 1996 drive-by shooting that killed Shakur on the Las Vegas Strip. He faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon carrying a gang enhancement, which means prosecutors say the killing was done to benefit a street gang, and it raises the potential penalty. He has pleaded not guilty and faces life without the possibility of parole if convicted.
The centerpiece of the state’s case is a recorded interview Davis gave to a federal task force nearly two decades ago. Prosecutors played portions of it for the jury during opening statements, and retired LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective Daryn Dupree walked jurors through the rest of it from the witness stand this week.
Understanding why that recording exists takes a minute. In 2008, Davis was not being investigated for Tupac’s death. He was being looked at in connection with the 1997 killing of Christopher Wallace, the Notorious B.I.G., partly because he drove a Chevy Impala, the same kind of car the shooter in that case had been riding in. Investigators brought him in for what lawyers call a proffer session. That is an off-the-record conversation where a suspect tells authorities what he knows, usually while negotiating for a lighter charge, with the understanding that what he says will not be used to prosecute him. Davis had already been a federal informant for roughly a decade at that point.
Dupree testified that the task force never asked Davis a single question about Tupac. Davis denied any role in Wallace’s death, then volunteered that the crew had done the other one. Dupree told jurors the disclosure caught them off guard.
From there, Davis laid out the night. Hours before the shooting, his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson was beaten in a brawl at the MGM Grand by Suge Knight and people connected to Death Row Records. Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis and three others pulled alongside the BMW that Knight was driving with Shakur in the passenger seat. Davis said he passed a gun to the back seat, to Deandrae “Dre” Smith, and that Smith was too afraid to use it, so Anderson fired instead. Shakur was hit four times and died six days later at 25. Knight survived.
Dupree told the jury he found the account credible for a specific reason, testifying that he did not believe Davis would place the gun in his own nephew’s hands and put that on him unless it had actually happened. Anderson denied any involvement while he was alive and was never charged. He was killed in an unrelated Compton shooting in 1998 at 23. Smith died in 2004. That leaves Davis as the only living person the state says was inside that Cadillac, which is precisely why his own words carry so much weight and why prosecutors fought so hard to get this recording in front of a jury.
The defense has an obvious counter, and the trial testimony handed it to them. Retired FBI agent Wade Lee testified that he interviewed Davis off the record twice before that, including a 1998 proffer session, and that Davis denied involvement in both killings and said he did not know who was responsible for Shakur’s death. In that earlier version, Davis said that after the beating, he, Anderson and their girlfriends went back to their room at the Excalibur and stayed there the rest of the night. Ten years apart, the same man gave investigators two completely different accounts.
Davis has also said the 2008 interview was supposed to stay confidential. His attorney, Michael Sanft, argued Davis spoke under a promise it would never be used against him, and told jurors in his opening that the state is presenting fiction as fact. Davis maintains he was in Los Angeles that night and has alibi witnesses prepared to testify. Judge Carli Kierny let the recording in anyway. Her reasoning was that Davis gave up any expectation of confidentiality when he told the same story publicly, first in a documentary and then in detail in his 2019 memoir “Compton Street Legend.” His attorneys argued the book was fictionalized and written with a co-author, making it impossible to know which parts were his. An appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court on the confidentiality question failed, clearing both the memoir and the recording for trial.
There is one more thread from the 2008 session that the jury has heard. Davis told investigators that Sean Combs offered $1 million to have Shakur and Knight killed, and that he never received his half. In the recording, Davis attributed a line to Combs about wanting to get rid of them, saying “I want to get rid of those dudes.” Dupree testified that chasing that money and determining whether Combs was involved was a central part of the task force’s work. Combs has denied any role in Tupac’s death, has called the allegation fiction, and has never been charged in connection with the shooting. Davis himself has since backed away from it, telling a Las Vegas news station this month that he does not believe Combs had anything to do with the murder.
The trial began with jury selection on August 10 and is expected to run about four weeks. Shakur’s relatives have been in the courtroom throughout. Even if Davis is convicted, the case is not likely to definitively establish who pulled the trigger.
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