LAS VEGAS – In explosive courtroom testimony that has reignited one of hip-hop’s most notorious murder mysteries, a retired Los Angeles police detective told a Las Vegas jury that Duane “Keefe D” Davis claimed Sean “Diddy” Combs offered to pay him for the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur.
Former LAPD detective Daryn Dupree took the stand Wednesday in the high-profile murder trial of Davis, the self-described South Side Compton Crips shot-caller accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting that left the legendary rapper dead at age 25.
Dupree testified that during a 2008 interview, while investigators were probing the murder of The Notorious B.I.G., Davis volunteered shocking details about Tupac’s death. According to the detective, Davis alleged that Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, had offered money to have both Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight killed.
The alleged conversation took place at the now-shuttered Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, Dupree said. Davis claimed the promised payment was supposed to be funneled through Eric “Zip” Martin, a longtime Combs associate, but that the money never actually reached him.“
Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs was supposed to have given money to Zip Martin to give to Mr. Davis for payment of the Tupac murder,” Dupree told the court, recounting Davis’s statements.
The retired detective said investigators were stunned when Davis brought up the Tupac killing unprompted. “We didn’t ask him any questions about Tupac,” Dupree testified. “He talked about that on his own.”
Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder with a deadly weapon in connection with the September 7, 1996, shooting near the Las Vegas Strip. Prosecutors allege he supplied the gun and directed the attack after Tupac and his entourage assaulted Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, earlier that night at the MGM Grand following a Mike Tyson fight.
The claims linking Combs to a possible murder-for-hire plot are not entirely new. Davis has repeated variations of the story for years in interviews, his memoir, and previous statements to law enforcement. However, hearing them under oath in open court during the long-awaited trial has sent shockwaves through the music world and beyond.
Dupree noted that authorities later tried to verify the payment story by sending Davis undercover to New York to reconnect with Martin, but the effort failed when Martin was reportedly ill and no longer involved in the street-level dealings.
Importantly, the testimony does not establish that Combs ordered or paid for the hit. No charges have ever been filed against the embattled music mogul in connection with Tupac’s death, and previous investigations into the allegations did not result in evidence sufficient for prosecution.
Still, the dramatic courtroom revelation comes at a time when Combs faces his own mountain of legal troubles, keeping the decades-old East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry firmly back in the national spotlight.
The trial continues in Clark County District Court as prosecutors work to prove Davis’s role in one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in American music history.
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