LAS VEGAS — A Nevada jury on Monday found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of first-degree murder in the 1996 drive-by shooting that killed rap legend Tupac Shakur, closing one of the most notorious unsolved cases in American music history.
Davis, 63, is the only person ever charged in the killing. Jurors deliberated for roughly two to three hours after weeks of testimony before returning the verdict. He faces life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 13. He will remain jailed without bail and has said he plans to appeal.
Prosecutors said Davis orchestrated the attack after Shakur and members of his entourage beat Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at the MGM Grand earlier that night. They argued Davis obtained a gun, rode in a white Cadillac that pulled alongside Shakur’s vehicle, and handed the weapon to a shooter in the back seat. Shakur, 25, was shot four times and died days later.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors Davis had spent years placing himself at the scene.
“For nearly 18 years, Duane Davis has told the police, television, books, YouTube interviewers, anybody that will listen, he is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur,” Palal said in closing arguments. “Tell him you hear him, find him guilty.”
The state’s case rested heavily on Davis’s own recorded interviews and his 2019 memoir, in which he described being in the Cadillac and providing the gun. Defense attorney Michael Sanft argued those statements were bravado meant to sell a story, not proof.
“Why are we here 30 years later if Duane Davis had actually confessed, truly confessed?” Sanft asked jurors. He said there was no independent evidence placing Davis in Las Vegas that night.
Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, was in the courtroom and appeared to cry quietly as the verdict was read. Relatives had sat through the trial after decades of waiting. Earlier this month she said the family had “low expectations of the criminal system” after so many years with no charges.
As he left the courtroom, Davis raised a fist toward the gallery.
The conviction ends a cold case that lingered through the East Coast–West Coast rap wars, countless documentaries, and conspiracy theories. Anderson, whom Davis previously named as the shooter, died in 1998. No one else has been charged.
Davis has maintained he only talked about the shooting to make money for his family and pleaded not guilty at trial. A judge will decide his sentence next month.
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