Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, appeared in court on Monday, August 10, in Las Vegas, where he faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors allege that the killing was also carried out with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.
Davis, who has been in custody since his arrest in late 2023, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
At the centre of the long-awaited trial is a book Davis published several years ago. In his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, Davis gave his own account of the events surrounding Shakur’s death, including details about the hours leading up to the shooting.
The book recounts the night of September 7, 1996, when Davis says he planned to confront Shakur and Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight following an earlier altercation. According to his account, Davis obtained a firearm before getting into a vehicle with three other men. The group later encountered Shakur’s vehicle.
That version of events has become a key part of the prosecution’s case. Although Davis has maintained his innocence, prosecutors are expected to use statements from the book to establish his involvement in the chain of events that led to Shakur being shot.
Prosecutors have themselves acknowledged that the memoir is "salacious, prone to hyperbole" and contains inaccuracies. However, they argue that much of the account broadly corresponds with facts they can establish about Davis and the events surrounding the killing.
Davis’s defence, meanwhile, is expected to challenge the reliability of the book. His lawyers are likely to highlight portions that can be demonstrated to be inaccurate, arguing that those inconsistencies should make the court question the credibility of Davis’s account as a whole.
Davis has previously said that he supplied the gun used in the shooting to his nephew, Orlando Anderson, who has long been identified by investigators as the suspected gunman. He has also acknowledged being inside the vehicle when the shooting took place.
Anderson, who was linked to the killing but was never charged, died before the case could be brought against him.
A Killing That Became a Hip-Hop Mystery
Shakur’s death has remained one of the most enduring mysteries in hip-hop. The rapper was shot multiple times in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas and died several days later from his injuries.
The case has remained unresolved for decades, fuelling theories and speculation about who was responsible and what ultimately led to the attack.
Grand jury transcripts reviewed by prosecutors describe the shooting as the result of a long-running conflict involving rival record labels, Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records, as well as competing gang factions, Mob Piru and the South Side Compton Crips.
The tensions between the groups had already become highly publicised within hip-hop at the time, with Shakur and Bad Boy Records artist The Notorious B.I.G. at the centre of a bitter East Coast-West Coast rivalry.
Davis’s trial is expected to last approximately a month. However, legal observers have cautioned that the proceedings may not conclusively establish who actually pulled the trigger that night.
For Shakur’s family, the trial represents a significant moment after decades of uncertainty.
His stepbrother, Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, described the past three decades as exhausting for the family and said he remains "cautiously optimistic" that the proceedings could finally help bring the truth to light.
Whatever the outcome, the trial marks a major development in one of the most closely watched murder cases in music history, bringing a case that has lingered for nearly three decades into a courtroom.