Tupac Shakur murder: Trial of former gang leader Duane Davis opens after 30 years
A long-delayed trial over the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur is set to open on Monday, August 10, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, faces charges of first-degree murder in connection with the drive-by shooting that killed the hip-hop icon. The 63-year-old defendant has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege that Davis ordered the attack on Shakur and supplied the firearm used in the shooting. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The trial is expected to last about a month, beginning with jury selection that may take a week.
Shakur, also known as 2Pac, was 25 when he was fatally wounded on the night of September 7, 1996, while traveling in a car through Las Vegas. He had attended a boxing match featuring Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand casino. The killing became one of America's most famous unsolved cases, fueling decades of speculation among fans and the music industry.
The rapper was a central figure in a well-documented rivalry between hip-hop artists on the East and West coasts. Shakur, who was born in Harlem and raised in Baltimore, moved to Los Angeles and signed with Death Row Records, founded by Marion “Suge” Knight. The label was associated with the Mob Piru gang, part of the Bloods alliance. The competing label, Bad Boy Records, led by Sean “Diddy” Combs and featuring Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, had hired members of the South Side Compton Crips as security. Wallace was murdered in March 1997.
According to court documents, the confrontation began shortly after the Tyson fight. Shakur and Knight attacked Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a Crips member and Davis's nephew, in retaliation for an earlier assault on a Death Row employee. Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson, and others pulled up beside Shakur's vehicle, and shots were fired from the Cadillac.
The case remained stagnant for years due to lack of evidence. It gained renewed attention in 2019 when Davis published a memoir. In the book, he wrote that he was in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and handed a pistol to the rear passengers, but he did not identify who fired the fatal shots. All other occupants of the Cadillac have since died.
Davis made similar statements in prior interviews, but the memoir prompted investigators to reopen the case. He was arrested in September 2023. Since then, Davis has maintained his innocence, saying in a 2025 interview from jail that he was in Los Angeles on the night of the killing and that he never read his own memoir. He alleged that the book's co-author exaggerated details to increase sales.
Defence lawyers have attempted to keep the memoir and Davis's 2008 interview with police out of evidence, but their efforts have been unsuccessful. The trial is expected to examine the wider context of the East Coast-West Coast rap feud and the role of gangs in the music industry at the time.
Shakur's family continues to seek accountability. In May, his stepbrother Maurice Shakur filed a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court, stating that “there remain individuals who were involved in Tupac's murder who, for 30 years, have not been held accountable for their crimes.” The trial, while closely watched, is unlikely to fully resolve long-standing questions about the case, as the exact shooter remains unknown.
