Duane "Keffe D." Davis will face charges of murder with a deadly weapon in connection with rapper Tupac Shakur's death, which occurred 30 years ago. The trial, which began with opening arguments on 17 August, aims to make Davis the first person convicted of the homicide that occurred on 7 September 1996.
Davis has hinted at his involvement in the crime on multiple occasions. He suggested his implication to police investigators in 2008 and 2009, and later claimed in his memoir published in 2019 that he was "one of the few living witnesses to Tupac's murder". A judge allowed in June that both the book and police interviews serve as evidence, rejecting defence arguments that the text had been fictionalised.
According to prosecutor Binu Palal in his opening statement, Davis began talking about his role in the murder in 1998, when he was interrogated following the homicide of rapper Notorious B.I.G. Davis agreed to provide information about the Tupac case in exchange for not being incriminated. In his later statements and in the book, Davis claimed he was in Las Vegas the night of the murder, that he obtained the weapon and handed it to another person.
Davis's defence argues that the prosecution's case is based on "fiction". His lawyer, Michael Sanft, argued that the book was fictionalised to sell copies and that it is impossible to determine which parts Davis actually wrote. In a recent interview with a local television station, Davis denied being in Las Vegas when Tupac died and claimed that a ghostwriter wrote his memoir, not him.
The murder occurred when Tupac was travelling in the BMW of Suge Knight, an executive at Death Row Records, after a boxing match. A white Cadillac pulled up to the vehicle and shot at Tupac, who was struck four times and died six days later. The prosecution has released a list of over 200 potential witnesses for trial.
