Jury Convicts Duane "Keffe D" Davis in 1996 Tupac Shakur Murder Case

A Nevada jury delivered a guilty verdict on former South Side Compton Crip member Duane "Keffe D" Davis for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. After a two-hour deliberation in a cramped Las Vegas courtroom, the foreperson read the finding of murder with a deadly weapon. Davis, 63, was taken into custody and will be sentenced on Oct. 13.

Prosecutors argued that Davis supplied a .40-caliber Glock to his nephew, Orlando Anderson, who they said fired the fatal shots shortly after a confrontation between Shakur, Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight and Anderson following a Mike Tyson boxing match. The state presented recordings of Davis’s 2008 proffer agreement, interviews, and excerpts from his own book as primary evidence.

The defense, led by attorney Michael Sanft, characterized Davis as an unreliable storyteller who fabricated claims for profit, and highlighted the lack of physical evidence such as the murder weapon, rental-car records, or proof that Davis was in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting.

Witness testimony included former gang-unit detectives, former Death Row security personnel, and a surviving member of Shakur’s entourage, but many potential witnesses were unavailable or deceased. The prosecution’s case relied heavily on Davis’s repeated statements to law-enforcement over the years.

After the verdict, Shakur’s family expressed relief and gratitude, while Davis’s son appeared devastated. The case, which has been the subject of extensive speculation for three decades, marks the first conviction related to the rapper’s death.