{"id":38341,"date":"2026-08-11T09:46:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38341"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:46:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:46:03","slug":"what-to-know-about-tupacs-murder-trial-and-suspect-duane-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38341","title":{"rendered":"What to Know About Tupac&#8217;s Murder Trial and Suspect Duane Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFor three decades, rap legend and cultural icon <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2023\/music\/focus\/tupac-music-hollywood-walk-of-fame-1235636404\/\">Tupac Shakur\u2019s<\/a> killing has remained one of America\u2019s great unsolved mysteries, spawning countless books, documentaries and long-form investigative journalism pieces. Now, the man accused of orchestrating his 1996 shooting is finally headed to trial with his memoir, as well as a Netflix docuseries on <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/diddy\/\" id=\"auto-tag_diddy\" data-tag=\"diddy\">Diddy<\/a>, serving as key evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tJury selection began on Monday in the case against Duane \u201cKeffe D\u201d Davis, 63, who is facing one charge of <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/murder\/\" id=\"auto-tag_murder\" data-tag=\"murder\">murder<\/a> with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in Shakur\u2019s death. Prosecutors allege Davis both ordered the killing of Shakur and provided the murder weapon. (Davis has maintained his innocence.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOn the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times with a Glock .22 pistol while his car was stopped at a red light in Paradise, Nev. The bullets came from a white Cadillac that had pulled up alongside Shakur\u2019s vehicle \u2014 which was being driven by his label boss, Marion \u201cSuge\u201d Knight \u2014 and struck the hip-hop artist in the chest, arm and thigh, while one of the bullets grazed Knight in the head. Shakur succumbed to his injuries six days later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tPolice arrested Orlando \u201cBaby Lane\u201d Anderson, a member of the South Side Crips gang, on Oct. 2 in connection with the shooting \u2014 only to release him the same day without being charged. Shakur and his entourage had attacked Anderson in the lobby of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the night of Sept. 7, mere hours before the shooting, after an affiliate of Shakur\u2019s (and member of the rival Mob Pirus Bloods gang) recognized Anderson as someone who\u2019d attempted to rob him. Two days after the shooting, on Sept. 9, the South Side Crips and Mob Pirus Bloods engaged in an all-out gang war that culminated in three deaths, and Anderson was shot in the leg and confined to a wheelchair. On Sept. 12, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/video\/dear-mama-tupac-afeni-shakur-docuseries\/\">Shakur\u2019s mother, Afeni<\/a>, filed a wrongful death suit against Anderson, which was settled before Anderson perished in another gang shooting in 1998.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThough Anderson has long been suspected of being the gunman who fired the fatal shots that killed Shakur, his uncle, Davis, who was seated in the white Cadillac, had also been implicated in the drive-by shooting. Greg Kading, a former LAPD detective who\u2019d participated in the task force that investigated the murders of <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/tupac\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tupac\" data-tag=\"tupac\">Tupac<\/a> Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., self-published the 2011 book \u201cMurder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/tupac-shakur\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tupac-shakur\" data-tag=\"tupac-shakur\">Tupac Shakur<\/a> Murder Investigations,\u201d which not only implicated Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs in the killing of Shakur, owing to the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry, but also included portions of a taped interview Davis did with police in 2008 where he claimed Diddy had offered him $1 million to assassinate Shakur and Knight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201c[Diddy] took me downstairs and he\u2019s like, \u2018Man, I want to get rid of them dudes\u2026\u2019 I was like, We\u2019ll wipe their ass out quick, it\u2019s nothing,\u201d Davis said in the confession, according to Kading\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tDavis subsequently spent years boasting about his purported role in Shakur\u2019s killing. In 2018, to drum up anticipation for his upcoming memoir, he appeared in the BET docuseries \u201cDeath Row Chronicles,\u201d where he discussed the night of Shakur\u2019s murder, suggesting that the murder weapon was passed from someone in the backseat of the white Cadillac, but he wouldn\u2019t say who. \u201cGoing to keep it for the code of the streets,\u201d Davis remarked, adding, \u201cIt just came from the backseat, bro.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tDavis released his memoir, \u201cCompton Street Legend,\u201d in 2019, whose intro stated, \u201cI\u2019m one of the only living eyewitnesses to Tupac\u2019s killing,\u201d before describing the night of Shakur\u2019s killing in detail. In the book, Davis claims that he got a Glock and entered the white Cadillac with three others, looking for payback against Shakur and Knight for what they\u2019d done to Anderson. \u201cNo words exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was about to go down!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe book continued: \u201cTupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat. Pac pulled out a strap, and that\u2019s when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin\u2019 back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAccording to The New York Times, a detective within the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department who had been assigned to dig into the Shakur cold case stumbled upon Davis\u2019 memoir and used it as evidence to build his case against him. \u201cIn 2023, he read aloud excerpts from the book to a grand jury, which ultimately indicted Mr. Davis on one count of murder in Mr. Shakur\u2019s killing. Mr. Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty and denied any involvement,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/10\/arts\/music\/tupac-shakur-murder-trial.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">reported<\/a> the Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cHad he never decided to take money and go on BET and talk about this situation, had he decided to never write the book, he would not, probably, have ever been prosecuted for the crime,\u201d Marc DiGiacomo, a prosecutor on the Davis case, said during a hearing last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tMeanwhile, Michael Sanft, a lawyer for Davis, has claimed that his client embellished many of the stories in \u201cCompton Street Legend,\u201d declaring during the hearing, \u201cWe\u2019re putting way too much credence and value and weight on statements that are made for entertainment purposes only.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn addition to Davis\u2019 memoir, there is the matter of <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/news\/diddy-netflix-doc-gigolo-sex-marathon-everything-we-learned-1236595893\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cSean Combs: The Reckoning,\u201d<\/a> a four-part docuseries <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/tv\/news\/sean-diddy-reckoning-director-documentary-aubrey-o-day-1236765850\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">directed by Alexandria Stapleton<\/a> and produced by 50 Cent that was released Dec. 2 of last year on Netflix. The doc revealed that one year before Shakur\u2019s killing, Diddy allegedly announced to \u201ca whole room full of Crips\u201d at a party that he would pay any amount for Shakur and Knight to be killed, and also re-aired portions of Davis\u2019 interview with police \u2014 first circulated by Kading in \u201cMurder Rap\u201d \u2014 wherein he said Diddy met with him and offered $1 million to kill Shakur and Knight. (Diddy has denied any involvement in Shakur\u2019s death.) Shakur\u2019s estate filed a civil suit against Davis in April, alleging that grand jury transcripts and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/sean-combs-the-reckoning\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sean-combs-the-reckoning\" data-tag=\"sean-combs-the-reckoning\">Sean Combs: The Reckoning<\/a>\u201d have \u201crevealed the existence of a broader, more complex conspiracy to murder Tupac that involved much more than mere retaliation for a prior altercation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOn July 18, 2023, the Las Vegas Police Department searched the home of Davis\u2019 wife in Henderson, Nevada, in connection with the Shakur case and arrested him on Sept. 29 of that year. He\u2019s been awaiting trial ever since, but is currently being held in Nevada\u2019s High Desert State Prison on a separate conviction for a jailhouse fight, resulting in a sentence of 16 to 40 months. Experts believe that Davis\u2019 trial for the killing of Shakur should last about a month and, although the death penalty is an option for first-degree murder convictions in Nevada, prosecutors will <em>not <\/em>be seeking it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For three decades, rap legend and cultural icon Tupac Shakur\u2019s killing has remained one of America\u2019s great unsolved mysteries, spawning countless books, documentaries and long-form investigative journalism pieces. Now, the man accused of orchestrating his 1996 shooting is finally headed to trial with his memoir, as well as a Netflix docuseries on Diddy, serving as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1734082338.jpg?crop=0px%2C0px%2C6952px%2C3904px&resize=1000%2C563","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}