Tupac Shakur Murder Trial Opens Three Decades After 1996 Shooting

The 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur returns to court this week in Las Vegas, where prosecutors will try to prove that a former gang leader orchestrated the drive-by attack that left the 25-year-old artist dead six days after he was shot. The case, long considered unsolvable by police, now rests almost entirely on statements made years later by the defendant himself.

Jury selection begins Monday in Clark County District Court before Judge Carli Kierny. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors do not allege that Davis fired the shots. They contend he supplied the gun and directed the attack stemming from a rivalry between the South Side Compton Crips and Mob Piru, the latter tied to Shakur’s label Death Row Records.

The shooting occurred on September 7, 1996, after a Mike Tyson boxing match. Shakur rode in a black BMW driven by Marion “Suge” Knight when a white Cadillac pulled alongside and gunfire erupted. No murder weapon or getaway car was ever recovered, according to law-enforcement statements at the time. The case remained cold until Davis described his role in interviews and his 2019 memoir “Compton Street Legends.” He was arrested in 2023.

Davis wrote that he obtained a handgun, placed it in the Cadillac, and that a back-seat passenger fired after Shakur appeared to reach for a weapon. He has not named the shooter. Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, Davis’s nephew and a longtime suspect, died in 1998. Two other men in the Cadillac have also died. Prosecutors plan to call 35 to 45 witnesses, including former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Shakur family members, gang experts, and Leonard Jefferson, who took the last known photograph of Shakur that night. More than 200 names appear on the full witness list.

Knight, the only other living person who was in the BMW, is serving a 28-year sentence in California and has indicated he will not testify. Davis’s attorney has said Knight could help the defense. Prosecutors also listed Denvonta Lee, who told a grand jury that another man in the car fired after Anderson passed the gun. The defense expects to call fewer than five witnesses, including an expert on false confessions. Sean “Diddy” Combs, whom Davis alleged in the memoir offered money for the killing, is not on any witness list and is serving a separate sentence.

The trial is expected to last about a month. Public seating is limited to a daily lottery, with overflow viewing available on the second floor of the courthouse.