Tupac Murder Suspect Trial Date Set To Next Year

Duane “Keefe D” Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips, is set to stand trial on June 3, 2024 as the only living suspect of the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. 

Davis isn’t being accused as the gunman in the fatal shooting of the rapper, but authorities are labeling him as the “shot caller” behind the murder. In his tell-all memoir, Compton Street Legend, Davis said he rode in the passenger seat during the drive-by shooting where he and three others allegedly killed Tupac. Davis also admitted to providing the gun that was used to kill the rapper in his memoir. 

Now, as the only surviving person allegedly involved in the plot to end Tupac’s life, he’s pleading not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon and is seeking bail. 

Authorities reopened the case after Davis made public statements in the 2018 series Death Row Chronicles on BET. Additionally, in 2008 the LAPD interviewed Davis in a proffer for information connected to the murder of Biggie Smalls. This is when he admitted his involvement in the murder of Tupac and pointed to his nephew, Orlando Anderson who died in 1998,  as the gunman. 

Former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who was one of the officers that interviewed Davis in 2008, said that Davis thought the proffer would protect his statement from being used against him in the future, which is why he spoke about the murder so publicly and even wrote a book about it. His 2008 statement and his public statement were instrumental in the successful reopening of the case. 

“He was the best witness against himself,” Kading told the Los Angeles Times. “Ego and greed caught up with him.”