2Pac Murder Trial

[The Predator]

Keefe-D quite a funny guy, like to see jurors expressions and reactions if shown the full interviews live in court 




Interesting that he said if Suge ever did anything to Eazy...the Southside Crips would of had his back and responded (with bullets), which was before Badboy vs Death Row.

Also @ ''Them studio gangstas, Pac and them want to swing on us? They trippin, must be out of they rappity-rap minds'' 



Even though it's funny stories, some of it's cold and chillin like ''Pac looked like he was boddy poppin and break-dancing in his seat'' and that they parked up the car, stashed the gat and ended up in right in front off Pac's ambulance high and drunk laughing and busting jokes at all the mayhem and chaos they caused in disbelief.

It's great for us hip-hop fans/historians that one of the players involved solved the murder mystery for us by himself, coz we more or less know now actually what happened...it's a rare fascinating first hand account insight into a major historical hip-hop event and one of the most famous unsolved murder mystery ever.


Ice-T album going to have a song about self-snitching -

On the track, "Shut The Fuck Up," you take aim at the new generation of rappers incriminating themselves on social media. As a self-described OG, how alarming has it been seeing the birth of the podcast-to-prison pipeline?

It's wild. The new drug is clout. All the OGs are sitting back like, "Nigga, what are you doing? Why are you incriminating yourself?" These podcasts are interviewing people with no talent, so if you don't have talent and you associate with that gangster lifestyle, the only thing you can do is talk about your criminal activities.

That's become a cottage industry for the likes of DJ Vlad and No Jumper.

That's what they do. It's like an interviewer saying to me, "Ice, we heard you are fake." And I'm like, "Nah ... I got my gun on me right now!" [Laughs]. They bait you into proving you are real. You have kids cooking crack and showing off guns on the internet. But what they don't understand is the No. 1 tool of law enforcement is social media.

[The Predator]

Look's like they aint got shit on Keefe-D apart from his big mouth and the book, the guy who could bury him (Sugar Bear) aint
snitching.

Robert Draskovich, Davis' former attorney, joins "Jesse Weber Live" to discuss the case against him and how his jailhouse calls could create problems for the defense.

"Jesse Weber Live" brings a fresh, fast-paced, and often unexpected take on the day's headlines, diving into the biggest stories through the lens of legal expertise.

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When Keefe-D got rolled on by the Feds, he was still crackin jokes -



Notice how the cop in the front seat pretends to be buddies and tries to get him talking (oldest trick in the book, cops are never your freinds, everything said during an arrest the cop has to put it in thier report...keep ya mouth shut), even Keefe aint fallin for that but still cant shut up!

----------------

Suges impression of 'slow' Keefe-D, haha -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=634&v=4Tr7SW8YhQk

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CNN Legal Analyst Laura Coates On Tupac Shakur Murder Trial

[Nsykac Steel]

Keefe-D is quite a funny guy, like to see jurors expressions and reactions if shown the full interviews live in court 




Interesting that he said if Suge ever did anything to Eazy...the Southside Crips would of had his back and responded (with bullets), which was before Badboy vs Death Row.

Also @ ''Them studio gangstas, Pac and them want to swing on us? They trippin, must be out of they rappity-rap minds'' 



Even though it's funny stories, some of it's cold and chillin like ''Pac looked like he was boddy poppin and break-dancing in his seat'' and that they parked up the car, stashed the gat and ended up in right in front off Pac's ambulance high and drunk laughing and busting jokes at all the mayhem and chaos they caused in disbelief.

It's great for us hip-hop fans/historians that one of the players involved solved the murder mystery for us by himself, coz we more or less know now actually what happened...it's a rare fascinating first hand account insight into a major historical hip-hop event and one of the most famous unsolved murder mystery ever.


Ice-T album going to have a song about self-snitching -

If this is true, I hope he gets his cumuppence in jail.

[dnjp4life]

Been watching the trial live and even though it's early days, it's quite interesting so far.  Some lesser known pictures from the night have been shown as well as some information I wasn't aware of, such as 2Pac in the ambulance telling one of the police on the way to the hospital ‘We'll sort out who did this' when asked who shot him.

Wonder who will be called to give evidence, I'm guessing Reggie Wright, EDI, Chris Carroll amongst others.

[The Predator]

More interesting then anything else on t.v. right now...






Pac autopsy court pics -

https://x.com/user/status/2089775161507524849

[dnjp4life]

I've tried to watch as much of it as I can, it's certainly been very detailed and forensic, as you would expect.

Mob James being called to give evidence has been the highlight so far, he stood his ground and quite clearly said he didn't want to tell on Keefe D.  It got quite heated in the courtroom and he said for the court to treat him as a ‘hostile witness'.

Trevon Lane's name has been mentioned a few times, hopefully he gives evidence as I understand he's quite secretive and has never given an interview on one of these platforms detailing his involvement on the night.

[The Predator]

Thirty years of waiting, a memoir and a trial: conviction in Tupac Shakur killing brings closure



A Las Vegas jury on Monday found Duane ‘Keffe D' Davis guilty in the 1996 murder of the hip-hop icon

Thirty years after the killing of Tupac Shakur, conspiracy theories and rumors about the perpetrator's identity, one man has now been held criminally responsible for the rap icon's death.

A Las Vegas jury convicted Duane "Keffe D" Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, of murder for his role in the drive-by shooting. During the two-week long trial, prosecutors argued Davis was the "on-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac" and had sought revenge after the musician was involved in a fight with his nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson.

The conviction brings long-awaited resolution to the case, which has captured public attention and dominated headlines for decades.

"We've been waiting 30 years to grieve properly," Zayd Akinyela, Shakur's cousin, told reporters outside the courtroom when the trial was under way.

Shakur, the son of members of the Black Panther party was at the height of his career in 1996. The rapper had released the hit album All Eyez on Me, which sold millions of copies, and had become a global superstar.



In September 1996, he was in Las Vegas attending a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand hotel. While heading to an afterparty that evening, he was attacked just off the Las Vegas strip alongside Marion "Suge" Knight, the founder of Death Row Records. As they waited at a red light, a Cadillac pulled up next to Shakur's vehicle and shot him multiple times. Shakur died days later, at age 25.


Tupac hours before his death in Las Vegas 1996

Shakur's death, at a young age and an ascendant point in his cultural power, turned him into an almost saint-like figure within hip-hop. A flood of posthumous songs, music videos and albums were released after the murder, eulogizing his legacy as one of the most prolific and talented artists of his generation.

Diss tracks, gang rivalries and a shooting

There were no arrests made in his killing and Las Vegas police faced criticism that the department had bungled the investigation and failed to pursue crucial leads. Questions and conspiracy theories persisted for decades, but few official answers.


Biggie Smalls last photo taken alive, L.A. 1997

The killing was for years viewed as connected to the east coast-west coast rivalry between different hip-hop groups and record labels. Shakur had a longstanding feud with Christopher Wallace, a Brooklyn rapper, better known as Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G., that had involved numerous diss tracks and threats between their camps. Wallace was murdered in Los Angeles less than six months after Shakur's killing, adding to the lore around the feud.



Both Shakur and Biggie quickly became pop culture icons representing a golden era of 90s hip-hop. The unsolved nature of their deaths also created a cottage industry of books and documentaries claiming to uncover the real story of their deaths, many of which involved conspiracy theories and allegations of cover-ups.

Authorities say a clearer picture of what unfolded that September evening emerged in recent years thanks to Davis himself.



Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang, had long been known to investigators. He was the only living witness from the car that fired shots at Shakur. Detectives had also Davis to talk about the fatal shooting of the Notorious B.I.G. Though Davis was briefly a suspect, he was later ruled out by investigators.

During the weeks-long trial, jurors heard a 2008 interview where Davis told detectives that Anderson, who died in an unrelated 1998 shooting, fired the shots that killed Shakur. But prosecutors never gathered enough evidence to press charges.



The case took a turn when Davis published his memoir in 2019. In it, he described his involvement in the hit.



According to Davis's account, he was angry about the attack on his nephew and obtained a gun with the intent to "hunt down" Shakur and confront Knight. He and others, including his nephew Anderson, went searching for the group, and once they found them the incident unfolded quickly.



"No words were exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was on! Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat. It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command to, ‘Keep your hands where I can see them.' Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and that's when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin' back," he wrote.



It was Davis decision to write the book that ultimately led to the trial, prosecutors said.

"Had he decided to never write the book, he would not, probably, have ever been prosecuted for the crime," prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said.



Davis' defense unsuccessfully sought to have the memoir excluded from the trial, and said that it had been exaggerated to "falsely place [Davis] at the center of it all for personal gain".

Over the course of the trial, defense attorney Michael Sanft argued that investigators had very little evidence to prove their case. He said that authorities, including the FBI, did not follow up with Davis because they did not believe what he said was credible.

"What they are telling you, they are representing as fact, when it's really fiction," said Sanft.

On Monday, a Las Vegas jury disagreed. The judge has set sentencing for 13 October.

------------------

This comic/graphic novel version of KD's book looks dope -

Compton Street Legend: Volume #1

Duayne 'Keffe D' Davis, Yusuf Jah

The Graphic Compton Street Level is the first volume in the graphic novel series about the the only living eyewitnesses to the deadly confrontation on the Las Vegas strip between the occupants of our two vehicles.

A violent confrontation that led to the deaths of two of Hip-Hop's biggest stars (Tupac Shakur & Christopher ‘Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace) and changed Hip-Hop history forever.

There's a strict code on the streets. One that real street players live, kill, and die by. COMPTON STREET LEGEND reveals the street-level code violations and the explosive consequences when the powerful worlds of the streets, entertainment, and corrupt law enforcement collide.

More than twenty years after the premature deaths of Tupac and Biggie there have been numerous TV specials, documentaries, books, magazine and newspaper, and social media dedicated to the subject.

But at the end of the day, none of the private investigators, retired police officers, informants, Hip-Hop heads, actors, or academics that have weighed in on the topic truly know what happened and the reasons behind it, because none of them were there.Duane ‘Keffe D' Davis, a native of Compton, California, admittedly lived most of his life as a gangster; a real gangster that did the shit that real gangsters do.

He rose up the gang-banging ranks to become a shot-caller for the notorious Southside Compton Crips, while running a multi-million dollar, multi-state drug empire. Keffe D has been a central figure in both the Tupac Shakur and Biggie murders for the past 20 years. COMPTON STREET LEGEND will add valuable information about two of the biggest "unsolved" crimes in American history.

It will serve as the missing piece of the puzzle that Hip-Hop Fans have been waiting for.

On the surface COMPTON STREET LEGEND will look like a story based on violence and hate, it is actually a story about Love, Family, Brotherhood, Loyalty, Trust, and Honor. Scroll to the top and click the "buy now" button. It's time to set the story straight. Fasten your seatbelts.



https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79522108-the-graphic-experience

[The Predator]

Tupac Trial Closings: Prosecutors Call ‘Keffe D' Murder Mastermind, Defense Calls Case ‘Fiction'



Duane Davis' lawyer questioned why prosecutors never subpoenaed Suge Knight to testify

August 31, 2026

Duane Davis enters the courtroom during his murder trial, related to the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, at Clark County District Court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 27, 2026. The trial of the former gang leader accused of orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur began on August 10, 30 years after one of America's most high-profile unresolved killings. The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the California hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson boxing match.

Prosecutors argued Monday that their murder case against Duane "Keffe D" Davis rested on far more than his own words about Tupac Shakur's 1996 killing. His defense lawyer countered that Davis had lied for years to police, TV producers, and podcasters, and that without those stories, there was not enough evidence to convict him.

"This was a case about gang retaliation and revenge," Clark County Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors Monday during his closing argument at Davis' murder trial in Las Vegas. "This case is drenched with circumstantial evidence even beyond Mr. Davis' statements."

Palal started with a "little experiment," highlighting only the evidence presented during the two-week trial that did not rely on the secret police interview Davis gave to Los Angeles police in 2008 in which he described himself as the mastermind behind the shooting of Shakur on Sept. 7, 1996. (Davis gave the account under a proffer agreement while seeking leniency in an unrelated drug case.) The interview was intended to remain confidential, but the recorded interview was admitted at trial after Davis repeated the details in a BET docuseries, other media interviews, and his memoir, Compton Street Legend.

Palal said the evidence showed Davis and his nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, were prominent members of the South Side Compton Crips who believed they had to respond with violence after Shakur and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight attacked Anderson inside the MGM Grand casino hours before Shakur was fatally shot. The casino beating, Palal said, was itself retaliation for an earlier gang confrontation at a Los Angeles County mall. He reminded jurors they heard directly from a former gang member who was part of the brawl and who testified that a Death Row Records chain and medallion went missing. Palal said the alleged theft of the necklace was "an ultimate sign of disrespect" that demanded retribution.

The prosecutor then used a courtroom monitor to show jurors copies of the hotel records placing Anderson at the Excalibur hotel from Sept. 6 through Sept. 8, 1996, and Corey Edwards, an older South Side Compton Crips member close to Davis, at the Monte Carlo hotel. Surveillance video inside the MGM also captured the beadown of Anderson.

Palal pointed to a detail Davis provided to authorities in 2008 that, he said, had not previously been made public. Davis told investigators that a group of women had been driving in a Chrysler Sebring near the BMW at the time of the shooting. One of those women, Ingrid Stokes, testified during the trial that she had been in the Sebring and had been afraid to speak publicly afterward for fear of retaliation. "Snitches get stitches," she told jurors.

Palal then turned to Davis' own statements, asking why he gave police such "granular details" in 2008, including accounts that implicated others before the shooting, if he was simply inventing a story to avoid a potential life sentence. Davis, he argued, could have said he merely heard about the killing instead of placing himself inside the rented white Cadillac, or blamed someone else entirely.

"It makes no sense to ‘put that smut' ... on somebody that you love," Palal said, invoking testimony about Davis identifying his beloved nephew as the gunman. Anderson, long considered a suspect in Shakur's killing, denied involvement before he was killed in an unrelated Compton shooting in 1998 at age 23. Palal argued Monday that Davis implicating Anderson made the most sense "as a truth to get out of a life sentence."

"For nearly 18 years, Duane Davis has told the police, television producers, books, YouTube interviewers, anybody that will listen, that he was responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur," Palal told jurors. "Tell him you hear him and find him guilty."

When it was his turn, defense lawyer Michael Sanft portrayed Davis as a showman who fabricated his account to gain an advantage in a criminal case before he repeated and embellished the story because it brought him attention and money.

"He's not telling you the truth, he's telling you fiction," Sanft said of Davis' 2008 statement to police. He argued Davis' various accounts conflicted with one another, and some were even contradicted by the evidence. For instance, he pointed to a passage in Davis' book claiming that Stokes' Chrysler Sebring was struck by gunfire and had a shattered window. Stokes testified the car was never hit and no glass was shattered.

"The state wants you to believe this was a confession, that he was somehow there in person at the time of the shooting," Sanft argued Monday. "We're presuming all this stuff. ... We can't put Orlando in the car. We can't even put Davis in Las Vegas."

The defense lawyer questioned why prosecutors never subpoenaed Knight, who is now serving a 28-year prison sentence in California after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter for a 2015 hit-and-run death. Sanft claimed it didn't make sense that Knight later paid Anderson to testify on his behalf at a probation violation hearing if he believed Anderson had tried to kill him too. Sanft also asked why Davis wasn't targeted for retaliation if his role in the killing was as widely known as prosecutors suggest.

Over his two-hour closing, Sanft claimed that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department mishandled the search for the Cadillac, allowed unauthorized people to access the case file, and lost police reports during a technology upgrade. He also asked why there were no police reports or insurance claims documenting the alleged shopping mall confrontation where the Death Row Records chain was allegedly stolen.

Sanft said Davis "never read" his own book and argued that even the spelling of his nickname on the cover was wrong. He said "Keffe D" should have been spelled "Keithy D," pointing to an embroidered jacket found during a 2023 search of Davis' home that bore that spelling. In a counter to Palal's closing, Sanft replayed part of Stokes' testimony in which she denied that her group had shouted, "Tupac! Tupac!" as Davis had told police.

"Do not presume anything in this case," Sanft urged jurors Monday as he asked them to return a not-guilty verdict. "Repeating a fiction over and over again," he said, does not "make it a fact."

In the state's final rebuttal before jurors began deliberating Monday afternoon, Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo dismissed Sanft's argument that inconsistencies in Davis's accounts undermined the prosecution's case.

"Do we honestly think a guy who was dumb enough to write a book could keep this story straight this many times?" DiGiacomo asked. He argued that Davis's 2008 account was the most detailed version of events and was corroborated by other evidence.

DiGiacomo also told jurors that the 2008 proffer agreement was beyond the control of Las Vegas authorities and that Davis had effectively benefited from it for years. He said Davis later forfeited its protections by publicly repeating details from the interview after former Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading wrote his own book about the case.

Davis, he argued, was angry about Kading's book and couldn't resist speaking up. The long delay before Davis was charged, DiGiacomo said, did not mean Las Vegas investigators doubted his culpability.

"We had to eat crow and allow a murderer to live in Henderson and not charge him because of the various things that happened in this case," DiGiacomo said. He closed by pointing to a social media clip in which Davis boasted that he had "beat the streets," "beat the Feds" and "beat cancer."

"And now he's trying to beat 12 of you," DiGiacomo told the jury. "That's what's going on here."

Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon and has been jailed since his September 2023 arrest. His 2008 interview with police loomed large over the trial, particularly the part where he told police he personally handed a loaded .40-caliber Glock to the back seat, where Anderson took the weapon and opened fire through a rear window.

During the trial, jurors heard Davis say in the interview that he had expected the Cadillac to pull up on the driver's side of the BMW. Palal argued Monday that the BMW's position at the red light likely was the middle lane, leading Davis to expect that, but that the Cadillac instead pulled alongside the passenger side.

"If they drove on my side, I would have popped 'em, know what I'm saying," Davis said in the 2008 police interview. "But they was on the other side."

During the trial, jurors heard from former LAPD Detective Daryn Dupree, who testified that Davis first volunteered his involvement in Shakur's killing while investigators were questioning him about the 1997 slaying of Christopher Wallace, the rapper known as the Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls. Dupree said he and Kading had confronted Davis with evidence they believed linked him to cocaine and PCP trafficking. Facing a potential life sentence, Davis was told he could help himself by cooperating. Davis denied involvement in Biggie's killing, Dupree testified, but then said, "We did the other one." Davis later sat for the recorded proffer interview with his lawyer present.

Davis told the investigators, "We did what we had to do." He said the group fled in the Cadillac, ditched it behind a hotel, and then went off to "smoke weed and drink." Knight was wounded but survived the ambush. Shakur was shot multiple times and died six days later at 25.

During the trial, former Las Vegas police officer Garry Dale testified that he rode in the ambulance with a wounded Shakur and repeatedly asked him to identify his attacker. Shakur refused.

"No, we'll take care of it," Dale recalled him saying.

--------

Duane ‘Keffe D' Davis Found Guilty in Murder of Tupac Shakur



The jury in Nevada took only about three hours to return the verdict in the 30-year-old homicide. Davis will be sentenced in October

August 31, 2026

Duane Davis enters the courtroom during his murder trial, related to the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, at Clark County District Court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 27, 2026. The trial of the former gang leader accused of orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur began on August 10, 30 years after one of America's most high-profile unresolved killings. The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the California hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson boxing match

The former Compton gang leader charged with orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur was convicted of first-degree murder by a Las Vegas jury on Monday, marking a long-awaited reckoning in one of the most notorious unsolved killings in music history.

Jurors needed only about three hours to return their verdict against Duane "Keffe D" Davis in the nearly 30-year-old killing. Davis, who did not testify, is set to be sentenced on October 13 and faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Shortly after hearing the verdict, Shakur's sister, Sekyiwa, embraced a man seated behind her and wiped her eyes with a tissue, according to a live feed of the proceeding from The Associated Press.

Before court adjourned, Davis raised his hand and told the court he wanted his electronics back and planned to appeal. The judge said any appeal "happens after sentencing," and she ordered him held without bail.

Davis, 63, had pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with use of a deadly weapon. His defense lawyer, Michael Sanft, argued the state's case was built on "lies" that Davis first told prosecutors to avoid prison on narcotics charges and later repeated in interviews and in his memoir, Compton Street Legend, for profit. Davis was arrested in September 2023 and remained in custody through the trial.

In his closing argument, Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal accused Davis of organizing the Sept. 7, 1996, shooting as "gang retaliation" for a beating that took place about two hours earlier inside the MGM Grand casino. He said Shakur, Death Row Records co-founder Marion "Suge" Knight, and others attacked Davis' nephew, Orlando Anderson, after their Death Row associate Trevon Lane spotted Anderson in the casino following a Mike Tyson fight.

During the trial, jurors heard the confrontation grew out of an earlier gang dispute involving Davis' and Anderson's South Side Compton Crips and the rival Mob Piru Bloods, whose members included Lane and others associated with Death Row. They heard Lane had a run-in with Anderson and other Crips at a mall near Compton about two months before Shakur's shooting, and that someone allegedly stole a chain bearing a Death Row medallion. Admitted Crips member Denvonta Lee testified under a court order and told jurors he was there when the mall brawl "broke out" and the chain "came off" Lane's neck.

Palal said the alleged chain theft was viewed as "an ultimate sign of disrespect," demanding retribution and culminating in the MGM Grand beating of Anderson captured on surveillance video.

The centerpiece of the prosecution's case was the "secret" recorded interview Davis gave to police in 2008 in which he described his role in the shooting in extraordinary detail. Prosecutors characterized the account as a confession and said the fact that Davis was trying to gain leverage in an unrelated narcotics case didn't diminish its significance.

In his dueling closing argument, Sanft disputed that characterization, saying Davis had fabricated the account and that his retellings over the years often conflicted with one another and, at times, with the evidence. He pointed, for example, to a passage in Davis's book claiming that a Chrysler Sebring filled with women followed his Cadillac after the shooting and was struck by gunfire that shattered a window. A woman from the Sebring testified during the trial that the car was never hit and no glass was shattered.

"The state wants you to believe this was a confession," Sanft said of his client's account in the 2008 interview. "We're presuming all this stuff. ... We can't put Orlando in the car. We can't even put Davis in Las Vegas."

In the state's final rebuttal before jurors began deliberating Monday afternoon, Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo dismissed Sanft's argument that inconsistencies in Davis' accounts undermined the prosecution's case.

"Do we honestly think a guy who was dumb enough to write a book could keep this story straight this many times?" DiGiacomo asked. He described Davis's 2008 account as highly detailed and corroborated by other evidence.

DiGiacomo argued the 2008 proffer agreement was beyond the control of Las Vegas authorities, and Davis benefited from it for years. He said Davis later forfeited its protections by publicly repeating details because he was angry Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading wrote his own book about the case. Davis, he argued, couldn't resist speaking up. The long delay before Davis was charged, DiGiacomo said, did not mean Las Vegas investigators doubted his culpability.

"We had to eat crow and allow a murderer to live in Henderson and not charge him because of the various things that happened in this case," DiGiacomo said. He closed by pointing to a social media clip in which Davis boasted that he had "beat the streets," "beat the Feds," and "beat cancer."

"And now he's trying to beat 12 of you," DiGiacomo told the jury. "That's what's going on here."

Former Los Angeles police Detective Daryn Dupree testified on the third day of the trial, telling jurors Davis first volunteered his involvement in Shakur's killing while investigators were questioning him about the 1997 slaying of Christopher Wallace, the rapper known as the Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls. Dupree said he and Kading confronted Davis at his home and told him they had evidence linking him to cocaine and PCP trafficking. They suggested Davis could help himself by cooperating.

Dupree said Davis denied any involvement in the Biggie shooting but then shocked them with the words, "We did the other one." Davis later sat down for the recorded proffer interview with his lawyer.

"Don't bullshit me, and I won't bullshit y'all," Davis said at the start of the Dec. 18, 2008, interview, which was played for jurors. Det. Kading assured him during the interview, "Nothing you say can be used against you."

Davis appeared skeptical but went on to say he was riding in the front passenger seat of the white Cadillac, with Anderson seated behind him, fellow South Side Compton Crips member DeAndre "Dre" Smith behind the driver, and Terrence "Bubble Up" Brown at the wheel. (All three of the other passengers are now dead.)

According to Davis' account, the Cadillac pulled alongside a BMW driven by Knight, with Shakur in the passenger seat, near the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane just off the Las Vegas Strip. Davis said he did not have a clear shot, so he passed a loaded .40-caliber Glock to the back seat. Smith hesitated, Davis said, and Anderson grabbed the weapon and opened fire.

"He leaned over on the window. He rolled down the window, popped 'em," Davis said on the recording. "If they drove on my side, I would have popped 'em."

Davis said Knight looked directly at him as the gunfire erupted. Knight was wounded but survived the attack, while Shakur was struck multiple times and died six days later at age 25.

"We did what we had to do," Davis said of the shooting. He told investigators that after fleeing, the group returned to a hotel to "smoke weed and drink."

Sanft argued his client's account was pure fiction, and that investigators failed to quickly and vigorously corroborate it for a reason. "It's because they knew he was full of crap," Sanft told jurors during his opening statement.

Prosecutors countered that Davis repeatedly told versions of the same story over and over, growing bolder by the year. They argued that by publicly repeating his claims from the proffer, Davis waived his protections against prosecution.

Dupree said he believed Davis was telling the truth during the 2008 proffer, in part because Davis implicated his own nephew. "I didn't think Mr. Davis was lying because he put the gun in his nephew's hand," Dupree testified.

Anderson, who long had been considered a suspect in Shakur's killing, denied involvement before his death in an unrelated Compton shooting in 1998 at age 23.

At Davis' trial other witnesses described the early investigation and the atmosphere surrounding the shooting. Former Las Vegas police officer Garry Dale testified that he rode in the ambulance with the wounded Shakur and repeatedly asked him to identify his attacker. Dale said Shakur refused.

"No, we'll take care of it," Dale recalled the rapper saying.

Reggie Wright Jr., Knight's testified about the escalating East Coast-West Coast rap industry war that pitted Knight's label in California against Bad Boy Records and its CEO Sean Combs in New York. He recalled seeing Davis with members of Sean "Puffy" Combs' Bad Boy Records entourage at the 1996 Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles, where a member of the Bad Boy entourage allegedly brandished a gun.

Jurors heard testimony that police tried to corroborate Davis' claim that Combs had offered money for Knight's killing. Dupree told them Davis became a confidential informant in 2009 and traveled with investigators to New York in an effort to reconnect with Eric "Zip" Martin, the man Davis identified as his link to Combs.

Combs supposedly had given money to Zip Martin to give to Mr. Davis for payment for the Tupac murder, Dupree testified. The effort failed when Martin, who was in poor health, did not meet with Davis as investigators had hoped.

Combs, now serving a 50-month prison term for his 2025 conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, has vehemently denied any involvement in Shakur's death

[dnjp4life]

This is monumental news for west-coast rap fans, finally, 30 years later, justice has been served for 2Pac.

I never thought this would happen back when I first started listening to and following 2Pac in the late 90s.

Now let's have some ‘new' 2Pac music officially released - it's been far too long.