Famed rapper’s killer sentenced to decades behind bars
The man convicted of murdering famed rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996 has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison in the US.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former gang leader, was found guilty of first degree murder in August, nearly 30 years after Shakur, then just 25, was shot dead in Las Vegas.
Rap musician Tupac Shakur is shown in this 1993 photo. AP Photo
Judge Carli Kierny sentenced Davis to 20 years to life in prison for first-degree murder, and another 20 years to life in prison for use of a deadly weapon.
“The aggregate sentence is 40 years to life,” she said at the sentencing.
“You have 731 days credit time served toward that sentence. You are hereby remanded.”
In her sentencing comments, Kierny outlined the gravity of Davis’s offence.
“You don’t get to take a man from his family. You don’t get to take his very life, his whole future from him, and just walk away from it, especially when that man is Tupac Shakur,” she said.
“The world never forgot about him and his death, and neither did Las Vegas.
“It took us 30 years, but at this time you are going to face justice for what you did on September 7, 1996.”
Thirty years unsolved
For nearly three decades, the case remained unsolved: No murder weapon was ever recovered, law enforcement officials struggled with tight-lipped witnesses abiding by the gangs’ “code of the streets,” and as year after year passed, any physical evidence that might have existed slowly faded away.
But as those years went by, a new form of evidence emerged around which prosecutors would eventually build their case: Davis’ own words.
He spoke openly in interviews, documentaries and podcasts about his involvement in Shakur’s death and released a 2019 memoir recounting his version of events.
“I know the real f------ story,” he wrote.
That decision to write his book effectively negated his proffer agreement with police, prosecutors said, in which he agreed to give up information that couldn’t be used against him in exchange for a potentially lighter sentence for drug charges he was facing at the time.
Kierny ruled Davis’ statements in his memoir, as well as those made in his previous police interviews, were admissible as evidence in the trial.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced over Shakur’s death. John Locher
Prosecutors didn’t argue Davis pulled the trigger; rather, they said as a high-ranking member of the Southside Compton Crips, he orchestrated the shooting in retaliation after a fight between Shakur’s entourage and his nephew, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM Grand.
Shakur was shot later that night while riding in a car with Marion “Suge” Knight and died six days later.
Kierny handed down the sentence. At the beginning of the trial, the 63-year-old waived his right to be sentenced by the jury, who convicted him of murder after less than three hours of deliberations.
Friends and family members of rapper Tupac Shakur, including his sister Sekyiwa Shakur, second to left, line up to hug Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal, right, after a jury found Duane Davis guilty of first-degree murder. Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Pool/Las Vegas Review-Journal/AP via CNN
A quest for revenge ends in twin tragedies
On the night of September 7, 1996, thousands flocked to Sin City and the MGM Grand to watch Mike Tyson square off against Bruce Seldon in the ring – among them, Shakur and Davis. The fight lasted all of 109 seconds.
Davis wrote in his memoir that his crew was there for a night out. Then his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, was attacked by Shakur and his entourage in retaliation for a prior violent incident at a shopping mall between two rival Los Angeles gangs, the Bloods and Crips.
It would set off a chain of events that led to the death of Shakur and has long been linked in public memory to the murder of rapper Christopher Wallace, known as “Biggie Smalls,” just six months later.
Tupac (right) and Biggie Smalls (left) were shot dead within weeks of one another. Supplied
Davis and his crew “went hunting” for Shakur after the fight, prosecutors said in their closing argument. They found their target in the passenger seat of a black BMW just off the Vegas Strip.
Davis told police in 2008 he handed a gun to a passenger, Deandre Smith, in the back seat. Then his nephew, Anderson, “leaned over on the window, he rolled down the window, popped,” he said.
Four bullets entered Shakur’s body, one obliterating his lung. He died six days later on September 13.
Six months after the California rapper’s death, his biggest rival from New York, Wallace, said the coastal hip-hop feud was “game over.”
“I’m just getting over – you know what I’m saying – this whole situation with this East Coast-West Coast thing, you know?” the Brooklyn rapper told San Francisco radio station KYLD.
Less than a week later, he, too, was dead. Wallace was killed in a drive-by shooting after leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in March 1997.
Wallace’s name came up repeatedly in the Las Vegas courtroom where no one was charged with his murder.
When Davis sat down for his proffer interview with investigators in 2008, they hoped to get some information about Wallace’s death, former LAPD detective Daryn Dupree testified.
“No, we didn’t have anything to do with that one,” Davis said, according to Dupree.
“We did the other one,” he said.
Investigators, Dupree said, were “shook” by the statement. Wallace’s case, they were prepared for. They had no idea revelations about Shakur were coming.
The world of gangsters and rappers loomed large over the trial. Former gang members took the stand, some against their own will, and observers waited to see if Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records, would testify.
He ultimately didn’t take the stand, with the district attorney’s office later saying it was because “he’s not credible.”
Shakur was shot while riding in the car driven by Death Row Records chairman Suge Knight. The pair are pictured in 1996. AP
Another name that came up repeatedly was that of disgraced impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs. Davis told police there was more to Shakur’s killing than his own personal revenge, saying Combs agreed to pay him a million dollars to kill Shakur and Knight but stiffed him after Shakur’s death.
Combs is serving time in prison on unrelated charges and denied the allegations in a statement to CNN, saying, “Davis has denied his own claims, maintaining that he made the statements to gain fame and notoriety and that they were not true.”
For all the famous names and long-running theories that surfaced in court, the murder trial ultimately was about just one killing: Shakur’s. Nearly 30 years after he was fatally shot in Las Vegas, the first and only person ever tried in his murder was convicted.
“I ain’t never told nobody that story,” Davis told police in his 2008 interview after detailing his plan to go after Shakur.
“Doesn’t it feel good, man, to get it off your chest?” one officer said. Another joked Davis could write a book about it one day.
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