Former gang leader found guilty of orchestrating Tupac’s murder after three decades

63-year-old Duane "Keffe D" Davis was accused of instigating, but not conducting, the murder

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the lead suspect in the murder trial of Tupac Shakur, was found guilty of orchestrating the rapper’s 1996 killing yesterday, August 31.

It concluded a decades-long mystery around the murder of Tupac, who was targeted in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas some 30 years ago. He was just 25-years-old when he was killed.

According to BBC News, Davis, 63, stood in front of a Las Vegas court dressed in a black suit earlier this week when the verdict was read to him, with a jury finding him guilty of instigating, but not conducting, the murder.

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The jury heard that while Davis was not responsible for firing the gun that killed Tupac, he was the one who ordered the shooting and supplied the gun.

In a 2008 recorded police interview, Davis - a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips gang - admitted that he was in the car at the time that his nephew, Orlando Anderson, fired the gun at Tupac.

Other evidence used against Davis included his own description of the killing in the 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend, which cited both Davis’ and Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight’s eyewitness accounts of the murder.

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The jury reportedly reached its verdict within three hours, The Guardian reports, finding Davis guilty. The former gang boss was originally arrested in 2023, but pleaded not guilty.

Davis has said he will appeal the verdict following the recent weeks-long murder trial, which saw 25 witnesses brought to the stand. Defence attorneys argued that Davis’ previous statements around the shooting were exaggerated for public interest.

Tupac’s cousin, Zayd Akinyela, told reporters that the family of the late rapper have been “waiting 30 years to grieve properly”, and that “a lot of people don’t get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened.”

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor

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