Nearly 30 years ago, Tupac Shakur, known by the stage name 2Pac, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
One of four men in a white Cadillac fired 13 shots into the 25-year-old rap legend’s vehicle, according to TIME reporting from September 1996. Shakur was riding with the co-founder of Death Row Records, Marion “Suge” Knight. Knight was grazed by a bullet but survived. Shakur was shot multiple times, and one bullet tore through his lung; he was pronounced dead at the hospital six days later on Sept. 13, 1996.
The events that unfolded have been the subject of many true crime documentaries, books, and podcasts. But one fundamental question has remained unresolved: Who was responsible for Shakur's death?
The first person ever charged in Shakur’s murder faces trial on Monday in Nevada.
On trial is Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips. At the time of Shakur’s murder, the Crips were associated with the New York-based Bad Boy Records amid a hip-hop rivalry with the Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, which signed Shakur.
Davis is not accused of firing the shots that killed Shakur; rather, prosecutors allege that he orchestrated the attack. He is charged with “murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further, or assist a criminal gang.” Under Nevada law, someone who aids or abets a crime—or encourages, hires, commands, or otherwise induces another person to commit it—can be prosecuted as a principal.
Shakur’s murder went unsolved for years, but it never faded from public interest. In 2008, law enforcement interviewed Davis, but a proffer agreement that his defense says prevented his statements from later being used against him.
In 2019, Davis published his memoir, “Compton Street Legend.” He gave multiple interviews promoting his book—and the role of the Crips in Shakur’s death. He describes himself as “one of the only living eyewitnesses to Tupac’s killing.”
“Tupac was a guppy that got swallowed up by some ferocious sharks,” Davis wrote, though he said he felt “a deep sense of remorse for what happened.”
Those public disclosures helped revive the investigation.
Davis was arrested in 2023, when he was charged with obtaining a gun “for the purpose of seeking retribution against” Shakur and Knight. Prosecutors allege that the gun Davis obtained the night of the shooting was expressly intended to deliver retribution for an incident earlier in the evening in which Shakur and his associates attacked Davis’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
The altercation took place after Shakur and Knight attended Mike Tyson’s boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Footage from the hotel lobby shows the two, along with others in their entourage, confronting Anderson after the match.
“We couldn’t let no record company studio gangsters do us like that,” Davis wrote in his memoir, before describing the moment that he and three other men—his nephew Anderson, DeAndre “Dre” Smith, and Terrence “T-Brown” Brown, all of whom have since died—eventually spotted Shakur on the street in Las Vegas that night.
“No words exchanged, the time for talking had passed,” he said.
Davis described passing a handgun to the back of the Cadillac as they approached Shakur’s vehicle in his book—but he did not say who fired the fatal shots. It remains unclear which of the two individuals in the backseat, Anderson or Smith, actually shot Shakur.