Las Vegas jury returns verdict against ex-South Side Compton Crips gang leader in killing of US rap legend
Thirty years of waiting, a memoir and a trial: conviction in Tupac Shakur killing brings closure
A Las Vegas jury has found former South Side Compton Crips gang leader Duane Keith Davis guilty of the murder of Tupac Shakur, bringing the case to a close nearly 30 years after the famous rapper was gunned down.
The jury took about three hours to reach a guilty verdict in a case that relied heavily on multiple confessions from Davis himself, including his description of the killing in the 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend.
Shakur was born in 1971 in East Harlem, New York, and rose to fame in the early 90s, with poetic flow that doubled as sharp commentary on social injustice, including systemic racism, police brutality and the struggles felt by marginalized communities.
Regarded among the greatest rappers to ever live, Shakur affected generations and continued to be celebrated around the world even years after his life was cut short. He was only 25 years old when he died in the hospital days after being shot four times in a car near the Las Vegas Strip.
Reverence for the rapper has long inspired conspiracy theories about his death as questions swirled around who was involved, why the case remained open for years and even whether Shakur was actually dead.
The trial has offered some resolution, even as family members and fans continue to mourn both the man and the years it took to bring details of his death to light.
Over the weeks-long trial, Marc DiGiacomo, the Clark county district attorney, and Binu Palal, the chief deputy district attorney, brought 25 witnesses to the stand – including some who had to be ordered by the court because they were reluctant to testify – in their case against Davis.
The 63-year-old man who was accused of instigating the deadly shooting, although not pulling the trigger himself, had spent years telling investigators and interviewers alike of his direct involvement before he was arrested in 2023.
Davis’s attorney Michael Sanft tried to frame the stories and statements as the exaggerated and embellished claims of a man hoping to benefit from the public interest and unanswered questions around Shakur’s murder.
Prosecutors played eight hours of recordings, taken from four separate events in different years, during which Davis shared in his own words what happened the night of 7 September 1996. Davis wrote that he had hatched the plan to retaliate against Shakur after the rapper’s entourage beat his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in the lobby of the MGM Grand earlier that night. Anderson, who died two years later in an unrelated shootout, was a member of a rival gang in Compton, California.
Shakur and the founder of his label, Marion “Suge” Knight, had attended a Mike Tyson boxing match at the casino when the altercation with Anderson took place, and were on their way to an after-party. A white Cadillac pulled up next to them while they were stopped at a red light, and someone in that car began shooting, according to investigators.
In his book, Davis claimed to have been in that car, and that he had brought a .40-caliber Glock with him. “Them jumping on my nephew gave us the green light to want to do something to their ass,” he wrote. “Pac chose the wrong game to play.”
Tupac’s sister, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, cried as the verdict was read, while Davis’s son covered his face with his hand, according to the Associated Press.
