Former Los Angeles gang member Duane “Keffe D” Davis was found guilty on Monday of the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, closing one of America’s most notorious cold cases nearly three decades after the shooting.
A Las Vegas jury convicted Davis, 63, of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon after a few hours of deliberation. He faces possible life imprisonment without parole and told the judge he intended to appeal.
Prosecutors said Davis, once a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered Shakur’s killing after his nephew was beaten by members of Shakur’s entourage at a Las Vegas casino. “Duane Davis, in the culture of gangs, could not let that stand”, prosecutor Binu Palal said.
Shakur, in town for a Mike Tyson fight, was shot two hours later. A white Cadillac pulled alongside the BMW carrying him at a red light and a gunman opened fire. Shakur died six days later, aged 25. Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight, the driver, was wounded.
Prosecutors alleged Davis supplied the gun and ordered someone in the Cadillac’s back seat to shoot. He is the only person who was inside the vehicle that night who is still alive.
Momentum returned after Davis’s 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend” and interviews describing his involvement. Prosecutors played clips of the alleged confessions, but defence lawyer Michael Sanft called them fiction intended to sell the book. He said no evidence implicated Davis beyond his own statements. Sentencing is scheduled for October 13. — AFP
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