LAS VEGAS – After three decades, a US court will begin the murder trial of deceased rap idol Tupac Shakur, parading murder accused Duane “Keffe D” Davis to answer on evidence linked to the rapper’s drive-by shooting on the night of September 7, 1996, while riding in a BMW driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight at a red light stop near the Las Vegas Strip.
Davis, 63, will be required to respond to a significant 2008 police interview, as ruled by Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny on Tuesday. His defence team had sought to exclude this interview from court proceedings, arguing that it was inadmissible.
Davis’ lawyer Michael Sanft argued that the police interview should be excluded because it was confidential with assurances it would not be used against him. 
But the judge ruled in the pretrial motion hearing that it suffices for Davis to go on trial for Shakur’s murder on the Monday of August 10, 2026, ending the long-time unresolved cold case.
Davis’ 2019 published memoir, the Compton Street Legend, pins him as the sole surviving witness to the murder of Tupac, leading to the murder charge.
The memoir diminished the filter, detailing his running of the Southside Compton Crips, further reportedly telling investigators it was his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson who “popped them”. Anderson and two other passengers involved in the night of the shooting have died, leaving Davis as the only living witness. In his memoir, Davis said he handed a handgun to someone in the back without seeing who took it and fired the shots. Davis wrote that he was inside a white Cadillac involved when he supplied the shooting weapon.
But prosecutors say the contradictions ought to be tested to see whether it was Davis who orchestrated the hit. The judge leaned on their argument that there was no legal basis to freeze the interviews as evidence. If convicted, Davis could face life without the possibility of parole.
All these years, Shakur has remained a topic of conspiracy theories through published work and produced documentaries. He died at the age of 25, six days after the shooting, in hospital. Knight survived. The interview with Davis was mentioned in the book “Murder Rap” by Los Angeles Police Department officer Greg Kading. Shakur has also been featured in the Sean Combs: The Reckoning documentary.
