LAS VEGAS, NV – An accused former street gang leader was arrested on Friday for the 1996 murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur, marking a significant development in a case that has gone unsolved for nearly three decades.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis was indicted by a Clark County grand jury on one count of murder with a deadly weapon. Authorities allege Davis was the mastermind behind the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur near the Las Vegas Strip. The motive is said to be retaliation for the beating of Davis’s nephew, Orlando Anderson, by members of Shakur’s entourage earlier that evening.
Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant Jason Johansson shared at a news conference that Davis “orchestrated the plan that was carried out to commit this crime.” Surveillance footage from the MGM Grand Garden Arena showed several men attacking a person identified as Anderson. Marion “Suge” Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, was among them.
Davis, along with Anderson and two others, Terrence Brown and Deandre Smith, are believed to have followed Shakur in a white Cadillac and fired the fatal shots. Shakur died six days later, while Knight suffered only minor injuries.
All three men in the Cadillac with Davis have since died, authorities said.
The arrest comes after years of Davis’s own admissions about his involvement in the shooting, including in interviews and a 2019 memoir. This led to renewed investigative efforts, culminating in a search warrant for Davis’s home in July, where additional evidence was discovered, enabling the indictment.
Davis was arrested outside his home on Friday morning and is currently in police custody. It is not clear if he has legal representation yet.
The murder of Shakur, who sold over 75 million records worldwide, has been one of the most high-profile unsolved cases in the history of rap music.
Based on an original news report by Reuters.