The Investigation: From Crime Scene to Conviction

As of October 2026: Duane “Keffe D” Davis was found guilty of the murder of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas on August 31, 2026. Sentencing is set for October 13, 2026; he faces life in prison. Davis has announced an appeal, so the verdict is not yet final.

In 2008 Duane “Keffe D” Davis sat across from investigators who were actually trying to solve the murder of The Notorious B.I.G. He had nothing to do with that one, he told them. Then came the line that would be quoted again and again in a Las Vegas courtroom 18 years later: “We did the other one.” He meant Tupac Shakur.

For 27 years Tupac’s murder was one of the best-known unsolved crimes in the United States. Police believed early on that they knew where the shots had come from, but nobody would testify. In the end the charge came not from evidence at the scene but from a man who spent years talking about the night himself. The investigation runs from the evening of September 7, 1996, to the 2026 verdict. The shooting itself is covered on The 1996 Las Vegas shooting.

1996: a convoy full of witnesses who saw nothing

The case belonged to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, known as Metro. Detective Brent Becker led the investigation, and Sergeant Kevin Manning spoke for the department. The core problem was visible on the very first night: dozens of people had been driving in the convoy behind Tupac and Suge Knight, yet hardly anyone admitted to seeing anything. Knight told detectives he had “heard something, but saw nothing.”

Police complained publicly about the silence of the Death Row camp. Tupac’s people, for their part, felt they had been treated like suspects at the scene.

The trail leads to Compton

Compton soon mattered more than the crime scene. According to a sworn statement by police there, informants were offering a name within days of the shooting: Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of the Southside Compton Crips. He was the man Tupac and his companions had beaten up in the MGM Grand lobby earlier that evening. Death Row associate Travon Lane is said to have declared that same night that the shooter was “Keffe D’s nephew.”

A gang war broke out between the Crips and the Death Row-linked Mob Piru Bloods, leaving people dead and wounded. On October 2, 1996, Anderson was arrested in a large raid in Compton and released without charge. In December 1996 Las Vegas police told MTV they believed they knew who had shot Tupac. Without willing witnesses, though, they had no case that would hold up in court. Suge Knight, they said, was not a suspect.

1997 to 1998: witnesses who never became witnesses

The only person who said on the night of the shooting that he might be able to recognize the gunman was Yafeu “Yaki Kadafi” Fula of the Outlawz. On November 10, 1996, he was shot dead in New Jersey before police could interview him at length. They saw no connection.

In early 1997 Tupac’s bodyguard Frank Alexander and backup rapper Malcolm Greenidge told the Los Angeles Times they had seen the men in the Cadillac but had never been asked to look at photos. Police countered that on the night itself both had said they could not identify anyone. When Alexander was shown photos in March 1997, he did not recognize anyone.

Afeni Shakur accused the police of not even keeping her informed about the investigation. In September 1997 Orlando Anderson sued Tupac’s estate over the beating at the MGM Grand; Afeni Shakur in turn sued him for the wrongful death of her son. Anderson denied any involvement, saying Tupac had been “like a hero” to him.

On May 29, 1998, Anderson was killed in a shootout at a car wash in Compton. Police saw no connection to Tupac. Anderson was never charged.

1997 to 2009: through Biggie to Keffe D

On March 9, 1997, six months after Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead from a car in Los Angeles. From then on the two cases were thought of together. In September 2002 the Los Angeles Times published a major investigation by reporter Chuck Philips: Anderson had been the shooter, and Biggie had offered the Crips money for the killing. Biggie’s family rejected this immediately. The allegation against Biggie was never substantiated.

The decisive step came from a task force of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and federal agencies that reopened the Biggie murder from around 2006 under LAPD detective Greg Kading. In 2008 it sat down with Duane Keith Davis, known as “Keffe D”: Anderson’s uncle and, according to investigators, a leading figure in the Southside Compton Crips. Davis was facing life in prison in a drug case. In a so-called proffer session, a confidential interview in which a suspect offers investigators what he knows, he denied any role in Biggie’s murder and spoke that line: “We did the other one.”

In recorded conversations in 2008, Davis described the night in detail: he had obtained the gun and had been in the Cadillac. He also claimed that Sean “Puffy” Combs had offered a million dollars, through a middleman, for the deaths of Tupac and Suge Knight. Combs has always denied this. When Kading published the allegations in his 2011 book Murder Rap, Combs’ side dismissed them as “pure fiction.” Combs was never accused or charged in the Shakur case, and prosecutors at the 2026 trial made no allegations against him.

No charges followed at the time. Davis’ statements were covered by a proffer agreement meant to shield them from direct use against him, and the murder fell under the jurisdiction of Las Vegas, not Los Angeles. Whether, and how much, Las Vegas police learned about it back then is disputed by those involved.

2018 to 2019: Davis tells the story himself

Then Davis went public. In 2018 he appeared in the BET documentary series Death Row Chronicles and in YouTube interviews. He said he had been in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac; Terrence “T-Brown” Brown had been driving, and his nephew Orlando Anderson and DeAndre “Dre” Smith had been in the back. The shots, he said, came from the back seat. He did not publicly name the shooter. In 2019 he followed up with his memoir Compton Street Legend, describing his role.

By then the three other men from the Cadillac were dead, and Davis was the last one alive. Las Vegas police reopened the case in 2018. Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo later said that without the book, Davis would probably never have been charged.

2023: an arrest after 27 years

On July 17, 2023, police searched a house in Henderson, near Las Vegas, belonging to Davis’ wife. On September 29, 2023, Davis was arrested near his home in Henderson. A grand jury, a panel of citizens that decides whether charges are brought, indicted him for murder with use of a deadly weapon, with an enhancement alleging that the crime benefited a criminal gang.

Prosecutors did not accuse him of firing the shots. Their case was that he had planned the attack as a leader and supplied the gun. On November 2, 2023, Davis pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

2024 to 2026: almost three years to the first day of trial

Between the arrest and the trial came motions, custody hearings and postponements:

Tupac’s family followed the case closely. In 2024 it hired lawyer Alex Spiro to look into possible links to Sean Combs.

The trial

On August 17, 2026, prosecution and defense gave their opening statements in District Court in Las Vegas. “Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting,” prosecutor Binu Palal said. Prosecutors portrayed Davis as a “shot-caller,” the man who gives the orders: after his nephew was beaten at the MGM Grand, he got a gun and went looking for Tupac and Suge Knight with his crew.

After almost 30 years there was little physical evidence. At the center were Davis’ own statements: the 2008 recordings, the TV and YouTube interviews, the book. Added to these were an Excalibur hotel receipt in Anderson’s name, a scrapbook of articles about Tupac and Biggie found at Davis’ home, and one detail from 2008: Davis had said back then that a Chrysler Sebring followed them after the shooting. That had not been public knowledge at the time.

Former investigators testified, as did a former Mob Piru member and a gang expert. Prosecutors called 24 witnesses, the defense three. Davis did not testify.

The defense argued that nothing apart from Davis’ own contradictory stories showed he had even been in Las Vegas that night. His book, it said, was largely invented, and he had wanted to make money from his story. Even prosecutor DiGiacomo conceded the book was mostly “garbage.” Its core, he said, had stayed the same in every version: Davis was in the Cadillac.

A verdict after less than three hours

On August 31, 2026, after less than three hours of deliberation, the jury found Davis guilty of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon (per NPR and AP). Prosecutors had dropped the gang enhancement shortly before. Davis is the first and only person ever convicted of killing Tupac Shakur.

Members of Tupac’s family were in the courtroom, among them his sister Sekyiwa Shakur, who cried when the verdict was read. Davis showed little reaction and told the judge he wanted to appeal. His lawyer cited possible grounds: the admission of the proffer statements, pretrial publicity and the short deliberation. A few days later, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Davis maintained his innocence: he had not been in Las Vegas that night, and the book and interviews had been made up.

Sentencing is set for October 13, 2026. Until then Davis is being held without bail.

What the verdict leaves open

The court did not decide who pulled the trigger in the Cadillac. Under US law, a person who enables and plans a killing can be convicted of murder. In his 2008 interviews Davis named his nephew Orlando Anderson as the shooter, while a grand jury witness in 2023 named DeAndre Smith. Both are dead and can no longer respond; neither was ever charged.

Whether anyone ordered the killing also remains open. Davis’ claim of a bounty from the Bad Boy camp is unproven and denied. And the verdict is not final: until an appeal is decided, it stands as provisional. This page will be updated once sentence has been passed.

The many theories that grew up in the 27 years without a charge are covered on Theories. That there are so many of them has a lot to do with the silence that stalled the investigation in 1996.