Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | August 11, 2026
On September 7th 1996, the rapper Tupac Shakur was shot in a drive-by attack on Las Vegas Boulevard. He died six days later at the age of 25. His murder has remained one of the most high-profile unsolved crimes in modern American history, although it has certainly been the topic of many theories and conspiracies. Now, almost 30 years since his murder, someone is finally on trial for the crime.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis is due to stand trial in Las Vegas, where he is accused of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He was arrested in July 2023 and has been incarcerated ever since. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.
Davis is the uncle of Orlando Anderson, a gang member nicknamed “Baby Lane.” Anderson, who was alleged to be part of the South Side Compton Crips gang, was a primary suspect in the immediate aftermath of Shakur’s death. Security footage captured Shakur and his entourage attacking Anderson several hours before the shooting. Shakur’s mother Afeni Shakur filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Anderson in 1997. A year later, Anderson died in a shootout. He had always denied shooting Shakur.
Davis, who is a gang leader with the Crips, gave a recorded interview with some cops in 2009 and claimed that he was in the opposite car when the rapper was shot and killed. He repeated that claim in 2018 in an appearance on the true crime series Unsolved, and again in his memoir the following year. He declined to name the shooter but said he was the one who had gotten rid of the murder weapon. Davis has also publicly stated multiple times that then-Bad Boy Records head Sean “Diddy” Combs had offered him $1 million to kill both Tupac and Death Row Records owner Suge Knight. He later insisted that other people wrote all the incriminating details in his book.
A lot of people have waited a long time for justice in this case. It’s one where a lot of people seem to know pretty specific details but won’t reveal the full truth because snitching usually ends poorly and being in the middle of a gang war seldom ends well. What makes this trial so interesting, other than the involvement of Shakur and the 30 years that have passed since his death, is that so many of the biggest pieces of evidence come from the guy on trial. He’s the one who’s been trying to cash in on this notoriety for years, and now he’s in a courtroom, he’s panicking and saying he made it all up for clout. “I wanted to look cool so I lied about being involved in one of the most famous unsolved crimes of all time” is certainly a defence.
The trial kicked off this week and is sure to be one of the most obsessed-over courtroom dramas of the year. I’m sure people online will be very normal and not tin-hat mad about any of it.
