Duane Davis found guilty in Tupac Shakur murder case

A Las Vegas jury has found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty in the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur, delivering a verdict nearly three decades after the rapper was fatally shot. Jurors deliberated for about three hours before convicting Davis on a murder charge involving the use of a deadly weapon and an intent to further or assist a criminal gang.

What the jury decided

Davis, 63, was accused of organizing the retaliatory attack that followed a confrontation involving Shakur’s group at the MGM Grand on Sept. 7, 1996. Prosecutors did not argue that Davis fired the shots. Instead, they said he helped arrange the drive-by attack and supplied the weapon used by the gunman.

The state’s case drew on witness testimony as well as statements Davis made over the years in interviews and in his memoir. Prosecutors told jurors those accounts showed his role in setting the shooting in motion. Defense attorney Michael Sanft challenged that interpretation, arguing that Davis had exaggerated or fabricated earlier claims and that the prosecution lacked reliable physical evidence tying him to the crime.

Sentencing and an appeal

After the verdict was announced, Davis said in court that he intended to appeal. The judge ordered him held without bail, and sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 13. He faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, although the precise sentence has not yet been imposed.

Shakur was 25 when he was shot while riding in a car near the Las Vegas Strip. He died six days later. His death became one of music’s most scrutinized unsolved cases, generating decades of investigations, documentaries and speculation before Davis was arrested in September 2023.

The conviction closes the trial phase but not the legal case. Sentencing and any appeal will determine what comes next for Davis, while the verdict marks the first criminal conviction directly tied to Shakur’s killing.