Tupac murder: Man behind it gets 40 years to life in prison

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the only person ever charged with the murder of Tupac Shakur, was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday in a Las Vegas court, more than 30 years after the rap icon was gunned down near the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996, ABC News reports.

Davis, 63, a onetime Los Angeles gang leader, was arrested in September 2023 and charged with murder in connection with Shakur’s killing. Prosecutors said that although Davis did not pull the trigger, he orchestrated the drive-by shooting as the “shot caller,” citing his repeated confessions across police interviews, a self-published memoir and on-camera interviews over the years. “I beat the streets, I beat the Feds, and I beat cancer,” prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo quoted Davis as telling jurors, arguing Davis was “trying to beat 12 of you” by denying responsibility in court.

Davis’s lawyers argued he had lied about his involvement and that prosecutors lacked sufficient proof placing him in the white Cadillac from which the fatal shots were fired. However, after less than three hours of deliberation in August, a Clark County jury unanimously found him guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon.

Investigators said Davis’s own public statements, made in violation of a prior immunity agreement with a joint LA task force, helped reinvigorate the decades-old case. Davis has said he plans to appeal the conviction. He has been in custody since his arrest and maintained his innocence throughout the trial.