Twenty-seven years later, one of the last living witnesses of the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur was arrested and charged with murder on Friday.
A Nevada grand jury indicted Duane “Keffe D” Davis on one count of murder with a deadly weapon, prosecutors announced at a press conference. The probe, which had stumped investigators for years, took a new turn after Davis made media statements in 2018, police said.
Davis had publicly stated in interviews and his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that he was in the Cadillac from which the gunfire erupted during the September 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. An unknown gunman in a white Cadillac shot Shakur four times in the chest at a stoplight. He died six days later at 25 years old.
“For 27 years the family of Tupac Shakur has been waiting for justice,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at the news conference. “While I know there’s been many people who did not believe that the murder of Tupac Shakur was important to this police department, I’m here to tell you that is simply not the case.”
Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo, one of the prosecutors on the case, said at the briefing that Davis was the “on-ground, on-site commander” who gave the go-ahead to assassinate Shakur.
“I know a lot of people have been watching and waiting for this day. Tupac Shakur is a music legend and for a long time, this community and worldwide have been wanting justice for Tupac. Today we are taking that first step,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said.
Davis’ indictment comes two months after Las Vegas police searched his wife’s home for items involving the murder. Police retrieved multiple computers, a cellphone and hard drive, a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, multiple .40-caliber bullets, two bins of photos, and a copy of Davis’ memoir, USA Today reported.