A Las Vegas jury has found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of first-degree murder for his involvement in the 1996 killing of rap legend Tupac Shakur.
Tupac’s death has gone unsolved for three decades, with conspiracy theories and speculation largely filling in the gaps of missing information. Yesterday, Monday, August 31, however, a jury took under three hours to decide that 63-year-old Davis was guilty, as per AP.
According to reports, the prosecution’s case centered around the existence of an invaluable item Davis himself produced: a self-published memoir titled Compton Street Legend.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo said that without the 228-page book, Davis might never have been prosecuted at all.
Using confessions Davis made within its pages to strengthen their case, prosecutors successfully proved to the jury that he had orchestrated the fateful attack on September 13, 1996.
Under Nevada law, an individual who aids or abets a murder can be convicted as its principal actor. Davis did not fire the shots that killed Tupac, but his memoir was interpreted by the prosecution as a lengthy confession to his involvement.
In Compton Street Legend, published in 2019, Davis wrote about the night Tupac was murdered. In the book, Davis confirmed he was inside a white Cadillac alongside three other men, while he also admitted to passing a gun into the backseat.
It has long been suspected that the shooting of Tupac came as retaliation following an assault on Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that same night after a Mike Tyson fight.
Prosecutors argued that Davis ordered the subsequent hit on Tupac. Since Davis is the only person from the aforementioned white Cadillac still alive, the testimony in his own memoir carried extra weight.
Defence attorney Michael Sanft implored the Las Vegas jury to disregard the memoir as a work of fiction, claiming that Davis had previously told a Las Vegas television reporter that he did not write the book himself.
Judge Carlie Kierny confirmed that Davis – facing a possible life sentence – may appeal his conviction after his formal sentencing on October 13.
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