Tupac‘s alleged killer, Duane “Keefe D” Davis, has received an arraignment date, after it was revealed that he’s being held without bail in Las Vegas, NV.
According to court documents obtained by HipHopDX, Davis has been charged with the Category A felony of “murder with the use of a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.” The prosecution is alleging that Davis murdered Pac at the behest of the South Side Compton Crips.
The motive for the killing, according to the prosecution, was “retribution” against the “Dear Mama” rapper, as well as former Death Row CEO Marion “Suge” Knight. Davis will be arraigned on Wednesday (October 4) for the crime.
A copy of the indictment, along with Davis’s mugshot and a copy of the upcoming docket, can be seen below.
Alleged Tupac killer Keefe D will be arraigned October 4 https://t.co/52WCdDsvQrpic.twitter.com/KNeWVKCxM1
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) September 30, 2023
The caption in the indictment refers to Davis as “Keffe D,” rather than “Keefe D,” though he’s used both nicknames interchangeably.
After the grand jury return hearing on Friday (September 29), Sheriff Kevin McMahill of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department held a press conference to discuss the details of the arrest. McMahill made clear that there’s no statute of limitations for murder in Nevada (or any other state in the union), and credited Davis’s arrest to his department’s dogged willingness to solve the case.
“For 27 years, the family of Tupac Shakur has been waiting for justice,” he said in the press conference. “It has taken countless hours — really, decades — of work by the men and women of our homicide section to get to where we are today.”
He continued: “While I know that there have 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 was simply not the case. It was not the case back then, and it is not the case today.”
Davis’s arrest marked the first ever arrest in the investigation into ‘Pac’s murder, which remained unsolved for 27 years.
2Pac was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. Six days later, he died in hospital from his injuries, cutting short the life of one of Hip Hop’s most influential figures.
Davis, 60, has long claimed that he was inside the car from which the bullets that killed ‘Pac were fired. In a 2018 interview, he claimed that his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, was one of two people sitting in the backseat of the car, the area from which the shots were let off.
Hours before the shooting, 2Pac and his entourage had gotten into a scuffle with Anderson in the lobby of the MGM Grand, which hosted the Mike Tyson vs. Bruce Seldon fight.
Anderson was identified as a suspect in the case but was never arrested or charged. He was killed in an unrelated gang shooting in 1998.
