Trial of former gang leader to begin over Tupac Shakur murder

Prosecutors to allege Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis ordered killing and provided gun in Las Vegas drive-by shooting of rapper The trial is to begin of a former gang leader over the decades-old killing of the rapper Tupac Shakur , one of the most high-profile unsolved murders in the US. The proceedings, which begin in Las Vegas on Monday and are expected to last a month, are unlikely to make clear who fired the shots that killed the musician on 7 September 1996 while he was in the city to see a Mike Tyson boxing match. Prosecutors aim to show that Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the one-time leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered the killing and provided the gun used to kill Shakur in a drive-by shooting. Davis, 63, faces life in prison without parole if convicted. The killing of Shakur, also known as 2Pac, has prompted endless debate among music fans over who did it and why .

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Scoop News DeskLas Vegas, Nevada · Published Monday, August 10, 2026 at 9:36 AM UTCUpdated Monday, August 10, 2026 at 12:37 PM UTC

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They can’t even put me in Las Vegas.” He has also said he never read his memoirs, and that the claims were inflated by his co-author to generate book sales. “I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.” In the run-up to the trial, Davis’s lawyers tried in vain to keep the book from being introduced as evidence, along with remarks he made in an interview with police in 2008 as a witness to the killing.

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