Keffe D Convicted in Tupac Shakur Murder After Three Hours of Deliberation

After roughly three hours of deliberation, a Las Vegas jury convicted Duane “Keffe D” Davis of first-degree murder in the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur. The decision closes one thread of a case that remained a central open wound in hip-hop history for nearly three decades.

Greg Kading, the former Los Angeles police detective who led a task force investigating the killings of Shakur and Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, watched the livestream from his Southern California home with a bottle of champagne. When the verdict landed, he and his family drank it. “I was really kind of surprised, shocked even, that it came back that quickly,” Kading said. “The jurors really got it. They were able to see through all the smoke, to see this case for what it is: Basically, Keffe talked himself into prison.”

Kading’s role went beyond investigation. In 2008, he and detective Daryn Dupree questioned Davis about Wallace’s killing. Davis denied involvement but, according to testimony, said of Shakur: “We did the other one.” A surreptitiously recorded proffer interview captured Davis describing how he handed a loaded .40-caliber Glock into the back seat before his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson opened fire. Those statements could not be used directly in a criminal case, but Kading later published Murder Rap, a book that disclosed the confession. Prosecutors argued the disclosures angered Davis and led him to speak publicly about the killing on BET and hip-hop platforms.

The verdict is less a return to the past than a confirmation of how much of the case had already been aired outside a courtroom.