Former gang leader goes on trial in Tupac Shakur killing case

Jury selection began in Las Vegas for the only person ever charged in Tupac Shakur’s killing, nearly 30 years after the rapper was shot dead in a drive-by attack. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

The case is being heard in Clark County District Court and revives one of the most notorious unsolved killings in music history. Shakur was killed on Sept. 7, 1996, and prosecutors say Davis was part of a group that planned the attack and provided the gun. His long public account of the case is now central to the prosecution, turning his own words into evidence against him.

A judge ruled that the book Davis wrote can be used at trial, and prosecutors also intend to use interviews in which Davis described the killing. Davis has long placed himself at the scene of Shakur’s death, a position that has made him a pivotal figure in the state’s case and a rare defendant whose statements are expected to help drive the prosecution’s narrative.

The trial has drawn extraordinary attention because the shooting left behind decades of speculation, conspiracy theories and frustration. Shakur’s death became one of hip-hop’s defining unsolved mysteries, tied to the East Coast-West Coast feud and years of debate over who ordered the ambush outside Las Vegas. Davis is now the sole man ever charged, making the trial a belated test of whether prosecutors can still build a credible case around events that happened in 1996.

Witness testimony is expected to be sensitive. Suge Knight has said he does not want to testify, adding another layer of uncertainty to a case already built around aging memories, recorded statements and a murder charge that has sat unresolved for most of three decades. The proceedings in Clark County now put a long-dormant investigation back under a courtroom spotlight, with Davis facing the most serious reckoning yet for a killing that changed hip-hop history.