Tupac

They were two killings that rocked the rap world.

In 1996, Tupac Shakur was gunned down off the Las Vegas Strip. Then, less than a year later, Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G., was killed in a drive-by shooting in front of the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.

The two killings have long been tied together in popular culture.

Now, a detective says the investigation into Wallace’s death helped lead police to the suspect on trial in Las Vegas in Shakur’s slaying.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a onetime Compton gang member, is accused of orchestrating the Sept. 7, 1996, killing of Shakur. Prosecutors say the killing was rooted in a war between Southside Crips-Burris Street, led by Davis, and Mob Piru, a gang long associated with Death Row Records. Shakur was closely affiliated with the record company.

Authorities say Davis was in the car with his nephew, who grabbed the murder weapon and fired the fatal bullet.

On Wednesday, former LAPD Homicide Det. Daryn Dupree said Davis set out his role in Shakur’s killing in detail in 2008 to a joint LAPD federal task force that was formed to investigate Wallace’s murder.

To force Davis’ cooperation, Dupree said investigators gathered evidence that Davis, now 63, had sold a large quantity of PCP through his home, exposing him to a potential life sentence and leaving his family open to charges.

The task force questioned Davis about a car he owned that was similar to the one used in Wallace’s L.A. killing. Davis was given a proffer agreement, according to Dupree, meaning he agreed to provide information in exchange for possible benefit.

Davis said he knew about the Smalls shooting and then indicated, “we did the other one,” Dupree testified. That statement, he said, shifted investigators’ focus to the Shakur killing.

“We were talking about Christopher Wallace,” Dupree said. “We didn’t ask him any questions about Tupac. He offered that on his own.”

In a second interview, Dupree testified Davis stated that his nephew Orlando Anderson had been jumped, spurring Davis and cohorts on a hunt for revenge against Shakur.

The attack on Anderson occurred at a Mike Tyson fight earlier on the night of Sept. 7 in Las Vegas, according to Clark County prosecutors. Earlier in the trial, video was shown of Shakur’s entourage attacking Anderson, allegedly in retaliation over a chain that Anderson had previously stolen.

“They went looking for Tupac, Suge and anybody who was involved basically in the beatdown of Mr. Anderson,” Dupree said. Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight was in the car with Shakur the night he was killed.

When they found Shakur, the former detective testified, Davis “had the gun at first, but they came up on the passenger side,” where Knight was seated, “so he could not shoot across the driver. So he handed a gun to Dre in the back seat.” Deandre “Big Dre” Smith was among those in the white Cadillac in addition to Davis and Anderson.

“Davis said Deandre Smith was afraid to shoot,” Dupree testified, so “Anderson grabbed the gun and shot across Mr. Smith into Mr. Knight’s car.”

Davis told the task force they used a .40-caliber handgun, according to testimony.

Prosecutors said they would begin playing all five hours of the interviews to jurors on Thursday.

Dupree said Davis was signed up as a confidential informant in March 2009. He said Las Vegas police were not aware of the secret conversations at the time.

Dupree testified that Davis told investigators that former rapper and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs had been involved in targeting Shakur and Knight through East Coast drug dealer Eric “Von Zip” Martin.

He testified that Davis pledged to rekindle his relationship with Martin to gather evidence. But Martin had cancer, and that was not possible, Dupree said. Martin died in 2012.

Combs was never connected to the Shakur case and has denied ever being involved. Others have questioned Davis’ credibility on this and other points.

The Times in 2008 published a story suggesting a Combs link to Shakur’s killing. But it later retracted the story, saying it was based on documents that appeared to have been forged.

Prosecutors in Davis’ trial say the motive was straight revenge for the beating of Anderson, and that Martin allegedly gave Davis a gun. But they have made no allegations against Combs, who has long denied any role or connection to Shakur’s killing.

Michael Sanft, Davis’ defense attorney, told jurors in opening statements there would be no evidence linking his client to the shooting. Sanft noted that previous investigations did not take his client’s statements seriously because they were not credible. The defense attorney, in an unusual move, repeatedly undermined his own client’s credibility, saying Davis’ memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” where he talks about the Shakur killing, was a work of fiction for money and his client wasn’t in Las Vegas.

Under cross-examination, Dupree said Davis faced a life sentence in the PCP case and that his wife and family were in jeopardy because of it, so he needed to help authorities.

He said that LAPD Det. Greg Kading, the task force leader, left the department after investigating the Shakur and Smalls cases and published a book in 2011 that revealed Davis’ interview.

Dupree said the task force was trying to determine if money was really offered to kill Shakur. He said they were trying to build a racketeering case. “This is trying to solidify that Death Row Records was built on narcotics and Bad Boy Records.”

Dupree said he personally did not doubt Davis when he talked about Anderson killing Shakur.

“I knew he loved his nephew.”

For all the notoriety of the rapper killings, neither has yet led to convictions.

Wallace was leaving a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum on March 9, 1997, sitting in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Suburban, when his killer pulled up alongside in a dark Chevy Impala.

As the SUV idled at a stoplight, the gunman opened fire, hitting the 24-year-old four times. He was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 1 a.m.

From the beginning, police said they struggled to get leads and cooperation.

As The Times reported back in 1997, “although more than 1,000 people were said to be at the party, police said they had few eyewitnesses and even fewer solid leads … Detectives said they are investigating whether Wallace’s death is linked to bicoastal tensions within the rap world, but had nothing solid to go on.”

Despite many theories and a long LAPD investigation, the case remains unsolved.

There have been numerous books, documentaries and civil litigation that make allegations, but police said they could never build a case.

In 2017, an LAPD detective told The Times: “The shooter is most likely dead. You cannot ask him who paid him.”

Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was gunned down near the Las Vegas Strip in a killing that rocked the rap world, the trial of the man prosecutors allege did everything but pull the trigger got underway Monday with new revelations.

Nevada prosecutors allege Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a one-time Compton gang member, orchestrated Shakur’s killing as revenge for an attack on his nephew hours earlier and are using Davis’ own words in interviews and a book he co-authored as evidence.

In opening statements, prosecutors said an ugly gang rivalry on the streets of Compton led to the slaying of Shakur, a famed rapper and actor, who died six days after he was shot.

The Sept. 7, 1996, shooting, they said, was rooted in a war between Southside Crips-Burris Street, led by Davis, and Mob Piru, a gang long associated with Death Row Records. Shakur was closely affiliated with Death Row, and the record company’s boss, Marion “Suge” Knight, was inside his car the night he was attacked.

In court testimony Monday, it was revealed that Shakur was conscious after the shooting en route to the hospital but did not cooperate with authorities.

The first witness, Garry Dale, a Las Vegas Metro police officer, testified that he saw Shakur pulled out of the car with gunshot wounds and rode in the ambulance with him.

When he asked Shakur who shot him, the rapper replied, “‘No, we’ll take care of it,’” Dale said. “I couldn’t get him to talk any further.”

Duane “Keffe D” Davis is accused of murder in the 1996 killing of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur.

(Steve Marcus / Associated Press)

The incident, according to Clark County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Binu Palal, followed a violent confrontation at a Mike Tyson fight earlier that night in Las Vegas. Palal showed video of Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Orlando Anderson. Travon Lane, a Mob Piru member, had spotted Anderson in the MGM Grand hotel lobby. Months earlier, Anderson stole Lane’s Death Row Records chain in the Lakewood mall during an attack.

The rivalry between the groups grew after the Southside Crips became the West Coast security for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ record label, prosecutors said.

“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Palal said. “Remarkably, you will learn that from Duane Davis himself.”

Palal noted that Shakur’s shooting was followed by numerous slayings in Compton, including that of an 11-year-old girl.

“In this world, silence means survival,” Palal said. “The one person who has had a hard time being silent is Duane Davis.”

The prosecutor played parts of an interview with a Los Angeles Police Department federal task force in 2008 in which Davis acknowledged his role in the rapper’s fatal shooting. They also cited other interviews as well as his own memoir.

The prosecutor said Davis got the gun from Eric Zip Martin, an East Coast drug dealer associated with Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment.

“He admits putting the gun he obtained that night in the back seat of the vehicle so the shooters could shoot,” the prosecutor said. “You will learn that Duane Davis got the gun. … You will learn that he got into a white Cadillac. You will learn when the opportunity presented itself for retribution, Duane Davis made sure that the shooter was armed and ready to execute their revenge.”

Palal said Davis and his crew set out in search of Knight and Shakur. In multiple accounts, including in his book “Compton Street Legend,” Davis wrote that they spotted the Death Row caravan stopped at a red light, with Shakur waving to female fans while hanging out of the BMW window.

“Tupac, he gave himself away,” Davis said in the recording played in court. “Otherwise, they would’ve got away.”

Davis was arrested in 2023 and indicted for masterminding the killing and providing the gun.

Rapper Tupac Shakur is show at Club Amazon in New York on July 23, 1993.

(Al Pereira / Getty Images)

Michael Sanft, Davis’ defense attorney, told jurors there will be no evidence linking his client to the shooting.

“There are no facts to point to Keffe — not one,” he said. “You’re going to hear about this over and over again.”

Sanft recounted decades of probes and noted that prior investigations did not take his client’s statements seriously because they were not credible. “He treats that book like it’s fact,” Sanft said of a lead detective in the case. The defense attorney, in an unusual move, repeatedly undermined his own client’s credibility.

Sanft portrayed Las Vegas police as incompetent, with lost records, and the LAPD and then Compton police as corrupt.

“What facts do they have to put Keffe D in a car in 1996? When you look at the video in 1996, do you see Keffe D?” he added, referencing the lobby beating.

Sanft said Death Row’s security chief was Reggie Wright Jr., a felon and former Compton police officer whose father led the Compton police gang unit. He said the former officer was not with Knight and ordered his security team not to carry firearms. The defense lawyer cast Davis’ memoir as fiction and said there was no evidence his client was in Las Vegas.

The prosecutor, however, told jurors that Davis, from 1998 to 2023, made several incriminating statements and, in 1998, admitted to the FBI to being in Las Vegas at the time of Shakur’s slaying.

Davis, according to prosecutors, told investigators during a secret meeting he “was mad about Orlando Anderson’s beating” and he was the boss who got the firearm and was in the white Cadillac. When Greg Kading, an LAPD detective who led the task force, left policing and later published a book revealing Davis’ role, it made Davis want to go public, according to the prosecution.

“Greg Kading is profiting off Duane Davis’ life story,” Palal said. By the time the book was released, the others who were allegedly in the car the night of the shooting were dead. Anderson was killed and Smith passed away. In 2019, after a series of interviews, Davis published his own book, which, full of bravado, gave a similar account of Shakur’s killing as that of the federal task force. The prosecutor then played an interview from the time of the book’s release, in which Davis justified his actions.

Rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight appears in court in 2018 in an unrelated case.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Ingrid Stokes, one of four women in a car that had been following Shakur the night of the attack testified that she freaked out and screamed, then fled the scene, telling police she “didn’t see anything” because “snitches get stitches.”

A third witness who testified Monday, former Las Vegas Metro Det. Brent Becker, said he interviewed Knight about the beating in the MGM Grand lobby, and Knight said he basically “didn’t know anything.” By 1997, detectives suspected that Davis was in the Cadillac that opened fire on Shakur, he testified.

Davis, now 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. In recent weeks, he’s denied being in the Cadillac or Las Vegas that night and, in interviews with Las Vegas TV stations, blamed a former head of Death Row Records security.

“I had nothing to do with nobody’s murder,” he told interviewers.

Prosecutors are expected to call witnesses to support Davis’ claims from over the years. Davis’ lawyers will seek to portray him as a fabricator — his bragging is all fiction. Davis has done the same with Las Vegas reporters.

“I did not write the book; a ghostwriter wrote that book,” Davis said in a recent jailhouse interview. “I was trying to make my family some money.”