The Keffe D Davis murder trial heard on Thursday that Davis told police in 2008 he handed the gun used in the drive-by killing of Tupac Shakur to a fellow passenger, who passed it to Davis’s nephew, who then opened fire on the rapper.
Davis, 63, is on trial in Las Vegas charged with one count of murder with a deadly weapon over the 1996 killing of Shakur. He has pleaded not guilty.
What the 2008 recording told the jury
Prosecutors played jurors an audio recording of Davis speaking with Los Angeles Police detectives Daryn Dupree and Greg Kading, who were at the time investigating the death of another rapper, Chris Wallace, known as The Notorious B.I.G.
In the recording, Davis described the moment the Cadillac he was travelling in pulled alongside the car carrying Shakur. ‘Yeah, if we would’ve been on my side, I would’ve blasted,’ Davis said, according to a transcript shown in court.
Davis told the detectives he passed his gun to Deandre ‘Big Dre’ Smith, but that Smith did not want it. His nephew Orlando Anderson, also in the back seat, then took the weapon and opened fire, Davis said. Anderson died before the 2008 interview and had denied any involvement in Shakur’s murder.
During the interview, detective Kading told Davis: ‘Nothing you say today can be used against you.’ Prosecutors contend that any such agreement was voided when Davis went public with his account in a 2019 memoir he co-authored, Compton Street Legend.
In that memoir, Davis wrote that his nephew being attacked by Shakur’s associates gave them ‘the ultimate green light to do something to their ass.’ He also claimed he was inside the vehicle during the shooting and ‘tossed’ the gun into the back seat. Davis has since distanced himself from the book, saying parts were fictionalised to sell more copies.
Keffe D Davis murder trial: hotel record and wider case
Prosecutors allege Davis planned the shooting on 7 September 1996 after Anderson was involved in a fight with Shakur in a Las Vegas casino earlier that evening. They argue Davis believed the attack on his nephew could not ‘go unanswered’.
Separately, 8 News Now reported that prosecutors disclosed evidence they say places Davis in Las Vegas at the time of the shooting: a hotel reservation made in his wife’s name at the relevant date.
The recording and the memoir are central to the prosecution’s case. Davis has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer, Michael Sanft, has argued that what his client said in the interviews and the book cannot be taken as credible. ‘What facts do you have to support any of what Keffe D said in any of his interviews or the book?’ Sanft asked jurors. Sanft has also said prosecution witnesses were unreliable and that the police investigation was riddled with problems.
A former Las Vegas homicide detective testified earlier in the trial that no witnesses had been able to identify the shooter. A former member of Shakur’s entourage, James ‘Mob James’ McDonald, later told the court that those present within Shakur’s circle that night had quickly communicated who was responsible. ‘It was a gang war. People were getting hurt. People were being sought,’ McDonald said. ‘Orlando, him and certain other people were being sought because people wanted to kill them.’
The 2008 recording also captured Davis describing conversations with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in which he said they discussed killing Shakur. Detectives pressed Davis on meetings with Combs at Bad Boy Records tour stops in San Diego, Anaheim, Irvine and Las Vegas. ‘Which of those four is it when you talk to him about murdering Tupac?’ Kading asked, according to a transcript as Reuters reported. ‘It was really about both of them, yeah, either one of them,’ Davis responded, referring to Shakur and Death Row Records founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight. Representatives for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Prosecutors allege that although Davis did not fire the weapon himself, he ordered the shooting and supplied the gun to further the criminal conduct of the gang he helped lead.
According to Courthouse News Service, a judge sentenced Davis in September to 16 to 40 months in prison for battery by a prisoner and challenges to a fight, a separate matter that ran alongside the murder proceedings. The trial in Las Vegas continues.
