For decades, two of the music world’s most notorious killings remained unsolved.
First, Tupac Shakur was gunned down on the Las Vegas Strip in 1996. Six months later, Christopher Wallace, known as Biggie Smalls, was fatally shot on Wilshire Boulevard after a music event at the Petersen Auto Museum.
Both killings captivated the public and seemed tied to gang feuds involving the rap world. But despite lengthy investigations, amateur sleuthing and endless speculation, neither case came to a resolution.
Until this week.
On Monday, a Las Vegas jury found a onetime Compton gang leader guilty in the slaying of rapper Shakur.
It only took jurors a few hours of deliberation to find that Duane “Keffe D” Davis had orchestrated the fatal 1996 shooting of Shakur as the rapper sat in a BMW next to Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight. The 63-year-old Davis, convicted of murder, faces a potential life sentence.
Davis was always a prominent figure in the case, writing a book about the murder that included self-incriminating passages. Prosecutors used his words as the central part of their case.
Legal experts say the conviction marks a victory for law enforcement officials, whose investigations into both slayings were mired in uncooperative witnesses, questionable police work and what in retrospect seem like missed opportunities.
Police had known about a potential connection between Davis and the Shakur killing since 2008, when detectives investigating the Wallace murder interviewed Davis. The man prosecutors called the shot caller for the Southside Crips-Burris Street gang allegedly told them he had nothing to do with the Wallace case — but suggested he was involved in the Las Vegas murder of Shakur.
“This was not a traditional cold case where police had no idea who was responsible,” said former L.A. prosecutor Dmitry Gorin. “Detectives identified the gangs, motive and suspects early but failed to aggressively pursue those suspects and develop reluctant witnesses.”
He said divisions and distrust existed among Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Compton detectives. “These missed opportunities allowed evidence to grow stale, witnesses to disappear or die. The older the case gets, the weaker it becomes.”
Davis was charged in 2023 by Nevada prosecutors, who cited years of statements by the defendant in which he bragged about ordering Shakur’s killing.
“He was essentially given a free pass when he admitted under the proffers to the feds, but until he wrote the book, they couldn’t use the statements,” said veteran defense attorney Mark Geragos.
Davis’ proffer agreement in 2008 meant that he would provide information to the LAPD federal task force in exchange for possible benefit — avoiding a potential life sentence for alleged drug dealing.
The killing of Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G., remains under investigation.
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. A fatal round entered his right hip and ripped through his liver, lung and heart. 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. The investigation was marred by a series of scandals, including a civil suit by Wallace’s family accusing the LAPD of wrongdoing.
In 2017, Kevin McClure, a former LAPD Robbery Homicide Division captain who oversaw the task force investigating the killing, told The Times: “The shooter is most likely dead. You cannot ask him who paid him.”
Thanks to Davis, the trail in the Shakur case was less cold.
During the two-week Las Vegas trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Davis, as his gang’s shot caller, “went hunting” — arranging the rapper’s killing by getting a .40-caliber handgun and passing it to fellow members of the Southside Crips-Burris Street gang as they rode in a Cadillac near the Las Vegas Strip on Sept. 7, 1996.
The motive, prosecutors told jurors, was revenge. Hours earlier, after a Mike Tyson fight, Shakur, Knight and members of the Mob Piru gang associated with Death Row had beaten Orlando Anderson, a nephew of Davis, at the MGM Grand.
“Duane Davis, in the culture of gangs,” could not let the beating of his nephew stand, Clark County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Binu Palal told jurors. “He acquired a firearm, got his group together, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur or Mr. Knight.”
Prosecutors told jurors they had not only heard Davis’ own incriminating words in two police interviews and a documentary, but also had been presented with a deluge of circumstantial evidence linking him to one of the most famous murders in modern history.
But Michael Sanft, Davis’ defense lawyer, argued that the prosecution had no forensics, no eyewitness and not a single shred of physical evidence placing Davis in the Cadillac with the shooter.
“The state wants you to believe this was a confession, that he was somehow there in person at the time of the shooting,” Sanft told jurors. “We can’t even put Davis in Las Vegas.”
Sanft claimed his client fabricated his story in a 2008 interview with Los Angeles police and federal authorities as part of their investigation into the 1997 slaying of Wallace, to avoid a life sentence for drug dealing. He later repeated parts of the fabricated stories to help sell his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” Sanft argued.
“You’re reading a book that is fiction and not fact,” Sanft told jurors.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said the speed with which the verdict was reached was “surprising” given the prosecution based much of its case on words spoken by Davis over the years.
“I give credit to the Clark County D.A. for bringing a very difficult cold case and getting across the finish line when every other prosecutor who considered it passed on it,” Rahmani said.
A key piece of evidence came when former LAPD Homicide Det. Daryn Dupree testified about what Davis told them during a 2008 federal task force investigation into Wallace’s killing. Dupree said Wallace told him he did not know about that shooting and then indicated: “We did the other one.”
In closing arguments, the prosecution played a recording of the 2008 interview in which Davis said Terrence Brown drove the Cadillac that night. In the back seat, according to prosecutors, were Davis’ nephew “Baby Lane” Anderson and Deandra “Big Dre” Smith. They made a U-turn after hearing someone yell Tupac’s name and seeing the BMW he was traveling in.
“If it had been on my side, I was going to blast,” Davis says on the recording. “I gave it to Dre, and Dre was like, ‘No, no, no.’ And Lane’s like, ‘Give it here.’ He popped it to him.”
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