Man Charged With Tupac's Murder Says His Prior Admissions Were False

New York Times

06-03-2025

Over the years, Duane Keith Davis, who goes by Keffe D, has claimed in interviews and a memoir that he was in the white Cadillac when one of the other passengers shot and killed the rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996.
When Mr. Davis was arrested and charged with Mr. Shakur's murder in 2023, the Las Vegas police confirmed that Mr. Davis's own words had reinvigorated their dormant investigation.
But now Mr. Davis, who is awaiting trial in the case, told ABC News in an interview from jail that he was innocent of the murder, that he had not been in Las Vegas at the time of the shooting and that he had not written or even read his 2019 memoir, 'Compton Street Legend,' which described the shooting and his role in it.
'They can't even place me out here,' said Mr. Davis, who has pleaded not guilty. 'They don't have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing.'
Mr. Davis was charged in September 2023 with one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, plus a gang enhancement.
Before his arrest, Mr. Davis gave numerous recorded interviews about the shooting. He repeatedly said that he was in the front passenger seat of the white Cadillac that pulled up near the vehicle holding Mr. Shakur after a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon. Mr. Shakur, one of the most prominent artists of the 1990s, was shot four times and died in a hospital days later.
The three other people that prosecutors say were in the white Cadillac are now dead.
Despite previously placing himself at the scene of the crime, Mr. Davis now says he was not in Las Vegas at all but at home in Los Angeles. He said that upward of 30 people will attend his trial — which was recently delayed until February 2026 — to corroborate his alibi.
Mr. Davis also said that his admissions of responsibility in his 2019 memoir were bogus. 'I've never read the book,' Mr. Davis told ABC, adding that his co-author took liberties. (The co-author could not be immediately reached for comment.)
'I just gave him details of my life,' he said. 'And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.'
Mr. Davis's lawyer and the Clark County District Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. His lawyer has previously said that the stories Mr. Davis told in the book and in interviews were 'for entertainment purposes.'
In the ABC interview, Mr. Davis blamed the killing on a former police officer who was working security for Death Row Records the night of the shooting. He did not provide evidence for that claim.
The indictment against Mr. Davis was a stunning turn in the nearly 30-year-old cold case in which no one had ever been charged despite an abundance of speculation.
Prosecutors say Mr. Davis 'ordered the death' of Mr. Shakur after a gang dispute involving his nephew, the rapper and his associates had escalated. Officials said in court papers that Mr. Davis had acquired a gun 'for the purpose of hunting down' the rapper and the leader of Mr. Shakur's record label, Suge Knight.
Mr. Davis's trial was originally scheduled to begin this month, but a judge granted his lawyer's request for additional time to prepare.
The verdict will most likely come down to whether jurors consider Mr. Davis's memoir and numerous videotaped interviews as legitimate admissions of guilt. In court documents, his lawyer has asserted that they are not, saying that parts of the memoir are fiction to make it more marketable.