Las Vegas police have made a long-awaited arrest in one of the most perplexing cold cases around. On the morning of September 29, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was arrested, linked to the unsolved drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur aka 2Pac that took place on the Las Vegas strip on September 7, 1996.
The murder of Tupac has remained a mystery to law enforcement and has captivated the public for almost three decades. Over the years, numerous documentaries, investigative TV series, books, and conspiracy theories have emerged, all striving to uncover the truth behind the tragic demise of the then-25-year-old rapper.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a 60-year-old alleged member of the South Side Compton Crips street gang, is the uncle of Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a fellow gang member who has been a prime suspect in Shakur’s killing for quite a while. The chain of events leading to Shakur’s murder began when Anderson was reportedly involved in snatching a Death Row chain from the rapper in July 1996. This kicked off a fight between Anderson and Shakur. Anderson died in a separate gang-related incident in 1998, never facing charges for Shakur’s murder.
Back in July, Las Vegas PD executed a search warrant at Davis’ residence in Henderson, Nevada, as part of their ongoing Shakur murder investigation. While specifics of the search remained undisclosed at that time, NBC News reported they seized computers, electronic devices, audio recordings, and various paraphernalia, including a distinctive Pokeball USB drive, a black iPhone, two iPads, and a purple Toshiba laptop.
The night Tupac Shakur was fatally shot, he was riding in a black BMW driven by Marion “Suge” Knight, the founder of Death Row Records. They were halted at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip, following a Mike Tyson fight. A white Cadillac pulled up alongside Shakur’s car, from which an assailant fired 14 rounds. Shakur was hit four times and urgently transported to a nearby hospital, where he ultimately succumbed to his injuries a week later. The unresolved nature of this case has given rise to numerous theories, some suggesting a connection to the still-unsolved murder of the Notorious B.I.G. in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, six months after Shakur’s murder – further fueling the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry.
In 2018, Davis claimed during an episode of BET’s Death Row Chronicles that he knew the identity of 2Pac’s killer, though he never revealed a name at that time. However, he implied that Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson might have been the gunman. In his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” Davis portrayed himself as the last living witness to the incident. No arrests had been made in this decades-old investigation until this significant breakthrough. Also, Nevada does not impose a statute of limitations for prosecuting homicide cases.
Greg Kading, a retired LAPD detective who dedicated years to investigating the Shakur murder and subsequently authored a book on the subject, conducted interviews with Davis in 2008 and 2009 as part of the LAPD’s investigation into the Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. (Smalls) homicides. Kading believes that Davis’s recent public statements and his description of his involvement in his memoir have breathed new life into the Shakur investigation. According to Kading, “It’s those events that have given Las Vegas the ammunition and the leverage to move forward… He put himself squarely in the middle of the conspiracy. He had acquired the gun, he had given the gun to the shooter, and he had been present in the vehicle when they hunted down and located both Tupac and Suge (Knight).”
