For three decades, rap legend and cultural icon Tupac Shakur’s killing has remained one of America’s great unsolved mysteries, spawning countless books, documentaries and long-form investigative journalism pieces. Now, the man accused of orchestrating his 1996 shooting is finally headed to trial with his memoir, as well as a Netflix docuseries on Diddy, serving as key evidence.
Jury selection began on Monday in the case against Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, who is facing one charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in Shakur’s death. Prosecutors allege Davis both ordered the killing of Shakur and provided the murder weapon. (Davis has maintained his innocence.)
On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times with a Glock .22 pistol while his car was stopped at a red light in Paradise, Nev. The bullets came from a white Cadillac that had pulled up alongside Shakur’s vehicle — which was being driven by his label boss, Marion “Suge” Knight — and struck the hip-hop artist in the chest, arm and thigh, while one of the bullets grazed Knight in the head. Shakur succumbed to his injuries six days later.
Police arrested Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of the South Side Crips gang, on Oct. 2 in connection with the shooting — only to release him the same day without being charged. Shakur and his entourage had attacked Anderson in the lobby of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the night of Sept. 7, mere hours before the shooting, after an affiliate of Shakur’s (and member of the rival Mob Pirus Bloods gang) recognized Anderson as someone who’d attempted to rob him. Two days after the shooting, on Sept. 9, the South Side Crips and Mob Pirus Bloods engaged in an all-out gang war that culminated in three deaths, and Anderson was shot in the leg and confined to a wheelchair. On Sept. 12, Shakur’s mother, Afeni, filed a wrongful death suit against Anderson, which was settled before Anderson perished in another gang shooting in 1998.
