Tupac Murder Trial: Autopsy Photos Clear the Courtroom as Prosecution Lays Out Case Against Duane "Keffe D" Davis
Some members of Tupac Shakur's family walked out of a Las Vegas courtroom before prosecutors displayed autopsy photos at the murder trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the man charged in the rapper's 1996 shooting death. The trial opened with opening statements on August 17, 2026, in Clark County, Nevada, nearly 30 years after Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip.
Davis, 63, faces a single count of murder by use of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. Jury selection began in early August, according to Reuters.
On the trial's second day, a forensic pathologist took the stand and detailed Shakur's fatal wounds, according to ABC7 and SFGate. Before the autopsy images were shown, some of Shakur's relatives left the courtroom, the Associated Press reported. The outlet did not identify which family members were present.
In opening statements the day before, a prosecutor identified only as Palal told jurors that Davis spent two hours planning an act of revenge before Shakur was gunned down, according to SFGate. The killing, the prosecutor said, was "an act of revenge."
Shakur was 25 when he was shot on September 7, 1996, while riding in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion "Suge" Knight. He died six days later. The case went unsolved for decades, becoming one of the most examined and debated killings in American music history.
Davis was indicted in 2023. He is a self-described former member of the South Side Compton Crips, a Los Angeles-area gang. He had spoken publicly and in memoir about his presence at the scene of the shooting in the years before his arrest, though his defense has challenged the reliability of those statements.
For Shakur's family and the millions of fans who have kept his legacy alive, the trial represents the closest the case has come to a courtroom resolution. Nearly three decades of books, documentaries, and speculation have circled this moment. Now a jury is hearing the evidence under oath.
The trial continues in Clark County District Court.
