Tupac Murder Trial: Jurors Watch Keffe D's BET Confession and Hear How a Paid Interview Helped Build the Case Against Him
Jurors in the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas have watched on-camera footage of the man now charged with orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting describing the killing — footage prosecutors say helped strip away his legal protections and clear the path to trial.
Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 63, was arrested 27 years after Shakur died near the Las Vegas Strip. He is charged with orchestrating the shooting that killed the rapper on the night of 7 September 1996. The trial opened with opening statements in Las Vegas on 17 August 2026, with a prosecutor telling jurors that few people have ever been willing to speak about what happened that night (AP News).
Davis was one of the few who did. On Friday, jurors watched portions of the six-part BET docuseries "Death Row Chronicles," in which Davis recounted details of the shooting. In a clip from the series, Davis said he was riding in a white Cadillac with his nephew Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson and two other men when they spotted Shakur in a black BMW interacting with fans. Davis said his crew pulled a U-turn to catch up with the BMW, which was being driven by Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight (Rolling Stone).
When asked on camera who fired the shots, Davis declined to name the shooter directly. "Going to keep it for the code of the streets," he said. "It just came from the backseat, bro."
That on-camera account echoed a secret statement Davis first gave to police on 18 December 2008, at his lawyer's office in Los Angeles County. The interview was conducted by LAPD detectives and federal task force members. In that session — played for jurors at trial — Davis said he handed a loaded .40-caliber Glock to the backseat because he did not have a clear shot, and said Orlando Anderson grabbed the weapon and fired (Rolling Stone).
The 2008 interview was conducted under a "queen for a day" proffer agreement — a deal in which prosecutors agreed that nothing Davis said in the meeting could be used against him. LAPD Detective Greg Kading told Davis during the session: "Nothing you say can be used against you."
Prosecutors now argue that Davis voided that protection by repeating his account publicly. By participating in the BET docuseries and publishing his memoir "Compton Street Legend," where he restated key elements of the story, Davis stripped away the agreement's protections — a central argument in the prosecution's case (Rolling Stone).
Mario Diaz, who directed the docuseries, testified that he handed Davis at least one check for his participation, estimating the payment at $10,000 to $20,000, possibly paid in $5,000 installments. In the documentary, Davis said he was speaking out because of a cancer diagnosis. "I'm coming out now to tell the story because I got cancer," he said. "I got nothing else to lose. All I care about now is the truth."
Davis now says he lied during the 2008 police interview to gain leverage while facing a potential life sentence on drug charges, and claims he repeated the fabricated story in his BET interview for entertainment purposes because he was paid.
Prosecutors also played a recorded 2009 interview Davis gave to a Las Vegas detective, with one of the same LAPD detectives from the 2008 session present. In that interview, Davis again described riding in a car with Anderson and two other men when they spotted Knight and Shakur in the black BMW.
The prosecution has alleged that Shakur's murder was an act of revenge (BBC News). The photographer who took the final photo of Shakur before his death has also testified, and autopsy photos as well as images and video from the night of the shooting have been displayed in court (NBC Los Angeles).
What gives the trial its unusual texture is the role of television and publishing in the case. Davis's own words — spoken first to police under a promise of immunity, then to a documentary crew for payment, then in a memoir — are the evidence prosecutors are using to bring him to trial. The defence's position is that none of those statements can be trusted. Whether jurors agree will determine the outcome of a case that has waited nearly three decades for a courtroom.
