A Nevada judge ruled Tuesday that the recording of an interview with the man accused of murder Tupac Shakur given to police in 2008 could be used in his upcoming trial.Judge Carli Kierny found the interview admissible in the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, which is scheduled to begin in August. 10.Davis, 63, is charged with murder in the 1996 killing of Shakur and faces life in prison without parole if convicted.
about Death case of Tupac Shakur
The rapper’s death is considered one of the most notorious unsolved murders in the United States. Shakur was killed on September 7, 1996 in Las Vegas. He and Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight were sitting at a red light when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them near the Las Vegas Strip and gunfire erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died six days later. Knight survived with minor injuries.Three others were with Davis in the Cadillac, including his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, but Davis is the only person still alive. None of the others faced charges in Shakur’s killing before he died.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ book raises eyebrows
The case went cold until Davis began making public statements about it, including in a book he co-wrote in which he said he was in the Cadillac and provided the gun used to shoot Shakur.Defense attorney Michael Sanft argued that a 2008 interview Davis gave to law enforcement was supposed to be confidential and that detectives explicitly told him the interview was not to be used against him.
Interview reproduced in ‘Sean Combs: The Reckoning’
Prosecutors argued there was no basis to exclude the interview from the trial, which is expected to last about four weeks.The interview was used in former Los Angeles Police Department detective Greg Kading’s book “Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations.” Parts of the recording were also played in documentaries, including the recent documentary “Sean Combs: The Reckoning.”
Details revealed in Davis’ memoir
In his memoir, Davis said he obtained a gun from an associate and threw it into the backseat of the Cadillac, but did not say who fired the fatal shots.In the 2008 interview, Davis describes how he and his crew saw Shakur that night and pulled up next to him, saying Anderson “made them appear.” Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s murder at the time and died two years later in a non-gang-related shooting in Compton, California.