According to the Associated Press, a man who witnessed the 1996 murder of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur was arrested in Las Vegas on September 29. Duane “Keefe D” Davis was arrested “on suspicion of murder,” per the AP, and the moment represents a potentially major break in one of music’s biggest unsolved mysteries.
Davis, 60, has long been connected to the shooting, along with his nephew, Orlando Robinson, who was fatally shot in an unrelated incident in 1998. As music journalists have pointed out, Davis has done a number of interviews talking at length about Tupac’s murder with outlets like VladTV and his alleged involvement. Davis has also spoken specifically about how his alleged relationship with Diddy apparently led him to become involved with Tupac’s murder. “If I wouldn’t have ever met him, I wouldn’t have ever been involved in this bullshit,” Davis said.
An AP piece from July revealed that Las Vegas police had raided Davis’ home, obtaining weapons, a copy of his Compton Street Legend memoir, and an issue of Vibe that featured Tupac. In 2018, Davis gave an interview as part of BET’s Death Row Chronicles, admitting to having been in the car that fired bullets at Tupac and Suge Knight on that September evening, but stopping short of identifying exactly who fired the gun, referencing “the code of the streets.” In a passage from his book, Davis claimed that he shared his insight into the murders of Tupac and Biggie with law enforcement in 2010 with the goal of keeping himself and other members of the Southside Compton Crips out of prison. (Davis has also stated that his decision to come forward and talk about his involvement was inspired by his cancer diagnosis.)
The killings of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. in 1997 have never been officially solved, and the mystery around the two shootings has become a media obsession in its own right. The 2018 criminal procedural Unsolved on the USA network focused on the investigations, and that same year Johnny Depp played Detective Russell Poole in City of Lies, a film about the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the deaths.
Grant Rindner
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