Duane Davis sentenced to 40 years to life for the death of Tupac Shakur

Duane “Keffe D” Davis was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years to life for the murder of Tupac Shakur 30 years ago. He has 731 days of credit for time already served toward his sentence.

Davis, a former leader of the Southside Compton Crips gang, was found guilty of first-degree murder on August 31 for plotting the 1996 killing of the rap mogul near the Las Vegas Strip. He remains the only person ever charged in the death of Shakur, who was 25 and at the height of his career when his life ended.

For nearly three decades , the case remained unsolved: No murder weapon was ever recovered, law enforcement officials struggled with tight-lipped witnesses abiding by the gangs’ “code of the streets,” and as year after year passed, any physical evidence that might have existed slowly faded away.

Steve Marcus/Reuters

But as those years went by, a new form of evidence emerged around which prosecutors would eventually build their case: Davis’ own words. He spoke openly in interviews, documentaries and podcasts about his involvement in Shakur’s death and released a 2019 memoir recounting his version of events.

“I know the real f**king story,” he wrote.

That decision to write his book effectively negated his proffer agreement with police, prosecutors said, in which he agreed to give up information that couldn’t be used against him in exchange for a potentially lighter sentence for drug charges he was facing at the time.

Judge Carli Kierny ruled Davis’ statements in his memoir, as well as those made in his previous police interviews, were admissible as evidence in the trial.

Steve Marcus/Pool/Reuters

A 30-year wait for justice in Tupac’s killing ends with a murder conviction in under 3 hours

Prosecutors didn’t argue Davis pulled the trigger; rather, they said as a high-ranking member of the Southside Compton Crips, he orchestrated the shooting in retaliation after a fight between Shakur’s entourage and his nephew, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM Grand. Shakur was shot later that night while riding in a car with Marion “Suge” Knight and died six days later.

Kierny handed down the sentence. At the beginning of the trial, the 63-year-old waived his right to be sentenced by the jury, who convicted him of murder after less than three hours of deliberations.

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Pool/Las Vegas Review-Journal/AP

On the night of September 7, 1996, thousands flocked to Sin City and the MGM Grand to watch Mike Tyson square off against Bruce Seldon in the ring – among them, Shakur and Davis. The fight lasted all of 109 seconds.

Davis wrote in his memoir that his crew was there for a night out. Then his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, was attacked by Shakur and his entourage in retaliation for a prior violent incident at a shopping mall between two rival Los Angeles gangs, the Bloods and Crips. It would set off a chain of events that led to the death of Shakur and has long been linked in public memory to the murder of Christopher Wallace, known as “Biggie Smalls,” just six months later.

Davis and his crew “went hunting” for Shakur after the fight, prosecutors said in their closing argument. They found their target in the passenger seat of a black BMW just off the Vegas Strip.

Bob Berg/Getty Images

Davis told police in 2008 he handed a gun to a passenger, Deandre Smith, in the back seat. Then his nephew, Anderson, “leaned over on the window, he rolled down the window, popped,” he said.

Four bullets entered Shakur’s body, one obliterating his lung. He died six days later on September 13.

Six months after the California rapper’s death , his biggest rival from New York, Wallace, said the coastal hip-hop feud was “game over.”

Clarence Davis/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

Biggie Smalls’ still-unsolved killing keeps surfacing in a courtroom where no one is charged with it. Why?

“I’m just getting over – you know what I’m saying – this whole situation with this East Coast-West Coast thing, you know?” the Brooklyn rapper told San Francisco radio station KYLD.

Less than a week later, he, too, was dead. Wallace was killed in a drive-by shooting after leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in March 1997.

Wallace’s name came up repeatedly in the Las Vegas courtroom where no one was charged with his murder.

When Davis sat down for his proffer interview with investigators in 2008, they hoped to get some information about Wallace’s death, former LAPD detective Daryn Dupree testified.

“No, we didn’t have anything to do with that one,” Davis said, according to Dupree.

“We did the other one,” he said.

Investigators, Dupree said, were “shook” by the statement. Wallace’s case, they were prepared for. They had no idea revelations about Shakur were coming.

The world of gangsters and rappers loomed large over the trial. Former gang members took the stand, some against their own will, and observers waited to see if Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records, would testify. He ultimately didn’t take the stand, with the district attorney’s office later saying it was because “he’s not credible.”

Another name that came up repeatedly was that of disgraced impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs. Davis told police there was more to Shakur’s killing than his own personal revenge, saying Combs agreed to pay him a million dollars to kill Shakur and Knight but stiffed him after Shakur’s death. Combs is serving time in prison on unrelated charges and denied the allegations in a statement to CNN, saying, “Davis has denied his own claims, maintaining that he made the statements to gain fame and notoriety and that they were not true.”

For all the famous names and long-running theories that surfaced in court, the murder trial ultimately was about just one killing: Shakur’s. Nearly 30 years after he was fatally shot in Las Vegas, the first and only person ever tried in his murder was convicted.

“I ain’t never told nobody that story,” Davis told police in his 2008 interview after detailing his plan to go after Shakur.

“Doesn’t it feel good, man, to get it off your chest?” one officer said. Another joked Davis could write a book about it one day.

CNN’s Zoe Sottile, Andy Rose, Taylor Romine, Jack Hannah and Josh Campbell contributed to this report.

杜安·“凯夫·D”·戴维斯周二被判处40年至终身监禁，罪名是30年前谋杀图帕克·沙库尔。他已服刑731天，可抵扣刑期。

戴维斯曾是南康普顿瘸帮的头目，他于8月31日被判一级谋杀罪名成立，罪名是策划了1996年在拉斯维加斯大道附近发生的饶舌巨星沙库尔遇害案。他是迄今为止唯一因沙库尔之死而被起诉的人。沙库尔遇害时年仅25岁，正值事业巅峰。

近三十年来，这起案件一直悬而未决：凶器始终没有找到，执法人员难以应对遵守帮派“街头规则”的沉默证人，而且随着年复一年，任何可能存在的物证都慢慢消失了。

史蒂夫·马库斯/路透社

但随着时间的推移，一种新的证据浮出水面，检方最终以此为基础构建了他们的案件：戴维斯自己的供述。他曾在采访、纪录片和播客中公开谈论自己参与沙库尔之死一事，并在2019年出版了一本回忆录，讲述了他所了解的事件经过。

“我知道事情的真相，”他写道。

检察官表示，他决定写书实际上否定了他与警方达成的认罪协议。根据该协议，他同意放弃一些不能用来指控他的信息，以换取当时面临的毒品指控可能获得的较轻刑罚。

法官卡莉·基尔尼裁定，戴维斯在其回忆录中的陈述以及他之前在警方讯问中作出的陈述，均可作为审判中的证据。

史蒂夫·马库斯/Pool/路透社

图帕克遇害案历经30年，正义终于在不到3小时内得以伸张，凶手被定罪。

检方并未指控戴维斯扣动扳机；相反，他们表示，作为南康普顿瘸帮的高级成员，戴维斯策划了这起枪击事件，以报复沙库尔的随行人员与他的侄子奥兰多·安德森在米高梅大酒店发生的冲突。当晚晚些时候，沙库尔与马里恩·“苏格”·奈特同乘一辆车时遭到枪击，六天后去世。

基尔尼法官宣判了刑罚。审判开始时，这位63岁的老人放弃了由陪审团量刑的权利，陪审团经过不到三个小时的审议，裁定他犯有谋杀罪。

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Pool/拉斯维加斯评论报/美联社

1996年9月7日晚，成千上万的人涌入罪恶之城拉斯维加斯的米高梅大酒店，观看迈克·泰森与布鲁斯·塞尔登的拳击比赛——其中就包括图帕克·沙库尔和安东尼·戴维斯。这场比赛仅仅持续了109秒。

戴维斯在他的回忆录中写道，当时他一行人只是出去玩了一晚上。之后，他的侄子奥兰多·“宝贝莱恩”·安德森遭到沙库尔及其随从的袭击，以报复此前洛杉矶两个敌对帮派——血帮和瘸帮——在一家购物中心发生的暴力事件。这起事件引发了一连串的连锁反应，最终导致沙库尔的死亡，并且长期以来，公众记忆中一直将此事与六个月后克里斯托弗·华莱士（绰号“大个子斯莫尔斯”）的谋杀案联系在一起。

检方在结案陈词中称，戴维斯和他的同伙在斗殴结束后“开始追捕”沙库尔。他们在拉斯维加斯大道附近一辆黑色宝马车的副驾驶座上找到了目标。

Bob Berg/Getty Images

戴维斯在2008年告诉警方，他把一把枪递给了坐在后座的乘客德安德烈·史密斯。然后他的侄子安德森“探身到车窗边，摇下车窗，砰的一声开了枪，”他说。

沙库尔身中四枪，其中一枪击穿了他的肺部。六天后，即9月13日，他去世了。

加州说唱歌手去世六个月后，他最大的竞争对手，来自纽约的华莱士表示，沿海嘻哈界的恩怨“已经结束了”。

图片来源：Clarence Davis/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

Biggie Smalls的谋杀案至今悬而未决，却不断出现在法庭上，但始终无人因此被起诉。这是为什么？

“我还在努力摆脱——你知道我的意思——这种东西海岸之争的局面，你知道吗？”这位布鲁克林说唱歌手告诉旧金山电台 KYLD。

不到一周后，他也去世了。1997年3月，华莱士在离开洛杉矶彼得森汽车博物馆参加的一个派对后，在一次驾车枪击事件中丧生。

在拉斯维加斯法庭上，华莱士的名字被反复提及，但没有人因他的谋杀而被起诉。

前洛杉矶警察局侦探达林·杜普里作证说，2008 年戴维斯与调查人员进行认罪面谈时，他们希望获得一些关于华莱士死亡的信息。

据杜普里称，戴维斯说：“不，那件事跟我们没有任何关系。”

“我们做了另一个，”他说。

杜普里说，调查人员对这份声明感到“震惊”。他们对华莱士的案子早有准备，但对沙库尔的案子却毫无防备。

黑帮和说唱歌手的世界给这场审判蒙上了一层阴影。一些前帮派成员出庭作证，其中一些人并非自愿，而旁观者则等待着死囚唱片公司联合创始人奈特是否会出庭作证。最终他没有出庭，地方检察官办公室后来解释说，这是因为“他的证词不可信”。

另一个反复出现的名字是声名狼藉的经纪人肖恩·“迪迪”·康姆斯。戴维斯告诉警方，沙库尔的死不仅仅是他个人的复仇，康姆斯同意付给他一百万美元让他杀害沙库尔和奈特，但在沙库尔死后却赖账不还。康姆斯目前因其他罪名正在服刑，他在给CNN的一份声明中否认了这些指控，称“戴维斯否认了他自己的说法，坚称他发表这些言论是为了博取名声和恶名，而且那些话并非事实。”

尽管法庭上出现了许多名人，也出现了许多由来已久的猜测，但这场谋杀案审判最终只关乎一桩命案：图帕克·沙库尔之死。在他于拉斯维加斯遭枪击身亡近30年后，唯一一位因谋杀他而被审判的人被判有罪。

“我从来没跟任何人说过这个故事，”戴维斯在 2008 年接受警方讯问时，详细描述了他追捕沙库尔的计划后说道。

“说出来是不是感觉好多了，兄弟？”一名警官说道。另一名警官开玩笑说，戴维斯将来可以把这件事写成一本书。

CNN的佐伊·索蒂尔、安迪·罗斯、泰勒·罗明、杰克·汉娜和乔什·坎贝尔对本报道亦有贡献。