Duane Davis, also known by his artist name "Keffe D," has been arrested in the Las Vegas area Friday (September 29) for his connection to the shooting murder of legendary rapper Tupac Shakur.
The arrest was a long-awaited breakthrough in the murder case that has frustrated investigators and intrigued the public for almost 30 years.
Two officials with first-hand knowledge of the arrest told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that Davis was arrested on suspicion of murder and is set to be indicted later Friday.
AP has also contacted Davis on whether or not he had any legal representation in the charges laid out against him - and even on the previous search warrant issued wife's home - but to no avail.
According to the warrant, they were looking for items concerning Shakur's murder, which led police to collect multiple computers, a cellphone, and hard drive. The search also produced a copy of Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, several .40-caliber ammunition, two "tubs containing photographs," and a copy of Davis's memoir.
Davis's Connection to Tupac's Murder
Investigators have long known Davis as he admitted in his interviews and in his 2019 tell-all memoir "Compton Street Legend" that he was in the Cadillac from which the gunfire allegedly erupted during the drive-by shooting on September 7, 1996.
During the incident, Shakur was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion "Suge" Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. Shakur was shot when the convoy the car was in was waiting at a red light. He was still taken to hospital but succumbed to his injuries a week later.
In his memoir, Davis said he was in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and had slipped the gun used in the killing into the backseat, from where he said shots were fired.
Davis implied that his nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, was one of two people in the backseat. Anderson, a known rival of Shakur, had been involved in a casino brawl with the rapper shortly before the shooting.
Anderson died in 1998 as a result of a separate gangland shooting. He denied any involvement in Shakur's death.
Breaking Silence
Davis additionally revealed in his memoir that he first broke his silence in 2010 during a closed-door meeting with federal and local authorities. At the time, he was 46 and facing life imprisonment on drug charges when he agreed to speak with them about the murder, as well as the fatal shooting murder of Tupac's rap rival, Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace, also known as "The Notorious B.I.G.".
"They offered to let me go for running a 'criminal enterprise' and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders," he wrote. "They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out."
Both Shakur and Wallace were in the middle of the East Coast vs. West Coast rap rivalry that defined the hip-hop scene during the mid-1990s.
Retired Detective Saw Davis's Arrest Coming
Former Los Angeles police detective Greg Kading, who spent years investigating the Shakur murder and wrote a separate book about it, said he was not surprised by Davis's arrest. He believed the investigation gained new momentum in recent years following Davis's public descriptions of his role in the killing, including his 2019 memoir.
"It's those events that have given Las Vegas the ammunition and the leverage to move forward," he added. "Prior to Keffe D's public declarations, the cases were unprosecutable as they stood."
Shakur died at the height of his career, when his fourth and final solo album, "All Eyez on Me" remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. He was also nominated for a Grammy award six times. Even in death, Shakur remained one of the most influential rappers of all time.
Last June, his name was added in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with his star placed near DJ Khaled, Missy Elliot, and the late Nipsey Hussle.
