Jurors hear 'Keffe D' say his nephew fired fatal shots at Tupac Shakur
in 1996 drive-by shooting
[August 21, 2026]
By JESSICA HILL
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Jurors on Thursday heard Duane “Keffe D” Davis tell
detectives in 2008 that his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson fired
the shots that killed Tupac Shakur.
Davis, who said in the interview that he was also in the car with
Anderson, is accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of the
25-year-old hip-hop superstar in Las Vegas. At the time of the
interview, his nephew had been dead for a decade.
Davis said the white Cadillac he and Anderson were riding in with two
other men pulled up alongside a car with Shakur inside, along with
hip-hop mogul and Death Row Records head Marion “Suge” Knight.
“If we would have been on my side, I would have blasted,” Davis said.
Instead, Knight’s car was on the other side, so Davis passed his gun
back to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith. But Smith didn’t want it, Davis said.
Anderson, who was also in the back seat, took the weapon and started
firing, Davis said.
Jurors watched the screen as the transcript of the audio recording
rolled. Some occasionally took notes. At the beginning of the audio
interview, Davis and his attorney whispered to each other. Shakur’s
family sat still, occasionally looking at the screen or looking down to
the floor. The room was quiet as Davis described the shooting.
It was the first time Davis directly discussed his involvement in the
killing with authorities. The interview is essential evidence in the
state's case against the 63-year-old Davis. Prosecutors told jurors in
opening statements that they would lean heavily on Davis' own admissions
in interviews with police and on podcasts, as well as the 2019 memoir he
co-authored, “Compton Street Legend.”
He also previously told the FBI that his nephew was not involved in the
1996 shooting of Shakur, and speculated that Knight or Sean “Diddy”
Combs were involved.
Davis has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has called the prosecution’s
narrative “fiction” and said Davis was “full of crap” when he told
stories of his involvement, and that authorities knew it. He argued
investigators failed to back up the statements his client made with
evidence.
The Los Angeles police detectives had actually brought Davis in to talk
about the 1997 shooting death of Shakur's archrival, the Notorious B.I.G.
Davis had briefly been one of the suspects in that still unsolved
killing, but he was later discounted.
“Everybody was a suspect at that time,” Daryn Dupree, one of the
detectives in the interview, said in court testimony Thursday.
The detectives tell Davis that their discussion is confidential.
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Duane Davis appears in court during his murder trial, related to the
1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, in Clark County District Court
at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Thursday, Aug. 20,
2026. (Steve Marcus/Pool Photo via AP)
 “Nothing you say today can be used
against you,” said Greg Kading, the other detective conducting the
interview who described it in a book a few years later.
Some in the audience shook their heads when someone in the audio
tells Davis that “nothing leaves this room.”
Dupree adds, “If you don’t say nothing, it’s cool, but if you go out
there and start talking …”
Prosecutors say Davis did in fact “go out there and start talking” a
decade later when he told stories about the shooting in interviews
and the memoir. They said that nullifies any agreement he had with
law enforcement over this and other recorded conversations.
Prosecutors allege Shakur was killed to avenge Shakur’s entourage
attacking Davis’ nephew Anderson a few hours earlier at the MGM
Grand after a Mike Tyson fight. Davis was at the fight but not the
brawl.
Later in the evening, they were in the Cadillac and saw Shakur
hanging out of a black BMW with people calling out “Tupac!”
Davis said that after Lane fired the shots, he thought Knight was
dead.
Decades after his death, Shakur remains a cultural icon, and one of
the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. He died as
his popularity was peaking and his film career as an actor was
taking off. His legend has only grown in the years since.
____
Associated Press Writer Rebecca Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho
and AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los
Angeles.
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