Judge allows use of police interview in trial for man accused of killing
Tupac Shakur
[July 29, 2026]
By JESSICA HILL
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada judge ruled on Tuesday that the recording of
an interview the man accused in the killing Tupac Shakur gave to police
in 2008 could be used at his upcoming trial.
Judge Carli Kierny found that the interview is admissible in Duane
“Keffe D” Davis' trial, which is scheduled to start Aug. 10.
Davis, 63, is charged with murder in Shakur's 1996 killing and faces
life in prison without parole if convicted. Prosecutors allege Davis
orchestrated the killing.
Shakur’s death is considered one of the most notorious unsolved murders
in the United States. 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 weapon used to shoot Shakur.
Defense attorney Michael Sanft argued that a 2008 interview Davis gave
law enforcement was supposed to be confidential, and that detectives
explicitly told him the interview was not supposed to be used against
him.
“I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted,” Davis wrote in
his book “Compton Street Legend.”
Prosecutors argued there was no basis to exclude the interview from the
trial, which is expected to take about four weeks. They argued the
interview was no longer inadmissible when Davis chose to write his book
and speak publicly about what happened.
Davis’ attorney unsuccessfully tried to block the use of the book in the
upcoming trial, arguing that it was fictionalized to make a profit and
impossible to determine which parts, if any, he wrote. Kierny determined
Davis adopted the book as his own, citing an interview in which he
described the book as the “real truth.”
The 2008 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.” Portions of the recording
were also played in documentaries, including the recent documentary
“Sean Combs: The Reckoning.”
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Duane Davis, right, talks with attorney Michael Sanft as he appears
in district court for a pretrial hearing Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in
Las Vegas. (Sam Morris/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)
 Shakur was killed Sept. 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 beside
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
they died.
In his memoir, Davis said he obtained a handgun from an associate
and tossed it into the back seat of the Cadillac but did not say who
fired the fatal shots.
In the 2008 interview, Davis described how he and his crew saw
Shakur that night and pulled up beside them, and said that Anderson
“popped them.” Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s killing at
the time. He died two years later in an unrelated gang shooting in
Compton, California.
A witness testified to the grand jury that Anderson didn't have a
“clear shot,” so Deandrae “Freaky” Smith took the gun and fired.
Davis wrote in his book that investigators were “clearly shocked and
surprised” when he began answering questions about Tupac's death.
He also expressed regrets about talking to them.
“It kills me on the inside to know that I told them anything,” he
wrote.
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