Duane Keith "Keefe D" Davis (/ˌkiːfi ˈdiː/ KEE-fee DEE; born June 14, 1963) is an American gang member. He was charged with involvement in the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.

Davis, a childhood friend of N.W.A. frontman Eazy-E, claims that he was in the vehicle with the perpetrator when Shakur was shot.^[2] Detective Tim Brennan from Compton, California, filed an affidavit naming Davis and his nephew Orlando Anderson as suspects.^[3] Anderson was killed in a gang-related shootout in 1998. On September 29, 2023, Davis was arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Shakur.^[4][5] He has since been held without bail, and his trial is set to begin on June 3, 2024.^[6][7]

Early life

Duane Davis was born in Compton, California, on June 14, 1963. During his childhood, he played football with Suge Knight. Davis later joined the South Side Compton Crips. He married Paula Clemons.^[8]

Murder of Tupac Shakur

Three hours before Shakur's shooting on the night of September 7, 1996, Anderson was involved in a fight with Shakur and his entourage at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. In September, Las Vegas homicide Lt. Larry Spinosa told the media, "At this point, Orlando Anderson is not a suspect in the shooting of Tupac Shakur."^[9] Eventually in the investigation, Anderson was named a suspect along with his uncle.^[10] Stories circulated on the street that Anderson bragged about shooting the rapper, which he denied in an interview for VIBE magazine later.^[9]

Anderson was detained in Compton a month after the shooting with 21 other alleged gang members. Anderson was not charged.^[11] However, the raid was only tangentially connected to the Tupac shooting as Compton police said they were investigating local shootings and not the one in Las Vegas.^[12]

The Las Vegas police discounted Anderson as a suspect, according to a Los Angeles Times article, because the fight, in which Shakur was involved in assaulting Orlando Anderson in the Las Vegas MGM lobby, had happened just hours before the shooting. They failed to follow up with a member of Shakur's entourage who witnessed the shooting and told Vegas police he could identify one or more of the assailants—the witness, rapper Yaki Kadafi, was killed two months later—and they also failed to follow up on a lead from a witness who had spotted a white Cadillac similar to the car from which the fatal shots were fired and in which the shooters escaped.^[13]

A year later, Afeni Shakur, Tupac's mother, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Anderson^[14] in response to a lawsuit Anderson filed against Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, Death Row associates, and Tupac's estate. Anderson's lawsuit sought damages for injuries resulting from the scuffle the evening of Tupac's murder, for emotional and physical pain. Afeni Shakur's lawsuit was filed just four days after Anderson's.^[15] The Associated Press reported in 2000 that Shakur's estate and Anderson's estate settled the competing lawsuits just hours before the death of Orlando Anderson.^[16] Anderson's lawyer claimed the settlement would have netted Anderson $78,000.^{[citation needed]}

In September 1997, Anderson told the Los Angeles Times he was a fan of Tupac Shakur and his music, and denied having anything to do with the murder.^[17]

2000s investigations

In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published a two-part series by reporter Chuck Philips titled "Who Killed Tupac Shakur?" based on a series that looked into the events leading to the crime. The series indicated that the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the South Side Crips to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier. Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police interviewed Anderson only once as a possible suspect. He was later killed in an unrelated gang shooting. The Los Angeles Times articles included reference to the cooperation of East Coast rappers including the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac's rival at the time, and New York criminals.^[18][19]

The Notorious B.I.G. and Anderson denied a role in the murder. In support of this, Biggie's family produced computerized invoices showing that he was working in a New York recording studio the night of the drive-by shooting. His manager Wayne Barrow and fellow rapper James "Lil' Cease" Lloyd made public announcements denying Biggie had a role in the crime and stating that they were both with him in the recording studio on the night of the shooting.^[20]

The New York Times called the evidence produced by Biggie's family "inconclusive", noting:

The pages purport to be three computer printouts from Daddy's House, indicating that Wallace was in the studio recording a song called Nasty Boy on the afternoon Shakur was shot. They indicate that Wallace wrote half the session, was In and out/sat around and laid down a ref, shorthand for a reference vocal, the equivalent of a first take. But nothing indicates when the documents were created. And Louis Alfred, the recording engineer listed on the sheets, said in an interview that he remembered recording the song with Wallace in a late-night session, not during the day. He could not recall the date of the session but said it was likely not the night Shakur was shot. We would have heard about it, Mr. Alfred said.^[21]

Assistant managing editor of the Los Angeles Times Mark Duvoisin defended Philips' articles, stating they were based on police affidavits and court documents as well as interviews with investigators, witnesses to the crime and members of the South Side Crips. Duvoisin stated: "Philips' story has withstood all challenges to its accuracy, ... [and] remains the definitive account of the Shakur slaying."^[22] The main thrust of Philips' articles, implicating Anderson and the Crips, was later corroborated by former LAPD Detective Greg Kading's 2011 book Murder Rap^[23][24] and discussed in author Cathy Scott's book The Killing of Tupac Shakur.^[25] Scott claimed Biggie was not involved with the murder of Tupac in a People magazine article, saying there was no evidence pointing to Biggie Smalls as a suspect.^[26] Also, The New York Times wrote, "The Los Angeles Times articles did not offer any documentation to show that Wallace was in Las Vegas that night."^[21]

In her 2002 book (with a new edition in 2014) The Killing of Tupac Shakur, Cathy Scott^[25] reviews various theories, including the Suge Knight/Death Row theory of Tupac's murder, before stating, "Years after the primary investigations, it's still anyone's guess. No one was ever arrested but no one was ever ruled out as a suspect, either." She then wrote that one theory "transcends all the others, and implicates the white-record-company power brokers themselves", implicating the bosses of the Suge Knight label. In recent years, archived letters of her responses to readers show an evolution toward Anderson as a suspect and a dismissal of the Knight theory.^[27]

Davis's involvement

In October 2011, former LAPD Detective Greg Kading, a former investigator in the murder of Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace, released a book alleging that Sean "Diddy" Combs commissioned Duane Keith "Keefe D" Davis to kill Tupac Shakur, as well as Suge Knight, for $1 million. Davis and Kading claimed that Anderson was present in the vehicle that pulled up next to the BMW in which Tupac was shot.^[23][28] In a recorded conversation with Kading, Davis claimed Anderson fired the shots that killed Tupac.^[29]

Kading's implication of Anderson was similar to allegations made in Philips's series and Scott's book. Each account said that four black men were in the white Cadillac that pulled up alongside the BMW that Knight and Tupac were riding in on the night of the shooting. The accounts independently reported that Anderson was in the back seat of the Cadillac and shot Tupac by leaning out of the back window. Kading and Philips claimed that the Crips were offered a $1 million bounty to kill Knight and Tupac. The two accounts differ on whether the bounty was offered by Combs (as reported by Kading) or by Wallace (as reported by Phillips).^[18][19][25]

Confession to the public

On July 2, 2018, Davis confessed to having a role in the killing of Tupac Shakur after revealing he was dying of cancer.^[29] He went on to say he was the passenger in the white Cadillac on the night of the incident. He refused to name the other suspects in the car but confirmed that the shooter was Orlando Anderson, his nephew, and that it was out of retaliation for getting jumped at the MGM Grand earlier and the $1 million bounty by Puff Daddy.

Arrest and arraignment

On September 29, 2023, Davis was taken into custody by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police in connection with the murder.^[30][31][32] A house owned by his wife in nearby Henderson, Nevada, had been raided by police on July 17, 2023. Police documents stated that they were looking for items "concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur" in the raid.^[33] Davis was held without bail and charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty on November 2, 2023 in Las Vegas.^[7]

Trial schedule

On November 7, 2023, Judge Carli Kierny for the Clark County District Court scheduled for Davis' trial to begin on June 3, 2024.^[34][6]

On January 9, 2024, during a court status check, Davis was granted $750,000 bail and allowed house arrest.^[35] During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that Davis, in an October 2023 recorded jailhouse phone call with his son, authorized the execution of witnesses who might testify against him at trial. Davis' attorneys claimed they misinterpreted the conversation.^[36] The judge ordered another status check for February 20, 2024.^[37][38]

Biographical portrayals in film