Tupac's alleged killer goes on trial 30 years later after writing book detailing the murder

• Duane "Keffe D" Davis has gone on trial in Las Vegas over Tupac Shakur's 1996 murder.

• Davis previously wrote a 2019 book detailing his account of the night Tupac was shot.

• Prosecutors are using parts of the book as evidence, while Davis has pleaded not guilty.

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the only person ever charged in the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, went on trial in Las Vegas on Monday, August 10, nearly three decades after the killing.

Davis, 63, faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon, with prosecutors alleging he acted with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in Shakur's death. He has been jailed since late 2023 and has pleaded not guilty.

Davis previously wrote a tell-all book in 2019 titled "Compton Street Legend," in which he laid out his own account of the night Shakur was killed. 

The book opens in Las Vegas on the night of September 7, 1996, describing his plan to confront Shakur and Death Row Records CEO Marion "Suge" Knight over an earlier fight, and details how he got a gun and got into a car with three others before spotting Tupac's vehicle. That account has now become the central piece of evidence against him at trial, even as he maintains a not guilty plea.

Prosecutors have acknowledged the book is "salacious, prone to hyperbole" and contains inaccuracies, but argue it generally reflects the provable facts of Davis's life, while Davis's defence is expected to focus on the parts of the book that can be shown to be false in order to discredit it as evidence.

According to Davis's own earlier accounts, he provided the firearm used in the shooting to his nephew, Orlando Anderson, who is believed to have been the gunman, and Davis has said he was present in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. Anderson died before ever facing charges in connection with the case.

Shakur's killing has remained one of hip-hop's most notorious unsolved mysteries for nearly 30 years. Grand jury transcripts reviewed by prosecutors describe the shooting as the culmination of a long-running feud between rival record labels, Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records, and rival gang factions, Mob Piru and the South Side Compton Crips.

The trial is expected to last about a month, and legal observers have noted it likely will not definitively establish who pulled the trigger. Shakur's stepbrother, Maurice "Mopreme" Shakur, described the last three decades as exhausting for the family, saying he remains "cautiously optimistic" that the trial will bring the truth to light.

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