Tupac Murder Suspect Who Admitted Helping Kill Rapper Lied To Make Money, Lawyer Claims
There is a new update on the murder trial of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur.
Attorney Carl Arnold -- the defense attorney representing former Los Angeles area gang leader Duane "Keffe D" Davis, who is indicted with murder charges for his involvement in the killing of Tupac in 1996 -- told reporters Tuesday that his client "is giving different stories," ABC News reported.
His statement comes after a brief status check with Davis in front of a Nevada judge.
"We haven't seen more than just his world," the attorney said of his client's previous interviews and 2019 published memoir titled "Compton Street Legend: Notorious Keffe D's Street-Level Accounts of Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs and Crooked Cops."
Arnold added that his client wanted to make money with his story, so he lied about his involvement in the car-to-car shooting that killed the "Hit Em Up" artist and wounded the career of rapper Marion "Suge" Knight.
However, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said that the evidence against Davis was strong, and it's up to the jury to decide whether his accounts were true or not.
On the other hand, Davis' defense attorney thinks otherwise, saying that the police and prosecutors lack proof that his client was in Las Vegas when Shakur was shot. He also claimed that his client did not have the gun and car used in the shooting.
"We've seen video[s] of everybody else here. Where's [the] video of him? There's just nothing saying that he was here," he said.
In September 2023, Keefe D was arrested near his home on the outskirts of Las Vegas in connection with the murder of the hip-hop artist.
While he wasn't the accused gunman responsible for shooting Tupac, the gangster has long been known to investigators as one of the four suspects early in the investigation because he was the group's ringleader, according to NBC Philadephia.
"Duane Davis was the shot caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime, and he orchestrated the plan that was carried out," claimed Las Vegas Police Homicide Lt. Jason Johansson at the time.
After his recent evidentiary hearing, he is scheduled for a trial on Nov. 4.
Tupac Amaru Shakur, better known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, passed away six days after a gunman shot him four times at a stoplight in Las Vegas in September 1996. He was 25.
In Davis' memoir, he claimed that he and Knight were the only living witnesses to Shakur's shooting.
