‘Keffe D’ sentenced to 40 years to life for Tupac Shakur’s murder
Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for his role in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. Prosecutors said he organized the 1996 drive-by shooting, though he did not fire the fatal shots.
Judge Carli Kierny imposed the sentence Tuesday, ordering the 63-year-old to serve 20 years to life for first-degree murder and a consecutive 20 years to life for using a deadly weapon. He received credit for 731 days already served.
“You don’t get to take a man from his family,” Kierny told Davis. “You don’t get to take his very life, his whole future from him and just walk away from it.”
A Clark County jury convicted Davis in August after less than three hours of deliberations, according to ABC News. Jurors unanimously found him guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon.
Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader who later moved to the Las Vegas suburbs, was arrested in September 2023 and has remained in custody since. He pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence.
His lawyers argued that he had fabricated accounts of his involvement and that there was insufficient evidence to place him in Las Vegas that night or inside the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired.
Prosecutors argued that his repeated public accounts of the killing were supported by other evidence presented at trial. Investigators credited those statements with helping revive the case, according to ABC News.
The rapper was shot on September 7, 1996, while riding in a car with music executive Marion “Suge” Knight near the Las Vegas Strip. The shooting followed the Mike Tyson–Bruce Seldon boxing match. Shakur died six days later, on September 13, at age 25.
His sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, addressed the court before sentencing, describing her brother as a protector who had helped care for younger children in the family while growing up in New York.
“The loss of Tupac for a long time crippled my entire family emotionally and mentally,” she said.
She said their mother had raised him to be a human rights activist and that he hoped his success would change how people viewed other Black men who came from similar circumstances.
“He had so much promise, intentions for a better world for our people,” she said. “He had plans. He had manifestos.”
The post ‘Keffe D’ sentenced to 40 years to life for Tupac Shakur’s murder appeared first on BNO News.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
