A Las Vegas jury deliberated for only three hours on Monday before returning a guilty verdict in the shooting death of rap icon Tupac Shakur in 1996.
The jury found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of one charge of murder with the use of a deadly weapon after the weeks-long trial.
Davis said in his memoir that he was riding in the front seat of the car used in the shooting and passed the gun to someone in the back seat.
Nevada prosecutors cited numerous times when Davis openly bragged about orchestrating the death of Shakur, including in an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Shakur, whose real name was Lesane Crooks, was shot and killed while riding in a BMW with Marion “Suge” Knight. His death was a blow to the hip-hop world and has sparked countless speculation and conspiracy theories.
The case had gone cold until Davis wrote a tell-all memoir in 2019, which reopened the case. Jurors heard evidence that the shooting was the result of a gang feud between the Mob Piru Bloods and the South Side Compton Crips.
Shakur and Knight were associated with the Bloods, while Davis was a prominent leader in the Crips gang.
Prosecutors said Davis had ordered the September 7, 1996, killing and provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting. Davis said in his memoir that he was riding in the front seat of the car used in the shooting and passed the gun to someone in the back seat, but did not say who the person was.
Shakur was critically injured and died days later at a hospital.
A rap fan named Jessica Martin, who sat through the entire trial, expressed her emotions to the Associated Press.
“It was kinda hard for me to feel so happy at the same time knowing someone is going to jail for so long,” Martin said as tears welled up in her eyes. “But then I looked over at Tupac’s family and it reminded me of everything they’ve gone through. It’s really emotional.”
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Davis interrupted the hearing to inform the judge that he would be appealing the ruling, to which the judge responded that he would need to be sentenced first. He faces life in prison when sentenced.
Shakur has become a folk hero in the black community over his political activism and the mystery surrounding his death — a mystery officially solved in a jury room Monday.
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