Duane 'Keffe D' Davis found guilty of murder in 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur

Duane "Keffe D" Davis has been found guilty of first-degree murder for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting that claimed the life of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur.

Following a two-week trial in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, the jury deliberated for less than three hours on Monday before returning a unanimous guilty verdict.

The decision marks the first and only criminal conviction in one of the music industry's most notorious and enduring unsolved murder cases.

The 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips leader was arrested by Las Vegas police in September 2023 and charged with murder with the intent to promote, further, or assist a criminal gang.

He faces up to life in prison at sentencing.

Duane Davis was found guilty of murder on Monday (STEVE MARCUS / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

Shakur was just 25 years old when he was gunned down on the night of September 7, 1996, while riding in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion "Suge" Knight near the Las Vegas Strip.

A white Cadillac pulled up alongside their vehicle at a red light at Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, with gunfire erupting from the passenger side. Shakur was struck multiple times and died in hospital six days later.

While prosecutors acknowledged throughout the trial that Davis did not pull the trigger himself, they argued under Nevada law that he served as the "shot-caller" and mastermind behind the fatal attack.

Gang experts and investigators testified that Davis obtained the .40-caliber handgun used in the shooting and rode in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac, orchestrating the ambush as direct retaliation for a violent brawl inside the MGM Grand casino hours earlier.

During that altercation, Shakur and Death Row associates had attacked Davis’s nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson.

Anderson, who long remained the primary suspect until he was killed in an unrelated gang shootout in 1998, was identified by Davis in past statements as the person who fired the fatal shots from the back seat.

Davis is the only surviving occupant of the four men inside the white Cadillac that night.

Tupac was brutally gunned down in 1996 in a hit that was ordered by Davis (Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

A central pillar of the prosecution's case was Davis's own extensive public record.

Over the last decade, Davis openly discussed his involvement in the ambush across multiple documentary series, podcast interviews, YouTube shows, and his 2019 self-published memoir, Compton Street Legend.

Defense attorneys argued that Davis was merely fabricating stories and engaging in "bravado" to profit off the rapper's fame, claiming law enforcement had failed to produce independent physical evidence linking him to the scene.

However, the jury rejected the defense's claims, delivering justice nearly three decades after the iconic rapper was killed.

Judge Carli Kierny has set the sentencing for 13 October, however Davis has already stated that he intends to appeal the conviction.