Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis sentenced to 40 years to life for Tupac Shakur’s murder

By The Inspirer writer.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for the 1996 murder of American rapper Tupac Shakur, more than three decades after the hip-hop star was fatally shot in Las Vegas.

Davis, 63, was sentenced on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, following his conviction for first-degree murder in August. He is the only person to have been charged in connection with Shakur’s killing.

During the sentencing hearing in a Las Vegas court, members of Shakur’s family delivered emotional statements about the lasting impact of his death.

His sister, Sekyiwa Shakur, told the court that Davis deserved the maximum punishment for taking her brother’s life and the pain it had caused his family and others.

Judge Carli Kierny said the passage of time would not allow Davis to escape accountability for the killing.

“You are going to face justice for what you did,” she told him.

Shakur was shot in a drive-by attack near the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996, and died six days later from his injuries. He was 25.

Prosecutors argued that Davis organised the shooting, although they said he was not the person who fired the fatal shots. They relied in part on statements Davis had made over the years in police interviews, a self-published memoir and televised interviews, which they said helped investigators revive the case.

Davis’s defence team maintained that he had lied about his involvement and argued that prosecutors had not presented sufficient evidence to establish his role in the killing. He pleaded not guilty after his arrest in September 2023 and has consistently maintained his innocence in court.

A jury unanimously found him guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon after deliberating for less than three hours in August.

Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader who later lived in the Las Vegas area, has said he intends to appeal the conviction.

The case has remained one of the most closely watched unsolved-for-decades killings in American hip-hop history, with investigators pointing to Davis’s public accounts as a key factor in bringing the case to trial.