Jurors hear Tupac murder suspect say nephew fired shots that killed rapper
Jurors on Thursday heard Duane “Keffe D” Davis tell detectives in a 2008 interview that his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, was the man who fired the shots that killed Tupac Shakur.
Davis, who said he was in the car with Anderson at the time of the shooting, is accused of orchestrating the 1996 murder of the 25-year-old hip-hop star in Las Vegas. Anderson had been dead for a decade by the time Davis gave the interview.
Davis told detectives that the white Cadillac he was travelling in with Anderson and two other men pulled alongside a car carrying Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight.
“If we would have been on my side, I would have blasted,” Davis said. Instead, Knight’s car was on the other side, so Davis passed his gun back to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith. But Smith didn’t want it, Davis said.
Anderson, who was also in the back seat, took the weapon and started firing, Davis said.
Jurors watched the screen as the transcript of the audio recording rolled. Some occasionally took notes. At the beginning of the audio interview, Davis and his attorney whispered to each other. Shakur’s family sat still, occasionally looking at the screen or looking down to the floor. The room was quiet as Davis described the shooting.
It was the first time Davis directly discussed his involvement in the killing with authorities. The interview is essential evidence in the state’s case against the 63-year-old Davis. Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that they would lean heavily on Davis’ own admissions in interviews with police and on podcasts, as well as the 2019 memoir he co-authored, “Compton Street Legend.”
He also previously told the FBI that his nephew was not involved in the 1996 shooting of Shakur, and speculated that Knight or Sean “Diddy” Combs were involved.
Davis has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has called the prosecution’s narrative “fiction” and said Davis was “full of crap” when he told stories of his involvement, and that authorities knew it. He argued investigators failed to back up the statements his client made with evidence.
The Los Angeles police detectives had actually brought Davis in to talk about the 1997 shooting death of Shakur’s archrival, the Notorious B.I.G.
Davis had briefly been one of the suspects in that still unsolved killing, but he was later discounted.
“Everybody was a suspect at that time,” Daryn Dupree, one of the detectives in the interview, said in court testimony Thursday.
The detectives tell Davis that their discussion is confidential.
“Nothing you say today can be used against you,” said Greg Kading, the other detective conducting the interview who described it in a book a few years later.
