The trial over Tupac’s murd3:r has barely begun, but a shocking twist has already emerged… and it all centers on the man who was sitting beside him on that fateful night
THE trial of the Compton gangbanger accused of ordering the murder of Tupac Shakur is off to a rocky start after witness and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight is refusing to cooperate with prosecutors.
Jury selection in the trial of Duane “Keefe D” Davis, 63, is set to begin on Monday nearly 30 years after the California Love rapper, 25, was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996.
Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis arrives at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas for a hearing in January 2025Credit: Getty
Death Row Records founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight appears at a pretrial court hearing in Los Angeles in May 2018Credit: AFP
Tupac Shakur was signed to Suge Knight’s Death Row Records at the time of his murderCredit: Getty
Davis’ mugshot following his arrest in September 2023Credit: Getty
Davis, who was arrested outside his home in Henderson, Nevada, in September 2023, has maintained his innocence and claimed he had nothing to do with Shakur’s murder, despite boasting for years about his involvement.
The state prosecutors’ case against Davis will rely heavily on the defendant’s own self-incriminating statements, where he portrayed himself as the shot caller and orchestrating the shooting that led to Shakur’s murder.
A key witness for prosecutors will be Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, who was in the driver’s seat of the BMW Shakur was seated in when he was shot.
Davis and Knight are the only two living eyewitnesses to the shooting.
Kim Mathers pleads not guilty after ‘biting cop during suicide attempt rescue’
Knight, who is currently serving a 28-year sentence after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in 2018, is among the list of witnesses prosecutors seek to call to the stand during the four-week trial.
However, Knight, 61, is refusing to cooperate with prosecutors and warned both sides to leave him out of the trial.
“This trial has nothing to do with me and if somebody brings me there, it’s gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that,” Knight told ABC News.
“They make me come there against my will, if Keefe D’s lawyers bring me there, it don’t look good for him.
“If the prosecution brings me there, it don’t look good for them. Leave me out of it.”
A defiant Knight, who has long ties with the Compton Bloods street gang, called taking the stand and testifying against someone worse than killing them.
Suge Knight was in the driver seat of the BMW the night Tupac was fatally shotCredit: Grand Jury Las Vegas exhibits courtesy of JDMC
The bullet-riddled BMW in which Tupac was fatally shot in September 1996Credit: AP
“My loyalty to Tupac can never be compromised,” he told the outlet.
“Me as a man, what I believe in, can’t be compromised. I’m not there to help [Davis], and I’m damn sure not there to hurt him.
“To actually get on the stand, and point somebody out, it’s worse than taking a gun and shooting that man in the head.
“Because if you shoot a person in the head, they die once. If you get on the stand and you snitch on that person, they die a million times.
“I am not going to be responsible for sending another man to prison for the rest of his life. If God’s forgiving, who am I to think I’m bigger than God and don’t forgive? Because I’m not.”
Knight believes his testimony does not matter because Davis already “told on himself” after spending years conducting interviews about his involvement in Shakur’s murder.
“He felt he was untouchable,” Knight told ABC News.
“He wanted to talk bad about ‘Pa, he wanted to just talk, talk, talk, talk. He kept talking until they put handcuffs on him.
“Everything he said and talked about, he already told on himself. So what are you going to do?
“Erase all the recordings of the interviews he did?”
Davis has been unsuccessful in his attempt to bar the details about his 2008 interview with a joint Los Angeles-federal task force and his tell-all memoir, Compton Street Legend, from trial.
His defense team argued the interview with investigators was confidential and made under an agreement that his comments would not be used against him in court.
However, a judge ruled that both his interview with authorities and his memoir are admissible as evidence at his upcoming trial.
Ahead of the high-profile trial, Davis has repeatedly attempted to distance himself from the shooting and claimed he was seeking royalties from the interviews he conducted where he bragged about being the shot caller in Shakur’s murder.
“I wasn’t in Las Vegas. They can’t prove it,” Davis told Fox affiliate KVVU.
Davis also detached himself from his memoir, Compton Street Legend, claiming he never wrote the book and only told a ghostwriter aspects of his life.
SOURCE: THE SUN
https://www.the-sun.com/news/16819238/tupac-trial-suge-knight-duane-keefe-davis/
