Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former Los Angeles gang member, was found guilty on Monday by a Las Vegas court of the 1996 murder of chart-topping rapper Tupac Shakur.
After only a few hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Davis, 63, of murder, thirty years after the rap legend’s death.
“Count one, murder with use of a deadly weapon, guilty of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon,” the foreperson of the jury announced to the court.
Davis, who faces up to life in jail without parole, addressed Judge Carli Kierny after the decision was announced and declared his desire to appeal.
The former head of the South Side Compton Crips was suspected of ordering the hip-hop artist’s murder on September 7, 1996, after his nephew was beaten by members of Shakur’s entourage at a Las Vegas casino.
“Duane Davis, in the culture of gangs, could not let that stand,” prosecutor Binu Palal said during closing arguments. “So what did he do? He acquired a firearm, got his group together, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur.”
Shakur, who was in Las Vegas for a Mike Tyson heavyweight fight, was shot approximately two hours after the casino incident by a gunman in a white Cadillac who drew up next to the rapper’s BMW at a red light.
According to authorities, Davis delivered the gun to someone seated in the rear seat of the Cadillac and told them to kill Shakur, who died six days later.
Davis is the only person who was in the Cadillac that evening who has survived.
The driver of the BMW, Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight, was injured.
The murder of Shakur, better known as 2Pac, has become one of America’s most famous cold cases, sparking unending debate among music enthusiasts about who did it and why.
Davis, whose Crips were one of a slew of rival gangs that controlled portions of Los Angeles in the 1990s, is the only individual charged in Shakur’s shooting.
Sentencing is scheduled for October 13.
