The trial date for the murder of Tupac Shakur has been set, nearly 30 years after the rapper was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.
Per AP, a Nevada judge has set a June 3, 2024 date for the trial, which sees Duane “Keffe D” Davis charged with involvement in Shakur’s 1996 murder. Last week Davis pleaded not guilty to the charge of open murder with use of a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement.
Davis, a former member of the gang Compton Crips, is the uncle of the late Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson who’d previously been identified as a suspect in Shakur’s murder but was never charged with any crimes. Anderson was killed in a shooting in 1998.
Keffe D remains jailed in Las Vegas, AP reports, while his legal team considers filing documents seeking his release on bail ahead of the trial next summer.
Davis’ defence lawyers Charles Cano and Robert Arroyo declined outside court to comment about the case, saying they haven’t yet had time to examine what prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo termed “voluminous” evidence.
2Pac was targeted in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996 as he was leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM Grand and was en route to a nightclub with Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight.
A white Cadillac pulled up next to the pair’s vehicle on the passenger side and an unidentified gunman fired 14 shots. Shakur was hit four times and died in hospital from his injuries on September 13, 1996.
Davis has been known to investigators for some time and has admitted both in interviews and his 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend that he was in the Cadillac from which the shots were fired 27 years ago. He has also said he is one of the last living witnesses to the shooting.
Meanwhile, Tupac’s brother Mopreme Shakur has said that the rapper “considered” signing to Bad Boy Records before his deal with the infamous Death Row Records.
The beef between Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. is one of the most infamous conflicts in rap history. Last month, Mopreme revealed that the rivals were nearly labelmates, telling The Art Of Dialogue that before Tupac signed to Death Row he was “considering” joining the iconic label.