A Las Vegas jury found former gang leader Duane Keffe D Davis guilty of first-degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of rapper Tupac Shakur, closing on Monday one of hip-hop’s most famous unsolved cases after nearly three decades.

Jurors deliberated for three hours at the end of a weeks-long trial. They also found Davis guilty of using a deadly weapon and promoting criminal gang activity, leaving him eligible for life in prison without parole. A judge will determine the sentence later. Davis is the only person formally charged and tried in the killing. The other three occupants of the vehicle from which the shots were fired died between 2004 and 2015.

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According to trial testimony and admissions Davis made to police, on the night of Sept. 7, 1996, a white Cadillac pulled alongside the black BMW carrying Shakur and producer Suge Knight on the Las Vegas Strip. Davis was in the front passenger seat, and the weapon was passed to the back seat, where his nephew Orlando Anderson — now deceased — allegedly fired on the BMW.

Shakur was hit by four bullets and died a week later. Knight survived with minor injuries. Prosecutors said the attack was retaliation for a fight earlier that night in a casino lobby, in which Shakur and Knight had assaulted Davis’s nephew.

Much of the prosecution’s case relied on Davis’s own public statements, including details he published in his 2019 memoir. In those accounts, he described his role in the attack and provided pieces that had been missing for decades. The jury considered them sufficient to convict.

DUANE ‘KEFFE D’ DAVIS GUILTY OF FIRST-DEGREE MURDER IN 1996 KILLING OF TUPAC SHAKUR pic.twitter.com/yA76znu1zF

— RT (@RT_com) September 1, 2026

Shakur, born Lesane Parish Crooks on June 16, 1971, was among the most influential artists in U.S. music. Known as 2Pac and Makaveli, he sold more than 75 million records worldwide and combined a revolutionary political message with the rawness of gangsta rap.

His recording career lasted five years. Early albums such as 2Pacalypse Now and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… focused on social injustice, racism and police brutality. Me Against the World reached number one in 1995 while he was imprisoned. After his release, he joined Death Row Records and released All Eyez on Me, a diamond-certified double album that included the global hit “California Love.”

The Aug. 31, 2026 verdict does not end the legal process: the judge must still set Davis’s sentence. But for hip-hop culture, it marks the first formal conviction in a case that has endured for three decades.

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