{"id":860505,"date":"2026-08-19T06:34:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860505\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:34:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:34:30","slug":"tupac-shakur-trial-lawyers-share-full-account-of-killing-as-witnesses-still-refuse-to-testify-tupac-shakur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860505\/","title":{"rendered":"Tupac Shakur trial: lawyers share full account of killing as witnesses still refuse to testify | Tupac Shakur"},"content":{"rendered":"

For nearly 30 years, the unsolved murder of 25-year-old rapper Tupac Shakur has sparked lawsuits<\/a>, theories<\/a> and conspiracies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, decades after his death in a September 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas<\/a>, local prosecutors are finally offering a detailed official account of Shakur\u2019s killing, accusing Duane \u201cKeffe D\u201d Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, of being the \u201con-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac\u201d.<\/p>\n

Davis, who described himself as playing a main role in Shakur\u2019s killing in his 2019 memoir, has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers are trying to convince the jury that the claims he made in his book and in other interviews were lies Davis told for clout.<\/p>\n

For Shakur\u2019s relatives, the long-delayed chance at accountability in court is bringing both relief and renewed pain. On Tuesday, the second day of the trial, prosecutors focused on the most basic elements of Shakur\u2019s killing and their case against Davis. Witnesses authenticated surveillance footage of a fight in the MGM Grand Hotel involving Davis\u2019s nephew, Orlando \u201cBaby Lane\u201d Anderson, which allegedly inspired the shooting, and reviewed the bullet casings police found on the street and the autopsy photos of Shakur\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Jurors looked intently at the photos of Shakur\u2019s body, which was bloated and had multiple chest wounds. The nearly full courtroom was silent.<\/p>\n

The display of graphic photos of the body of the beloved hip-hop artist and activist prompted some of his family members to leave the courtroom, and some to look away. Others chose to witness the painful evidence. Seeing the photos of Shakur\u2019s body made Zayd Akinyela, Shakur\u2019s cousin, feel \u201cvery angry, very angry, to say the least, very sad\u201d, he said, in explaining why he had chosen to stay in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the details, especially for people that are close to him, honestly for me helps, helps the grief process. I think we\u2019ve been waiting 30 years to grieve properly,\u201d Akinyela told the Associated Press outside the courtroom. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened.\u201d He added: \u201cThat\u2019s why I wanted to stay and just see for my own personal closure.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he hadn\u2019t known how many times his cousin was shot and couldn\u2019t help but think of the ways the night could have played out differently.<\/p>\n

The investigation of Shakur\u2019s 1996 killing continues to be affected by the refusal of some witnesses and participants to testify to law enforcement officials about who was involved in his murder.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou better treat me as a hostile witness,\u201d James McDonald, a former associate of Marion \u201cSuge\u201d Knight, the Death Row Records co-founder who was in the car with Shakur when he was shot, told attorneys on the trial\u2019s second day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe or anybody else bringing up the dead is wrong,\u201d McDonald said. He emphasized that he was only appearing in court because he had been subpoenaed.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Around 2-3 times a day<\/p>\n

Sign up to Breaking News US<\/p>\n

Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m aware of a lot of things, things that was going on. People ain\u2019t talked about it in 30 years. Today ain\u2019t one of them,\u201d McDonald testified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to send him to prison, even though we don\u2019t like each other,\u201d McDonald said at one point, apparently pointing to Davis, who was sitting in the courtroom directly behind his attorney. \u201cI don\u2019t want to send you to prison,\u201d McDonald repeated.<\/p>\n

The courtroom live stream showed no reaction from a grim-faced Davis.<\/p>\n

During his cross-examination, McDonald berated Davis\u2019s defense attorney Michael Sanft, telling him: \u201cYou asking something that\u2019s going to hurt this dude,\u201d and, later appearing to address Davis: \u201cTalk to your lawyer, man, this dude is tripping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI changed my life. I\u2019m raising my grandkids, teaching them never to be like their Pawpaw, and here I am, explaining to people what I used to be, and I\u2019m not proud of that, I\u2019m not proud of that at all,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cYou\u2019re asking me questions that can hurt him, and like I told them, I\u2019m trying to avoid to answer the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nearly 30 years, the unsolved murder of 25-year-old rapper Tupac Shakur has sparked lawsuits, theories and conspiracies.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-860505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}