Tupac Murder Trial Hears Claim on Fatal 1996 Shooting

By Aurax Radio | August 21, 2026 | 2 min read

Jurors in the murder trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis heard a recording Thursday in which Davis told investigators that his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, fired the shots that killed rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996. The testimony offers prosecutors evidence they say connects Davis to the planning of one of hip-hop’s most enduring unsolved killings.

Rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996 at age 25.

The recording, made during a 2008 interview, captured Davis describing the moments before the shooting and saying he was in the white Cadillac from which the gunfire was directed at the vehicle carrying Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight. Prosecutors allege Davis helped organize the attack after an earlier confrontation at the MGM Grand involving Anderson and members of Shakur’s entourage. Davis has pleaded not guilty and is accused of orchestrating the killing, rather than personally firing the fatal shots.

Shakur, 25, was shot in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996, after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match. He was struck multiple times and died six days later, while Knight survived the attack. Anderson, who had long been identified by investigators as a suspect, was killed in an unrelated shooting in California in 1998 and was never charged. Davis, now 63, was arrested and charged in 2023 after years of publicly discussing his alleged involvement, including in a 2019 memoir. His defense has challenged the reliability of those accounts and argued that Davis’ statements were fabricated. The trial is expected to examine his statements, witness testimony and other evidence surrounding the decades-old case.

Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, The Guardian, CNN, NPR and BBC.

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