Keffe D Gives His First Interview

Two years ago West Coast gangster Duane 'Keefe D' Davis was arrested for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, based on a recorded confession from Keefe and claims made in his self published memoir [click here if you missed that]. 

Now, in his first interview since his arrest, Keefe claims the confession was coerced and the memoir was written by somebody else, and he didn't even read it...

From ABC News

The only man ever charged in the notorious Las Vegas murder of rapper Tupac Shakur insists he is "innocent," being railroaded by authorities and that he only confessed to his purported role in the crime because he was getting paid to lie.

In his first interview since being arrested in September 2023, Duane "Keffe D" Davis told ABC News in a jailhouse interview that he should be at home, watching his grandchildren grow up and tending to his garden. Instead, he said, he's being forced to stand trial in a nearly three-decade-old case that's devoid of concrete evidence.

"I'm innocent," Davis said during a sometimes-tearful hour-long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. He described himself as a "good man" long retired from the drug game he once excelled at.

"I did everything they asked me to do. Get new friends. Stop selling drugs. I stopped all that," he said, referring to police and prosecutors. "I'm supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f------ grandson's football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids."

Prosecutors say Davis, 61, was a longtime member and leader of a set of the infamous Crips street gang based in his hometown of Compton, California. Authorities say that, as the alleged "shot caller" on the night of Shakur's killing in September 1996, it was Davis who orchestrated the drive-by shooting of the rap star off the Vegas strip. On their way from Mike Tyson's fight against Bruce Seldon, Shakur was gunned down at a red light in the passenger seat of the BMW being driven by rap impresario Marion "Suge" Knight. Shakur was rushed to the hospital and died six days later from his wounds.

Though the killing occurred on the bustling streets of Sin City – it remained unsolved for nearly 30 years, mired in police scandals and turf wars, and a street code that frowns upon snitches.

Eventually, Vegas detectives built their case off Davis' own account of the killing, retold in multiple police interviews, public media appearances before his arrest, and a 2019 self-published memoir with his own name on it.

Davis' previous words copping to his role in the rapper's killing are crucial in the case against him. Investigators say they spent years working to beef up Davis' narrative of the events by using evidence and additional accounts to firm up their case – expected to be presented to a jury in 11 months.

Davis, sitting on a wooden bench under the harsh fluorescent lights of a jailhouse conference room and accompanied by corrections officers, now insists he didn't write his own memoir – and hasn't even read it. And so, he says, those confessions aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

"I've never read the book," Davis said of his memoir "Compton Street Legend," on which he shares the credit as a co-author. The back of the book bears the tagline, "The last living eyewitness to Tupac's murder is telling his story."

Davis says his co-author took artistic liberties he had nothing to do with.

"I just gave him details of my life," Davis said. "And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own."

Not only does he say he had nothing to do with Shakur's killing, Davis said he was hundreds of miles away from where it happened – asserting for the first time where he says he was that night: "in Los Angeles," and at home.

Davis said he has "about 20 or 30 people going to come" to his murder trial corroborating that alibi – to say nothing of the "13,000 people who say they killed Tupac." He did not name the people who he said would verify where he was the night that Shakur was killed.

"I did not do it," Davis said of what had stood as one of the best-known cold cases in modern American history. Of prosecutors leading the case against him, he said "They don't have nothing. And they know they don't have nothing. They can't even place me out here. They don't have no gun, no car, no Keffe D, no nothing."

Las Vegas prosecutors declined to respond directly to Davis' comments but continue to insist they are confident in the case and expect to see the man convicted at trial.