{"id":42034,"date":"2026-08-10T14:50:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42034"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:50:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:50:44","slug":"trial-opens-for-former-gang-leader-charged-with-tupac-shakurs-1996-murder","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/trial-opens-for-former-gang-leader-charged-with-tupac-shakurs-1996-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial opens for former-gang leader charged with Tupac Shakur&#8217;s 1996 murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Jury selection is due to begin on Monday in the murder trial of a former-street gang leader accused of masterminding the drive-by shooting \u200bdeath of hip hop star Tupac Shakur three decades ago in Las Vegas, a long-unsolved crime that became a seminal moment in rap music \u200chistory.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Duane &#8220;Keffe D&#8221; Davis, 63, is charged in Clark County, Nevada, with a single count of murder by use of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. Davis is accused of leading a group of men to kill Shakur, 25, one of rap&#8217;s most commercially successful and influential artists, in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The killing heightened the \u200bimage of violence permeating hip-hop culture and its lyrics during &#8220;gangsta&#8221; rap&#8217;s golden age, stoking the infamous East Coast-West Coast rap feud of that era.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Police \u200bsaid after Davis&#8217; 2023 arrest that he was a longtime suspect in the killing but that investigators lacked sufficient admissible \u2060evidence to charge him until he began implicating himself in a series of public statements.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The trial before Judge Carli Kierny is expected to run for up to \u200bsix weeks in a downtown Las Vegas courthouse.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">It may feature testimony from Death Row Records co-founder Marion &#8220;Suge&#8221; Knight, a former rap mogul who was with Shakur \u200bthe night he was slain and is now serving a 28-year prison sentence on an unrelated voluntary manslaughter conviction.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42035,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-42034","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Tupac Shakur's death","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42036,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42034\/revisions\/42036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}