Duane Davis Disavows Tupac Murder Memoir as Trial Opens
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- Duane Keith Davis self-published "Compton Street Legend" in 2019 with a co-author, identifying himself as the shot-caller for the South Side Compton Crips who acquired the gun and pursued Tupac Shakur in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996.
- Davis, known by the nickname Keffe D, now disavows the memoir as fiction despite its original introduction presenting it as the "real" story from a self-described living eyewitness to Shakur's killing.
- A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detective assigned to revisit the cold case quietly built a case around the book, reading excerpts aloud to a grand jury in 2023 that indicted Davis on one count of murder.
- Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty and denied any involvement in Shakur's killing more than two decades ago.
- The book initially attracted little attention outside online hip-hop lore and true crime circles before the detective's investigation transformed it into central prosecution evidence.
- Davis's murder trial is set to begin this week in Las Vegas.
Why it matters: Davis's attempt to walk back the memoir won't undo its legal use — the same passages he now calls fiction are the basis for his murder indictment, and jurors will weigh his credibility against words he put in print. For prosecutors, the book is a ready-made confession; for the defense, recanting it is the only available move with a trial about to start.
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