A 1996 photo of rapper Tupac Shakur (L) and Marion “Suge” Knight is displayed during the Duane Davis murder trial, related to the 1996 killing of the rapper, at Clark County District Court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 17, 2026. The trial of the former gang leader accused of orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur began on August 10, 30 years after one of America’s most high-profile unresolved killings. The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the California hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson boxing match. (Photo by STEVE MARCUS / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
Testimony resumed Friday at the Tupac Shakur murder trial with prosecutors returning to the timeline of events at the Las Vegas MGM Grand and outside the casino on the night the rap icon was shot and killed.
Friday's testimony in the trial of former gang member Duane "Keffe D" Davis began with Leonard Jefferson, who took what is believed to be the last photo of Tupac Shakur before his death. Jefferson said he was visiting Las Vegas Sept. 7, 1996 for the highly anticipated Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight boxing match at the MGM Grand, but ended up selling his two tickets.
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Jefferson testified Friday that he snapped a widely seen photo of Shakur in the passenger's seat of a black BMW at a stoplight with hip-hop mogul Marion "Suge" Knight behind the wheel. The photo was later licensed for books and other projects.
Prosecutor Binu Palal asked Jefferson about conspiracy theories alleging he staged the scene at the stoplight.
"Well, I mean, the internet does what it does," Jefferson said.
Palal then directly asked whether Jefferson staged the scene.
"I did not," he responded.
Jefferson said he had previous interactions with Shakur in Los Angeles, where he sold cars, so he spoke with him through the cars' windows. Moments after the brief conversation with the men in the BMW, Jefferson said he heard a "pop, pop, pop" sound.
He said he looked up to see cars from Knight's caravan stopped on the street in front of him.
"I see that they they're kind of like struggling with the door," Jefferson said. "They get the door open and then they pull. I see them pull Tupac out of the car."
Just before a midday recess, Davis spoke up as he was seated at a courtroom table with his attorneys. He referenced his address being given out in court in a brief exchange with the judge and a prosecutor before people filed out of the courtroom.
Jefferson's testimony came a day after jurors heard Davis tell detectives in 2008 that his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson fired the shots that killed Tupac Shakur. Prosecutors allege Shakur was killed to avenge Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew a few hours earlier at the MGM Grand after the Tyson fight.
Davis was at the fight but not the brawl.
Davis, who said in the 2008 interview that he was also in the car with Anderson, is accused of orchestrating the killing of the 25-year-old hip-hop superstar. At the time of the interview, his nephew had been dead for a decade.
Davis said the white Cadillac he and Anderson were riding in with two other men pulled up alongside a car with Shakur inside, along with hip-hop mogul and Death Row Records head Marion “Suge” Knight.
“If we would have been on my side, I would have blasted,” Davis said. Instead, Knight’s car was on the other side, so Davis passed his gun back to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith. But Smith didn’t want it, Davis said.
Anderson, who was also in the back seat, took the weapon and started firing, Davis said.
Jurors watched the screen as the transcript of the audio recording rolled. Some occasionally took notes. At the beginning of the audio interview, Davis and his attorney whispered to each other. Shakur’s family sat still, occasionally looking at the screen or looking down to the floor. The room was quiet as Davis described the shooting.
It was the first time Davis directly discussed his involvement in the killing with authorities. The interview is essential evidence in the state's case against the 63-year-old Davis. Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that they would lean heavily on Davis' own admissions in interviews with police and on podcasts, as well as the 2019 memoir he co-authored, “Compton Street Legend.”
He also previously told the FBI that his nephew was not involved in the 1996 shooting of Shakur, and speculated that Knight or Sean “Diddy” Combs were involved.
Davis has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has called the prosecution’s narrative “fiction” and said Davis was “full of crap” when he told stories of his involvement, and that authorities knew it. He argued investigators failed to back up the statements his client made with evidence.
The Los Angeles police detectives had actually brought Davis in to talk about the 1997 shooting death of Shakur's archrival, the Notorious B.I.G.
Davis had briefly been one of the suspects in that still unsolved killing, but he was later discounted.
“Everybody was a suspect at that time,” Daryn Dupree, one of the detectives in the interview, said in court testimony Thursday.
The detectives tell Davis that their discussion is confidential.
“Nothing you say today can be used against you,” said Greg Kading, the other detective conducting the interview who described it in a book a few years later.
Some in the audience shook their heads when someone in the audio tells Davis that “nothing leaves this room.”
Dupree adds, “If you don’t say nothing, it’s cool, but if you go out there and start talking …”
Prosecutors say Davis did in fact “go out there and start talking” a decade later when he told stories about the shooting in interviews and the memoir. They said that nullifies any agreement he had with law enforcement over this and other recorded conversations.
Later in the evening, they were in the Cadillac and saw Shakur hanging out of a black BMW with people calling out “Tupac!”
Davis said that after Lane fired the shots, he thought Knight was dead.
Decades after his death, Shakur remains a cultural icon, and one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. He died as his popularity was peaking and his film career as an actor was taking off. His legend has only grown in the years since.
