Nearly 3 Decades Later, Tupac Shakur's Murder Investigation Is Reopened

Tupac Shakur's murder has remained a mystery for the better part of three decades — despite the repeated public assertions of a man who says he was in the car from which gunshots rang out and killed the rapper, who was a passenger in another vehicle.

Shakur, a Grammy-winning rapper who sold millions of albums, was shot four times in a drive-by shooting on his way to a nightclub in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996. He was rushed to the hospital and lost a lung before succumbing to his wounds nearly a week after the shooting.

Noting multiple witnesses to the murder, Las Vegas Police Lt. Marc Maston told The Washington Post around the time of the shooting that the case “should be solvable.” But over the ensuing months, while suspects were named, no arrests were ever made.

Despite widespread interest and speculation, the case went cold, with few public pronouncements about its status until last week, when the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reopened the investigation. As part of the investigation, authorities executed a search warrant on July 17 at a one-story beige stucco home in Henderson, Nev. — a home connected to Duane Keith Davis, aka "Keffe D," the man who has made public statements about being in the car from which somebody fired upon Shakur.

According to the affidavit, which was reviewed by PEOPLE, evidence obtained by authorities included: an iPhone; a desktop computer; four laptops; a handful of tablets, several with shattered screens, one in a pink case; a copy of the book Compton Street Legends, which was co-written by Davis, an issue of Vibe magazine about Shakur, along with two black tubs of photographs and what authorities allege was “purported marijuana.” 

In Compton Street Legends, Davis describes himself as one of three “living eyewitnesses” to Shakur's murder, according to the book’s description on Amazon. Positioning himself as “a central figure” in the murders of both Shakur and the rapper Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., who was shot dead six months later in another unsolved drive-by shooting many people believe was connected to Shakur's killing, Davis, now 60, promises the book “will add valuable information about two of the biggest ‘unsolved’ crimes in American history.” The book, he claims in the description, is "the missing piece of the puzzle that Hip-Hop Fans have been waiting for."

Shakur was born with the name Lesane Parish Crooks in East Harlem in 1971 to Afeni Shakur, a Black Panthers member. He was also raised by his stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, a Black nationalist on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. A year after his birth, the baby was renamed Tupac after Túpac Amaru, a martyred Incan warrior, and given his stepfather’s last name. Known as one of the world’s greatest rappers, Shakur was both celebrated and criticized for visceral, poetic lyrics about luxurious, desperate gang life — or, in his words, “about what happens in the real world.” 

He released his first album “2Pacalypse Now” in 1991, and over the years rapped about killing police officers in self-defense and took the motto “Thug Life” so seriously he got it tattooed in an arc along his stomach. However, the year he died he denounced the lifestyle in interviews: “I lived Thug Life, it was stupid,” he said, adding, “It’s suicidal.”

He also predicted his violent death in another interview that year, saying: “It’s going to happen."

September 7, 1996

On the night of his shooting, Shakur left the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, where he had watched the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight title boxing match. He climbed into a black BMW with Marion “Suge” Knight, the chairman of his record label Death Row Records and a member of the LA street gang Mob Piru and made their way in a fleet of 10 cars toward a nightclub. Shakur waved to fans as he rode down Las Vegas Boulevard. 

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But just after 11:15 p.m. and about a quarter of a mile from the casino, a white Cadillac pulled up to Shakur's car, which was at a red light, and bullets were fired, striking Shakur four times in the head and chest. Shakur was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery, surviving another six days before dying. Knight, who was hit with shrapnel, was also briefly hospitalized.

In the absence of legal answers, rumors still swirl around the who and why of Shakur's murder. Several people may have wanted him dead. Two years before his death, in 1995 Shakur was sentenced to up to 4 ½ years in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a female fan in a hotel room. Shakur, who denied the charge, was shot five times in the lobby of a recording studio in New York City the day before the verdict and blamed Wallace, who in turn denied orchestrating the shooting. 

Shakur served 11 months for the sex crime conviction before Knight paid his $1.4 million appellate bond in October 1995, forever linking the singer with the L.A. street gang and pitting him against their rival Compton Crips. In fact, some blame a fistfight between Shakur and Crips member Orlando Anderson earlier that day at the casino for leading to what they believe was a retaliatory drive-by shooting. (Before dying in an unrelated shootout in the late 1990s, Anderson, who had previously been named as a suspect in Shakur's murder, sued the singer’s estate, detailing the fight, The Los Angeles Times reported at the time.)

Popular legend often places the blame for Shakur's death on the East Coast - West Coast hip hop feud between Shakur and Wallace, but a law enforcement source previously told PEOPLE that Wallace and Shakur were mere “pawns” in the gang fights between Mob Piru and the Compton Crips.

Donald David, who helped Shakur's mother manage his estate, previously told PEOPLE that Afeni Shakur, who died in 2016, had been frustrated by the investigation into her son’s death. “She felt that nobody was trying to find out what really happened,” he said. “She never felt a sense of closure.”

Reopening the Murder Investigation

But after decades, last week, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department knocked on the Henderson home door, hauling out bins of evidence, according to court records. The police department confirmed the execution of the July 17 search warrant in Henderson “as part of the ongoing Tupac Shakur homicide investigation,” in an emailed statement to PEOPLE. Both police and the courts declined to answer specific questions regarding the search into materials that might connect Davis and Shakur. Shakur's sister, Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, could not be reached for comment.

There has been an active warrant for Davis’s arrest since July 2022, when he allegedly skipped a court appearance for a drug charge, according to The Guardian. Messages left by PEOPLE with Davis, as well as his wife and sister were not returned.

Davis, who has called himself a “shot-caller” for the Southside Compton Crips, placed himself in the front seat of the Cadillac and his deceased nephew, Anderson, in the backseat in a 2018 interview for BETNetworks. He said the crew had been looking for Shakur but had given up the search, only happening upon him when the singer stood up in his car, waving from the open roof at women calling his name. The driver made a U-turn, tracing back toward the rapper.

Davis has not been arrested in connection with the case.