For almost three decades, the answer to “Who murdered Tupac Shakur?” has remained a mystery.
For almost three decades, the answer to “Who murdered Tupac Shakur?” has remained a mystery.
Now, an arrest has been made in Las Vegas in connection with the legendary rapper’s 1996 killing, a law enforcement source told CNN Friday.
Duane Keith Davis, aka “Keffe D,” was arrested Friday morning, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation, who added Davis’ Henderson, Nevada, home was searched in July as part of the ongoing investigation into the shooting.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officials plan to hold a news conference later Friday, the source said.
For years, no one was arrested in connection to Shakur’s death after he was shot leaving a boxing match on the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996. With the murder unsolved, conspiracy theories have surfaced and left the world with more questions than answers.
Here’s what we know about the musician’s life, his artistry, and his murder:
A targeted shooting and famous last words
Shakur was shot multiple times in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, while leaving a boxing match at the MGM Grand hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
At the time of his fatal shooting, he was in a car with former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight when a white Cadillac with “two or three males inside” pulled up beside them and fired shots into the passenger side of their car, investigators said at the time. Details are vague, however, because those riding in Shakur’s 10-car entourage have not been forthcoming as witnesses.
Knight was slightly wounded, and Shakur died from his injuries six days later at age 25.
Shakur was the intended target of the shooting that ultimately led to his death, authorities said at the time.
“Thirteen or 14 rounds were fired; almost all went into the passenger side of the vehicle,” a Las Vegas police spokesman said at the time. “We feel pretty sure that Shakur was the target.”
In 2014, Chris Carroll, a retired sergeant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the first police officer to arrive at the scene of Shakur’s drive-by murder, spoke publicly about the rapper’s last few words.
After retirement, Carroll said he felt he had more freedom to speak about the homicide case without being reprimanded, he told Vegas Seven magazine at the time.
Carroll attempted to get a “dying declaration” of a potential suspect from Shakur, but the musician didn’t budge, he said.
“And then I saw in his face, in his movements, all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed,” Carroll said. “And he went from struggling to speak, being noncooperative, to an ‘I’m at peace’ type of thing. Just like that … He went from fighting to ‘I can’t do it.’ And when he made that transition, he looked at me, and he’s looking right in my eyes. And that’s when I looked at him and said one more time, ‘Who shot you?’ … He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some cooperation.
