Tupac Shakur, during a concert in Chicago (USA), March 1994. RAYMOND BOYD / GETTY IMAGES
It is a crime that has remained unsolved for almost thirty years. A suspect has been charged with the 1996 murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur, a prosecutor announced Friday, Sept. 29, before a judge in Las Vegas.
The man arrested is Duane Davis alias “Keffe D”, a former gang member who has long admitted that he was in the car from which the shots were fired that caused the US rapper’s death. However, in a book published in 2019, he asserted that the shots were fired from the rear of the vehicle while he was in the front.
Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said there is a “strong suspicion” that Mr. Davis “is responsible for the murder of Tupac Shakur,” according to new findings in the investigation that suddenly took off this summer.
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Search of a house in Las Vegas
After nearly thirty years of mystery, the case came back to public attention in July with the search of a Las Vegas home linked to Duane Davis. The police of this metropolis in Nevada will hold a press conference on the subject at 12:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. in Paris).
Hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur, a major West Coast artist with an illustrious career, was shot and killed in Las Vegas in September 1996 under circumstances that remain unclear. He was 25 years old. The rapper behind the hits “California Love,” “Changes,” “Dear Mama” and “All Eyez On Me” has sold 75 million albums. He had become a key figure in the famous rivalry between the West Coast and East Coast rap scenes.
Although he’s from New York, he embodied West Coast hip-hop after moving to California with his family as a teenager. His assassination was followed six months later by the assassination of his East Coast rival, Christopher Wallace, “The Notorious BIG.” Many associate her death with the rivalry between her labels, Los Angeles-based Death Row and New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment, but music historians say this opposition was heightened for commercial reasons.