Tupac’s Murderer Claims He’s Innocent: “I’m Not No F***ing Killer” (Exclusive Interview)

“Shit, I ain’t worried. I’m getting out on an appeal,” Duane “Keffe D” Davis says immediately upon sitting down at the Clark County Detention Center for his first interview since being convicted of first-degree murder in the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur. “We already filed it before the trial even started. They violated my civil rights!” The most notorious inmate in this concrete tower since O.J. Simpson is upbeat on a Wednesday morning in this cold, drafty and largely empty visitation area. You’d expect gloom and wrath from someone pronounced guilty only 40 hours prior, but little about the crime saga and Davis’ cartoonish self-incrimination has ever resembled normalcy. The jail, a beige 12-story obelisk, overlooks all of downtown Las Vegas – a Bosch-in-the-sunbelt panorama. Outside, addicts wander peg-legged in the pulverizing triple-digit late summer heat, past attorneys in cream sport coats and copper-red ties. There are low-budget neon casinos, pawn shops, all-night wedding chapels, and jewelry exchanges promising top dollar for coins, bullion, and scrap. Even a Mob Museum. The nerve center of the Nevada justice system is also here: a warren of federal and regional courthouses, heavily guarded Homeland Security citadels, and the 3,500-plus prisoners locked in cell blocks, awaiting their day in court. To enter the facility, you have to fill out a few forms online and then pass through the metal detectors. The officers at the desk are polite. Everything moves orderly. I don’t get to sit down with Davis — not exactly — but instead speak with him on a video terminal while he remains under guard on a floor somewhere above me. Still, even on video, Davis doesn’t appear wracked with guilt or anguish about the possibility of spending the rest of his life in the Nevada penitentiary system. On Monday, Aug. 31, across the street at the Regional Justice Center, a jury convicted Davis following just over two hours of deliberation. It came almost exactly 30 years to the day after Shakur was shot four times in the BMW of Death Row CEO Suge Knight, at an intersection directly off the Las Vegas strip, a hit that Davis was accused of having orchestrated, even if he didn’t physically pull the trigger himself. Judge Carli Kierny will sentence him Oct. 13. For now, Davis offers no mea culpas for his boasts about committing the crime in television docuseries, pay-to-play YouTube podcasts, and his own autobiography, Compton Street Legend, all of which he insists were largely fabricated to escape indictment on other charges and for the purposes of sheer profit. In his latest version of the facts, though, he claims that he wasn’t in Las Vegas on the night of Shakur’s murder. And indeed, there are no receipts, phone records, or eyewitness accounts to confirm that he was — nor any alibi to place him elsewhere. “When my old attorney, Edi Faal first heard about this case, he told me, you’re going to be a rich man after it’s over,” says Davis, now 63, his goatee fully gray from age. “He told me that you might have to go to jail for two or three years because of it, but … this is just local court.” In conversation, Davis is charismatic, avuncular, and profane. He comes off somewhere between John Witherspoon in House Party, the corrupt legislator, Clay Davis, from The Wire, and Baron Munchausen. We spoke twice in the 25-minute visitation allotments allowed by the state. On the first occasion, no recording was allowed, only handwritten notes. Our second conversation was via video call routed through the prison communication system, GTL. Davis was unable to hear my questions, which required me to hold them up to the screen, hampering back-and-forth response. Accordingly, the answers from our conversation are occasionally paraphrastic, and so naturally imprecise. But perhaps inaccuracy is the best prism with which to interpret Davis’ public statements. Your lawyer had mentioned that there was a possibility of you taking the stand. Why didn’t you? He said that it would mess up my chances of appeal. So I couldn’t take the stand. Tupac’s sister, Sekyiwa, and his stepbrothers and cousins were on the other side of the aisle. Is there anything you’d say to that family? No, I ain’t got nothing to say to them. I didn’t like the way they was looking at me – like they was ready to beat me up. And I didn’t like the way the prosecutors kept bringing them in the back room where the jury was. That felt biased to me. After all these retellings and changed stories, what do you say now is the truth is about what happened with 2Pac’s murder? We didn’t do that shit, dog. My lawyer had written up that script for me — him and [late Los Angeles Times journalist] Chuck Philips. And Reggie Wright, he lied on the stand. He said that I was at that Soul Train Awards with a gun. I never was at no Soul Train Awards. Never! I’ve never been to no Soul Train Awards. He lied. [Note: In his testimony, Wright Jr. said that Davis was at the Soul Train Awards, but identified someone else as the person with the gun] Where were you the night of 2Pac’s murder? After the [Mike Tyson] fight, I went to a bar by UCLA with my roommate. Then I went home the next morning, ate breakfast with my kids and my daughters and my son. And, shit, the next day, my Colombian plug called me and told me to come meet him. So I got in the truck with him, and he showed me the newspaper and [it] said “Keffe D’s nephew.” That was what Reggie Wright had told [them]. That Keffe D’s nephew was behind it. That’s me, you know? Why the fuck would you use my name? I got five brothers. He could have said Kevin’s nephew, or Craig’s nephew, but he was wilding. But he used my name. They wanted to chop the head off the snake. In closing statements, the prosecution showed you mouthing what appeared to be “you rat” at Reggie Wright Jr. Why did you do that? Reggie is still mad at me for fucking his sister back in 1981. That was when his mom was a crack head. I used to run a low rider business, we’d put hydraulics on all the cars, and they used to fuck with us. Then, when I went in the feds in 1998, he married my ex-girlfriend. He was selling me out over some pussy! He’s ultimately the one who put me in jail. He’s very sneaky. There were rumors flying around in the courtroom that Sean Combs was paying for your attorney and others that you attempted to get him to pay but he declined. What was the real truth? I was trying to get him to pay. His daughters go to a school where I knew the football coach and athletic director, so I told him to tell him to at least come and help me out. But I couldn’t get a hold of him. I tried to get Dr. Dre to pay too, but I couldn’t reach him. He never would’ve met Suge if not for me. I was tight with Eazy-E back in the day. We used to cook up dope together every Sunday back in Compton. And I used to know Suge from playing football with him when we were little. And I eventually linked him with Harry O to help fund Death Row. That was how they got the money to get started. Do you have anything you’d like to tell Suge? He should tell the truth. He knows I wasn’t there in that car that night. What would you want to say to Sean Combs? Help me out in here. Look out for my family. Look out for my kids and my family. Puff never said he wanted a hit out on [Shakur and Knight] for a million dollars. My lawyer made that shit up. Him and Chuck Philips. They wrote a script for me and all that. If you were lying in the first place, what led you to lie? The cops wanted Puff Daddy and Zip. And they wanted to trap me to help take them down. One day my son pulled up to my trap house and said he needed money for school clothes. So I gave him and his friend some money to go school shopping. Well, they came back with like ten bags apiece up to my trap. I said, “Let me see your clothes.” So I looked at their clothes, and while the customers was coming in, I was also putting the dope in the bags for them. And it looked like my son had brought me all those kilos. But the kilos was already there. And there about 35 of them. The cops said that he was only 14. They said, “We can’t prosecute him, but we’re going to take him away from y’all as unfit parents. They was gonna take my kids.” And so they threatened to take my son. They was gonna take my sister to jail too, because when I got off the pen she gave me $200,000 — because I had some houses in her name and I told her to take a loan out on them. One of my Colombian friends wound up doing 18 years. And my black friend, PJ, he did 17 years. They were pulling over everybody that left my house that day, and some of them just got out of jail now. It became clear that everybody else was gonna get caught up. They were gonna take 48 people to jail. So I had to do something. They wouldn’t let me use my regular lawyer, Edi Faal, so I call this dude Wayne Higgins, who was the lawyer they wanted me to have. And we go to lunch at the Benihana on La Cienega and he says that the FBI wants to talk to me. Next thing I know, they’ve written a script for me to read. He said, this shit gonna work, dog. That morning was Dec. 17 or 18, 2008. I just practiced that shit for about a week. Then we [had] that meeting at 9 in the morning, and I showed up at 8 and we kept on going over it. And he told me the magic words. I knew that Kading was gonna be ready. I didn’t know dude was tape recording it – had shit in his pocket. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But Kading had a plan the whole time, dude. Kading had a plan to make money. He quit his job. Then he made that movie, Unsolved. So I just told them the story. And they let all of us go. It worked. How do you feel you were mischaracterized at trial? Man, they lied about me so much. I don’t even know where to begin. All those cops in there was lying like a motherfucker. The prosecutors were lying about me. The only one who didn’t was [former FBI agent] Wade Lee. That cop from Compton [ex-Compton police detective, Tim Brennan] was even lying about Orlando – saying that he shot at him and his partner. Are you kidding me? Man, if you shooting at a police car out there in L.A.? You as good as dead. I’m a good man, man. I’m a good person. I’m not no fucking killer. Puff never offered me no fucking million dollars for them. Brennan described you as a shot-caller. Is that what you were? I stopped gangbanging in ’88, dog. I ain’t got no tattoos or nothing [lifts up his shirt]. I ain’t got Thug Life or Mob written all over my body. I didn’t shoot two cops, rape no little girl, and beat up no kids in no fucking casino. They don’t even got me on videotape being in Vegas. The State put a scrapbook of 2Pac clippings in front of the jury. DiGiacomo told them you were scrapbooking your own murder. Why did you keep it? Those belonged to my daughters. My eldest daughter is 47, the middle one is 45, the youngest is 43. They loved 2Pac and Biggie. They kept that shit. But I was in the feds when most of them papers was pasted in. Those were my daughters scrapbooks. Besides, why would I — if I’m a big ol’ Crip, why would I have a red scrapbook? They full of shit, man. Do you have any regrets? Well, my daughters asked me to lie to the feds for them. At the time in 2008, one of my grandsons was like two or three years old. They said to me, “You already missed 15 years out our life, Daddy. Why would you want to miss another 15 to 20 years out of their life? Just lie to him, dad, follow the script.” And so I just lied and followed the script. And it worked. I stayed out of jail for 18 years. And I saved everybody’s life in the process. Your VladTV interviews were used against you. Do you have any resentment towards him? No, I was just there making the money. I was broke and the US attorney [Timothy] Searight had said that I was protected [via the proffer]. And Reggie Wright Jr. told me to go on and get my money. So I did. Why did you write your book? I never wrote that book. The author told me to tell them 10 stories about what happened in your life and get them some pictures. So told him about how my right-hand man’s mom caught me 168 kilos in the attic. And she was sitting on the kilos. I was like, “Damn.” I told how my grandma socked me in the nose in front of all my friends. How I played football with Suge, and a few other things. He added all the adjectives and adverbs and shit like that. I never read that book or went over that book or nothing. They didn’t even spell my name right on the cover. At one point during the trial, it was reported that your colon cancer had returned. Is that true? I’m good, now. I just do the PET scans once a year and the colonoscopy every two years. But I lost seven family members to that shit: including my mom, my granddad, my brother, my aunt, and my nephew. That little dude [prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo] tried to make fun of that shit. He’s stupid, man. He’s ignorant. He’s going to hell for sure with pork chop drawers on. He’s full of shit. I’m a black dude from Compton, and I made it out the streets without getting killed. And, shit, I made it past the feds, because they was gonna take like 48 people to jail that day. And I beat cancer, dude. That’s a big accomplishment. He wouldn’t understand because he’s white and privileged. In one of your conversations with law enforcement, you accused Knight of being in cahoots with all of the Compton police and city government. How much of that was true? He was connected like a motherfucker with the police. The whole Compton police up to the chief. Even the mayor was plugged in with him. They was all Pirus. His gang started like in ’78, or ’79. [Compton South Side Crips] started in ’71. So we was way before them. And we had way more money than him before that shit went down. Dr. Dre and Eazy-E were from my side of town. Without me, Dr. Dre never would’ve met Suge. Suge shouldn’t have been gang banging like that. They waited to get a million dollars and then started gang banging. They got it backwards. People from our area try to get out of that environment. You see what Ice Cube did. You see what Dr. Dre did. They don’t fuck with that shit no more. What gives you confidence about your appeal chances? The DOJ gave me a deal, and the Ninth Circuit Court is not going to go for that — the federal government gave me a deal. This ain’t nothing but a fucking county jail. This ain’t nothing but a broke-ass county. The United States gave me that deal — the Bush administration. Alberto Gonzales gave me that deal. It came from the topand they said that they was never going to use it in court against me. But Las Vegas, they break all the rules out here, dude. What do you want to tell the world? I’m innocent, man. They got an innocent man sitting in jail. I’ve got two grandsons that are going to the pros in football. They All-Americans — one of them is in high school. He has 25 scholarship offers, and the other one is in college. And when they get their millions, they’re coming to get me out of here.