Tupac Trial Week 2 Recap: Murder Case Heads to Jury After Explosive Recording & More Testimony

The second week of the Tupac Shakur murder trial saw an explosive jailhouse recording, prosecutors rest their case and attorneys for Duane “Keffe D” Davis quickly wrap their own brief defense, sending the trial to the jury far sooner than expected.

You’re reading Billboard’s weekly Tupac trial recap, a one-sheet breakdown of everything that happened in the epic murder case over the past week. Stay tuned here each Friday for all the testimony and big events you might have missed.

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After a first week filled with fireworks, prosecutors resumed their case on Monday (Aug. 24) with testimony from filmmaker Michael Dorsey, who worked on a BET docuseries in which Davis gave interviews discussing his role in the killing. Jurors watched hours of unedited interview footage, which featured Davis declining to apologize to Tupac’s family.

Later in the week, prosecutors called police officers and investigators to the stand, including Robert Ladd, who testified that Davis was a “shot caller” within his Compton gang. Ladd told jurors that Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, who allegedly pulled the trigger, could not have opened fire on Tupac without his uncle’s permission: “The younger gang members are supposed to do what they’re told without hesitation.”

As prosecutors neared the end of their case, they played a jailhouse recording from 2023 in which Davis uttered a line that the state clearly wanted jurors to remember: “I got blood on my money,” he said in the tape.

On Wednesday (Aug. 26), the prosecution rested its case — far sooner than expected for a trial that was anticipated to run for at least four weeks. In total, they had called 24 witnesses and played more than eight hours of recordings, mostly of Davis himself discussing his role in the killing.

When the defense kicked off its case on Thursday (Aug. 27), it didn’t last long. They called just three witnesses — all of them former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers — in less than two hours, aimed at poking holes and raising reasonable doubt in the mind of jurors.

One testified that he saw a light-colored Cadillac arrive leave Suge Knight’s Las Vegas mansion on the night of the crime — seemingly an effort by the defense to suggest that the vehicle used in the crime might have come from Knight’s own entourage. Another faced questions about the quality of the police work on the case, testifying that records had to be locked to avoid interference from “curious” staffers and that some files were later lost.

Perhaps more notable was who didn’t testify: Davis himself. Defense attorneys rarely put a criminal defendant on the witness stand, since it subjects them to withering cross-examination by prosecutors. And in a case where jurors already heard from him so many times, Davis’ attorneys chose not to go against that conventional legal wisdom.

With both sides rested, jury instructions were set to be delivered on Friday (Aug. 28) and closing statements are set for the morning on Monday (Aug. 31). After that, the trial — and the fate of the long-unsolved Tupac murder case — will be in the hands of the jurors. The time needed to deliberate in such cases varies widely, from just a few hours to many days, meaning verdict could come as soon as Monday.