Defense attorney in Tupac Shakur murder case found dead in Las Vegas home

The manner of Sanft's death has not been determined, but Las Vegas police say that the death did not appear suspicious.

The defense attorney who represented Duane “Keffe D” Davis in the trial over the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur was found dead at his home on Friday at age 55, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The death of Michael Sanft, a Las Vegas attorney, came just weeks after his client was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting that killed Shakur.

Shakur was shot dead in the passenger seat of an SUV driven by his record executive, Marion “Suge” Knight. Until Davis’s arrest in 2023, the killing had stood for nearly three decades as one of America’s most notorious cold cases.

The murder silenced one of rap’s most commercially successful and influential artists. It reinforced the image of violence surrounding 1990s hip-hop culture and fueled the era’s infamous East Coast-West Coast “gangsta” rap feud.

A jury convicted Davis of masterminding the murder to avenge the beating of his nephew by Shakur and members of the rapper’s entourage, inside the MGM Grand casino on the Las Vegas Strip on September 7, 1996. Davis has said he will appeal his conviction.

Death not considered suspicious, police say

It is not yet known how Sanft died, though Las Vegas police said the death did not appear suspicious.