Duane Davis sentenced over Tupac murder
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Duane "Keffe D" Davis had boasted in books of his involvement, but denied it in court. (Reuters: John Locher)
Duane Davis, the former Los Angeles gang leader who boasted in books and interviews of his involvement in the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur only to deny it when he came to trial, has been sentenced to a minimum 40 years in prison.
"You don't get to take a man from his family. You don't get to take his very life, his whole future from him, and just walk away from it. Especially when that man is Tupac Shaker," Judge Carli Kierny told a Las Vegas court as she handed down the 40-years-to-life sentence.
Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 63, was found guilty of first-degree murder in August.
Shakur was shot dead dead in the passenger seat of an SUV driven by his record executive, Markion "Suge" Knight, in 1996.
Davis's 2023 arrest, accused of providing the gun used in the killing, ended what had stood for nearly three decades as one of America's most notorious cold cases.
The murder, which silenced one of rap's most commercially successful and influential artists, heightened the image of violence permeating 1990s hip-hop culture while stoking the infamous East Coast – West Coast "gangsta" rap feud of the era.
For years, Davis claimed to have played a part in the fatal drive-by shooting.
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