Duane Davis gets life sentence for Tupac Shakur murder

Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to life in prison for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, ERR reported.

A Nevada judge handed down the sentence on Tuesday after a jury convicted the 63-year-old of first-degree murder involving a firearm. The sentence carries a minimum term of 20 years. Davis will be eligible for parole after 40 years.

The judge also imposed the same sentence for the use of a firearm. Prosecutors had sought the maximum penalty, pointing to Davis’s criminal record, which includes eight convictions for serious offences.

Shakur was 25 when he was shot four times from a car window while travelling in a black BMW in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, after a Mike Tyson boxing match. He died of his injuries six days later.

During the trial, the court heard a recording of a 2008 police interrogation in which Davis said he was in the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired. He said he did not fire the shots that killed Shakur.

The murder took place against the backdrop of fierce rivalry between the US hip-hop scenes on the East and West coasts, as well as conflict between the Bloods and Crips gangs. Shakur was at the height of his fame in 1996 and was one of hip-hop culture’s most influential voices.