This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

Keffe D on Trial for Tupac's Murder: "My Client Is Full of Crap"

August 28, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In a Las Vegas courtroom last week, the defense attorney for Duane "Keffe D" Davis stood in front of a jury and, in four words, tried to blow up the entire case against his client: "He's full of crap." That was not paraphrasing. That was the actual opening statement. The man accused of orchestrating the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur had spent decades telling anyone who would listen that he was involved. Now his own lawyer was telling the jury not to believe a word of it.

The prosecution's case, laid out by Chief Deputy District Attorney Ben Yu Pell, is built almost entirely on Davis's own words. "Duane Davis did not pull a trigger, but he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew," Pell told jurors. The timeline spans roughly two to two and a half hours between the MGM Grand lobby beating and the shooting—the window prosecutors say Davis spent orchestrating the retaliation. They plan to call 35 to 45 witnesses across roughly a month of testimony, but their core evidence strategy is unusual: instead of leaning on forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony, they are building their case primarily on Davis's own statements from 1998 to 1999, his later police interviews, and his 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend.

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What you'll learn

1 (02:47) **Prosecution's Opening: The Plan and the Confession** - The state lays out its theory: Keffe D orchestrated the shooting in retaliation for his nephew's beating at the MGM Grand, all within a 2-2.5 hour window.
2 (12:20) **Defense's Opening: "My Client Is Full of Crap"** - Defense attorney Michael Sant goes on the attack, telling the jury directly that Davis is unreliable and his confession is fiction.
3 (18:58) **The Timing Problem: Why Charge Him Now?** - The defense highlights that prosecutors had Davis's statements for years but never charged him, implying they lacked credible evidence.
4 (20:38) **Institutional Failure: The Rampart Scandal** - The defense introduces a major corruption scandal within the LAPD as a key argument to undermine the entire investigation.
5 (22:18) **Keffe D's Own Contradictions** - The defense points to Davis's jailhouse interview days before trial, where he claimed he wasn't even in Las Vegas that night.
6 (24:08) **The Proffer Agreement: A Double-Edged Sword** - The hosts explain the limited immunity deal Davis made in 2008 and how it complicates the case.
7 (29:33) **The Corrupt Cops Claim Goes Deeper** - The defense expands on the Rampart scandal, alleging that corrupt officers were connected to the unsolved murder of the Notorious B.I.G.

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Show Notes

For years, Duane "Keffe D" Davis publicly told versions of the story of Tupac Shakur's murder—in interviews, a documentary, and even his own memoir.

Now those statements are at the center of the prosecution's case against him.

But Keffe D's defense has a pretty unusual response: you can't believe him because he's "full of crap."

In Part 2, we break down the opening statements in Keffe D's murder trial and the dramatically different stories being presented to the jury. Prosecutors say Keffe D orchestrated Tupac's killing as retaliation for the beating of his nephew, Orlando Anderson. The defense argues that Keffe D lied and exaggerated for years—and that corrupt law enforcement, missing evidence, conflicting witness accounts, and a deeply flawed investigation leave plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

We also get into the controversial proffer agreement behind Keffe D's original statements, his memoir, the alleged murder weapon, the defense's police-corruption theory, and the major witnesses who could take the stand as the trial unfolds.

After nearly 30 years, someone is finally on trial for Tupac Shakur's murder. But can prosecutors prove their case when their most important witness against Keffe D may be…Keffe D himself?

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