Diddy Is Named 77 Times in Tupac’s Murder Case — Keefe D Wants Him on the Stand

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
Tupac Shakur would be 55 years old. I know. Born June 16th, 1971 And I want to be clear right from the top.
This episode, it's not a greatest-hitch retrospective or meditation on legacy or influence or what he would have become. There's plenty of that out there. And it should be.
But this is not what we are here for. We're here because less than two months from now, the first murder trial in the history of this case is scheduled to begin. The only man ever charged in connection with Tupac Shakur's killing is sitting in a Nevada State Prison. And as of March 26th, he does not have a lawyer.
That's interesting. His name is Duane Davis. Most of them know as Keefe D. He's 62 years old. He's been in custody since September 29th to 23 Arrested near his Henderson, Nevada home, indicted by Clark County Grand Jury in a single count of first degree murder, with a deadly weapon, carrying a gang enhancement. He's pled not guilty and if convicted, he faces life in prison. The trial set for August 10th of 26th and his latest attorney withdrew from the case in March over a dispute about retainer fees.
That is the second complete defense reshuffle since his arrest. The clock is running and nobody is standing next to him. Now hold on to that for a second because there is a petition sitting at the Nevada Supreme Court right now that could collapse the entire prosecution before a jury is ever seated. What it says and why it matters is something we need to walk through, but first you need to understand how we got here. And the answer is not complicated, Keefe D talked. The prosecution's theory is straightforward. September 7th, 1996, following a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the brawl broke out between members of Tupac's entourage and the man named Orlando Anderson. Anderson was Keefe D's nephew. Anderson was affiliated with the Southside Compton Crips. The fight was caught on a casino surveillance camera. You've seen it. Hours later, a white Cadillac pulled up alongside a BMW carrying Tupac and Death Row Records CEO Shug Knight of the Las Vegas Strip, Cobalt and Flamingo. Someone in the backseat of that Cadillac opened fire. Tupac was hit multiple times. He died six days later. He was 25 years old. Prosecutors alleged Keefe D supplied the firearm, rode in the front passenger seat and orchestrated the entire thing. The alleged trigger man was Orlando Anderson. He was never charged. Anderson was killed in an unrelated incident in 98
So, for nearly three decades after the shooting, nobody was ever arrested. The case sat open, cold, untouched by the justice system. What changed was not new forensics. It was not a cooperating witness stepping forward. It was not some cold case breakthrough. What changed was Keefe D himself. He couldn't stop talking about it. In 2008, he sat down with a Joint Federal LAPD Task Force that was investigating the murder of the notorious BIG. And he volunteered details about the Tupac hit. In 2009, he sat with Las Vegas Detectives and repeated essentially the same account. In 2018, after being diagnosed with cancer, he appeared on a docu-series and said he had nothing left to lose. And in 2019, he published a memoir called Compton Street Legend. And prosecutors now treat as confirmation in paperback. The book is what triggered the Clark County Grand Jury. He spent 15 years telling anyone who would listen. And then, a Grand Jury listened. One piece of this matters for everything that comes next. The 2008 police interview happened under what Keefe D believed was an immunity deal. What he believed. What reality and what Keefe D believes can easily be two different things. It's called a proffer agreement. He sat with the Federal Task Force, gave them information, and understood that what he said could not be used against him. He has been clinging to that agreement ever since. Whether it actually protects him is the legal fault line running through the entire case. Some choose to bet on it. Some do not.
He chose to double and triple down, thinking, I can say whatever I want. Well, that's not quite how these things always work out, Keefe. And here's something that we will come back to. It says more about this man than any court filing. Keefe D's team has been developing a documentary about the case, designed to drop whether he wins or loses a trial. Hold that because it matters. Let's back up that. Let's walk through what has happened in the courtroom, because every single thing the defense has tried so far has failed. Let's go to January 25 Keefe D's then attorney, Carl Arnold, filed a motion to dismiss the entire case. Two arguments. First, that the 27-year delay in prosecution violated Keefe D's constitutional rights to due process. Witnesses are dead. Memories have faded. Evidence has been lost or destroyed. Second, that the proffer agreement from 2008 gave Keefe D blanket immunity, and the state was legally barred from using anything he said. Judge Carly Kearney rejected both arguments. On the immunity claim, she found no evidence of a binding deal that covered Las Vegas. The LAPD proffer was made in another jurisdiction. Keefe D didn't quite understand that part. The Clark County District Attorney's Office was never part of it. Las Vegas detectives had never promised Keefe D anything, and the state had no incentive to sit on the case for decades. It was not the proffer that brought the case back. It was the book Keefe D chose to write. The Immunity Defense died in that courtroom. If Keefe D had talked to a competent attorney before putting all that out there, they could have easily told him, Yeah, you know, this doesn't really cover you. Doesn't really cover you. I would shut the F up. February 26, the defense moved to suppress everything seized during a nighttime raid on Keefe D's home in July of 23 The argument was that the warrant was obtained in bad faith. The detectives painted a 60-year-old retired cancer survivor as a dangerous figure based on convictions from a quarter century earlier, just to justify an aggressive nighttime search. The judge denied that motion too. Every piece of evidence seized during that raid is admissible. That was a central defense strategy and it evaporated in a single ruling. Then there's the attorney situation. Keefe D started with court-appointed public defenders. He then replaced them with a private attorney, Carl Arnold. He then got a battery conviction after getting into a fight with another inmate at the Clark County Detention Center. He was sentenced to 16 to 40 months on that charge alone. He's currently serving that sentence at High Desert State Prison. After the battery conviction, he dropped Arnold and hired Robert Draskiewicz and Michael Pandulo. He compared it to a sports team changing coaches after a loss. Draskiewicz withdrew in March of 26 over a retainer dispute. As of that filing, Keefe D needed new counsel for the second time since his 23th arrest.