Duane Davis Insists He Wasn't Aiming At Tupac

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:19)
Who else has been jamming out to Tupac in the last, I don't know, couple of weeks? More than they have. I can't say it's ever really left my playlist since 1996, but I have to say it's increased in rotation in the last little bit. I'm like, damn, I missed some of this stuff. Some of this stuff was good. All eyes on me. That's a great album. Anyway, the trial, 30 years after the death of Tupac Shakur. That's what we're talking about today and where it is at with our daily update for you. Press subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Don't miss it. We're walking you through the whole trial, breaking it down and you can stay up to date. And if you're not going to watch every moment of coverage, I don't blame you. It's a lot to get through. There's a lot of trials going on right now. By the way, take our podcast with you. The QR code is right there on the screen. If you're watching us on YouTube, if you're not, just search Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski, wherever you get podcasts. If you're not already doing that and press subscribe so you don't miss any of our conversations on this case. September 9th, 2009, a LasVegas detective, an LAPD detective and Duane Davis with his own lawyer beside him. The detective wants to know what went through his head once Tupac Shakur was dead.
This is interesting. We're getting some interesting little nuggets out of this trial, especially if this is a case that you've followed since 1996, like I have. His answer in tape, I knew we was like, damn, we can get paid now. One detective checks it, paid by Puffy, right? Davis, yeah.
That tape played for LasVegas Jury. On Friday, August 21st of 2026, Sean Combs has denied any involvement in the killing for 30 years, by the way. We're not saying he's involved. I'm just telling you what happened in court. Police have never named him a suspect and he's never been charged. Everything Davis says about him is Davis's claim, and the jury heard it come out of Davis's own mouth. Davis, by the way, is the one on on trial here for murder. So does it benefit him to say Puffy was involved?
Minimally, maybe. I mean, that we're not. I mean, it it it.
I don't think it does. I don't think that helps either now, because that just really that just shows he did it for money. If that's true.
Or I guess here's how it could benefit. If it can be really shown that Puffy had nothing to do with it, and this is another lie and he's a liar. So the Puffy stories lie. Why would this other story be true?
Reasonable doubt is the game here. So they're going to try and find it wherever they can. By the end of that day, the jury had heard Davis tell this story three ways. To detectives for a deal, to a camera for a check, and then on his feet in a court room where no one was paying. Davis is the only person ever charged in Tupac's murder. Prosecutors don't say he fired. They say he planned the attack and supplied the gun. That's the charge he's fighting. And Friday belonged almost entirely to his own voice. The first witness of the day was the man in the story who never told his version, Leonard Jefferson, came to the Las Vegas in 1996 for the Tyson fight and never went in. He sold his tickets in a hotel lobby and spent the night people watching. Later, at a stoplight, he raised a camera and took a picture of Tupac in the passenger seat of a black BMW with Suge Knight driving. It is the last photo of Tupac alive. It's probably you're picturing it in your head right now. Minutes later, shots, Jefferson testified that police drew their guns at him at the scene, ordered him out of his car, then let him go. He went back to his hotel. An officer tracked him down there and told him to come back. The reason, by Jefferson's account, they'd messed up by releasing him. A juror asked which detective met him when he returned. Kevin Manning. Jefferson didn't know what he had until he developed the role weeks later. The photo became famous and so did a theory that he'd staged it. Prosecutors asked him directly, I did not. The man who never changed his story and never got paid for it had to be fetched by the police that lost him. 30 years on, the state still needs him to say that the picture is real. Then came the version with a price tag. Mario Diaz directed Death Row Chronicles, a six-part BET series from 2018 He testified that Davis was paid to appear. Davis himself had said publicly he did the show for the money. Diaz testified he handed Davis at least one paycheck. He put the total somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. On cross, allowed it might have come in $5,000 installments. Davis shook his head in the courtroom while he said it.