Best of Season 1: Tupac Shakur - "THE LAST LIVING WITNESS: How Keffe D's Own Confessions Finally Caught Up With Him"

0:00 Celebrity Trials is kicking off season two with a new host and new name. Hey, I'm Garrett Fisher and starting March sixteenth, I'll be the new host on Daily Crime and Justice. It's the same great show, now with extra crime and extra justice in the meantime. Please enjoy this encore performance of one of Celebrity Trials classic episodes. See you on March sixteenth. We'll miss you, Read Carter and wish you the best. Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter and welcome to Celebrity Trials on this Friday, July eleventh. Today we're taking you back to one of the most infamous nights in American music history, September seventh, nineteen ninety six, when gunshots on the Las Vegas Strip silenced one of the most influential voices of his generation. But this isn't just another conspiracy theory deep dive. This is the story of how the only man ever charged in Tupac Shakur's murder spent nearly three decades confessing to the crime before his own words finally caught up with him. Because this week we learned that Dwayne Keffie D Davis the self proclaimed last living witness to Tupac's murder, can't seem to stay out of trouble even while awaiting trial for one of the most notorious crimes in American history. Let me take you back to the beginning, because to understand where we are today, you need to understand how a boxing match

1:32 turned into a murder that haunted America for nearly thirty years. September seventh, nineteen ninety six, Tupac Shakur attended the Bruce Selden versus Mike Tyson boxing match with Marion Sooge Knight, the head of Death Row Records, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. After leaving the match, one of Knight's associates, Trevon Trey Lane, a member of the Mob Pyrus Gang based in Compton, California, spotted Orlando Anderson from the rival South Side Compton Cripps Gang in the MGM Grand lobby. This wasn't a random encounter. Earlier that year, in July nineteen ninety six, Anderson and a group of South Side Crips attempted to rob Lane in a foot locker store at the Lakewood Center Mall in Lakewood, California.

2:21 Lane told Shakur, who in turn attacked Anderson in the lobby. Shakur asked Anderson if he was from the South south Side Crips and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Shakur and Knights entourage assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight, which was captured on the MGM Grand's video surveillance, was broken up by hotel security. Here's where the story gets tragic. At eleven fifteen PM, a white four door late model Cadillac pulled up to Knight's right side. The shooter, seated at the back of the Cadillac, rolled down the window and rapidly fired gunshots from a forty k caliber s and W Glock twenty two at Chakur's BMW. Shakur was struck by four rounds fired from a forty caliber glock, two in the chest, one in the arm, and one in the thigh. Orlando Anderson, a CRIPS gang member, was suspected in the murder, but denied by authorities. Six days later, on September thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, Tupac Shakur was dead at just twenty five years old and sitting in the front passenger seat of that white Cadillac a man named Dwayne Keith Davis, better known as Keffi d. Now here's where this story gets absolutely fascinating folks. For nearly thirty years, this was America's most famous cold case. Conspiracy theories flourished.

3:44 Maybe Souge Knight had Tupac killed, Maybe the government did it. Maybe Tupac faked his own death. But the people who knew the streets understood exactly what had happened. We all knew it was retaliation, said Reggie Wright, Junior, the former head of six Security for death row records. The label Shakur was signed to at the time of his death. It was as simple as one plus one equals two. In two thousand and nine, now retired LAPD detective Greg Kating made a major break in the cold case murder. Kating secured a recorded confession from Dwayne Davis, also known by his street name Keffi d. He gave his initial statement under what's known as a proffer session. He can confess to crimes, but those confessions can't be used against him.

4:29 But that doesn't mean he's immune from prosecution. Kating explained, with that limited immunity, Keffi D told authorities that he was in the car when his nephew Orlando Anderson shot and killed Tupac. He even says he passed him the gun. But here's the thing about Keffi D. He couldn't stop talking. Since then, Keffi D has done several other interviews in which he repeated his confession. He even has a new book about it for sale on Amazon. What he's done publicly, all the confession he's made since on b et vlad TV and these other platforms, those don't fall under the protection of his agreement, Kating said, think about that for a moment. KEFFID had limited immunity for his first confession, but then he went on a media tour bragging about his role in one of the most famous murders in American history. He wrote a book about it, he did interviews about it. He turned his confession into a brand.

5:26 Davis had already given several on camera interviews and even published his own memoir, which included intricate details about his role in the fatal September nineteen ninety six shooting of Shakur. A grand jury in Las Vegas has indicted the last living suspect in the nineteen ninety six killing of Tupac Shakur, in a long awaited breakthrough in one of hip hop's most enduring mysteries. September twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, nearly twenty seven years after Tupac's death, Kefi d was finally arrested at his home in Henderson, Nevada. Davis is the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired and the only person ever charged with a crime in the case. The indictment alleges Davis obtained and provided a gun to someone in the backseat of a Cadillac before the car to car gunfire that mortally wounded Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion sooge Night at an intersection just off the Las Vegas Strip.

6:26 While I know there have been many people who did not believe that the murder of Tupac Shakur was important to this police department, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin mcmahill said during a press conference last week, I'm here to tell you that was simply not the case. It was not the case back then, and it was not the case today. But for people who'd been following the case, this wasn't shocking, it was overdue. For many, the site of a handcuffed kfe D being marched into court was a stunning breakthrough in one of the most enduring murder mysteries in hip hop and American celebrity. But for the people who have followed the case since that chaotic, bloody scene in Las Vegas that night, Davis's arrest is a resolution that's several decades too late. Davis's own public words reinvigorated the investigation, the lead of Vegas's Homicide Bureau, Lieutenant Jason Johansson, told ABC last year, and would be key in the case against him and would ultimately land him in the Las Vegas jail, where he now has been held since his September twenty twenty three arrest. Now, you'd think that someone facing a murder charge in one of the most famous cases in American history would try to keep a low profile in jail. Not Davis. Kefid is set to stand trial in early April in connection with a jailhouse fight prosecutor say he participated in just before Christmas. He was indicted on battery by prisoner and challenges to fight charges after the December twenty third, twenty

7:58 twenty four incident at the Clark County Detention Center. He pleaded not guilty. On April ninth, a Clark County jury found Dwayne Keffie D. Davis, sixty one, guilty of fighting with another inmate in December at the Clark County Detention Center. It took the jury ninety minutes to reach its verdict. According to jailhouse surveillance footage obtained by ABC News, the man who fought with Davis appeared to have been waiting alone and unattended in a common area when Davis came walking through with an escort. The second inmate can be seen lunging at Davis, who fought back. And this week we learned that Keffi D's attempt to get a new trial in the jailhouse fight case failed. Dwayne Keffie D. Davis, who was awaiting trial in the nineteen ninety six killing of rap Icon Tupac Shakur, lost his bid last week for a new trial in a separate battery case tied to a jailhouse fight. The jurors who convicted Davis of battery in the jailhouse fight, were put on the witness stand Wednesday. One by one. Each of them denied claims by Davis's son and a man who describes himself as a journalist that they overheard one of the jurors talking about the battery case during a lunch break ahead of deliberations.

9:12 Here's a man who spent decades bragging about his role in a murder, and when he finally gets arrested, he can't even stay out of fights in jail. Some habits apparently never die back in a moment. Now here's where this story gets truly incredible. After decades of confessing to his role in Tupac's murder, Kefi d is now claiming he's innocent. The only man ever charged in the notorious Las Vegas murder of rapper Tupac Shakur insists he is innocent, being railroaded by authorities, and that he only confessed to his purported role in the crime because he was getting paid to lie. I'm innocent, Davis said during a sometimes tearful, hour long meeting at the Clark County Detention Center. Not only does he say he had nothing to do with Shakur's killing. Davis said he was hundreds of miles away from where it happened, asserting for the first time where he says he was that night in Los Angeles and at home. Davis said he has about twenty or thirty people going to come to his murder trial, corroborating that alibi, to say nothing of the thirteen thousand people who say they killed Tupac. Even more absurd, Davis, sitting on a wooden bench under the harsh fluorescent lights of a jailhouse conference room and accompanied by corrections officers, now insists he

10:44 didn't write his own memoir and hasn't even read it. I've never read the book, Davis said of his memoir, Compton Street Legend, on which he shares the credit as a co author. The back of the book bears the tagline, the last living eyewitness to two Upo's murder is telling his story. Let me get this straight, Keffi d co authored a book about being the last living witness to Tupac's murder, but he claims he never read it and had nothing to do with what was in it. That's like saying you co directed a movie but never watched it and don't know what happens in it. His defense attorney is now making even wilder claims. Defense attorney Carl Arnold said in the filing that his private investigator has identified several witnesses that cast doubt on the official version of events, and they are making further inquiries to determine the validity of some other cause of death for mister Shakur without presenting backup evidence. Arnold alleged that Reggie Wright Junior, who worked security for Knight's death Row Records, and his team were actually responsible for the star's death. Responding to the latest claims, Wright said Kefi D confessed to Tupac's murder to the LAPD in two thousand and eight, to the Las Vegas Metro PD in two thousand and nine, and then publicly from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty three on BET, multiple YouTube interviews, and in a book about his life, and is only now using the media to slander me because he finally got arrested and has no other defense. And now after all this drama, the trial

12:18 has been pushed back yet again. The murder trial for Dwayne kefie D Davis, the only person ever charged in connection with the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, has been postponed nearly a year after his defense team asked for more time to interview witnesses they say can prove he was not present at the time of the nineteen ninety six Las Vegas drive by shooting. Davis was initially set to go to trial for the famed rappers killing. In mid March, a judge pushed the trial date to February ninth, twenty twenty six, after his defense filed a motion to continue the trial. It looks like there are quite a few things that are left to be done to get this case prepared so that mister Davis and have effective assistance of counsel, Judge Carle Kearney said during a brief hearing on Tuesday. So now we're looking at February twenty twenty six, more than twenty nine years after Tupac's death, before this case goes to trial, if it goes to trial. Meanwhile, Keffie d has tried repeatedly to make bail, but judges keep rejecting his bond packages. A judge has again denied bail to Tupac Shakur murder suspect Dwayne Keffi D Davis overdoubts about the source of the bond money. At a July hearing, Clark County District Court Judge Carle Kearney rejected a one hundred twelve thousand, five hundred dollars down payment to secure Davis's seven hundred fifty thousand dollars bond, noting that the payment, allegedly from music executive Cash Whack one hundred Jones, was tied to an exclusive interview with Davis.

13:52 Even potential bail money is connected to his media appearances. This man literally cannot stop monetizing his canettion to Tupac's murder. Here's what fascinates me about the Kefi D case. This is a man who spent decades incriminating himself and then acts shocked when those confessions are used against him. But I think Kefi thought he was invincible. It's all unique in the sense that in this case, the star witness against the defendant is the defendant. Kefi D represents everything wrong with our celebrity obsessed culture. Here's a man who helped plan and execute the murder of one of America's most beloved artists. And instead of living quietly with his secret, he turned it into a career. He did interviews, he wrote books, he went on podcasts. He built a brand around being the last living witness to Tupac's murder. He thought his immunity from that two thousand and eight proffer agreement meant he could confess publicly forever without consequences. He was wrong. It seems like if you wanted to get away with murder, all you had to do was kill Tupac in nineteen ninety six, said filmmaker Mike Dorsey. And that might have been true if Keffi d had just kept his mouth shut. But ego and greed got the better of him. He wanted the fame that came with being connected to one of hip hop's biggest mysteries. Now he's facing life in prison, and his own words are the prosecution's best evidence. Arnold argued prosecutors have no corroborating

15:24 evidence aside from Davis's confessions, that the evidence comes solely from mister Davis's statements, and without independent sets of facts, the indictment against him must be dismissed. Think about that the defense is essentially admitting their client confessed, but arguing that confessions alone shouldn't be enough to convict him in a case where the defendants spent decades publicly bragging about the crime. The jailhouse fight conviction this week just reinforces what we already know about Keffi D's character. This is a man who solves problems with violence, whether it's on the streets of Compton or in a Las Vegas j cell. The Tupac murder case represents one of the great tragedies of American music, a twenty five year old artist at the peak of his powers, gunned down over street beef that could have been resolved with words instead of bullets.

16:13 But it also represents something else. How ego and the desire for fame can be a criminal's downfall. Keffi D. Thought he was untouchable. He thought he could profit from his connection to murder forever. He was wrong. Justice might be slow, but it's relentless, and sometimes the criminals do the prosecutor's job for them. When the trial finally begins in February twenty twenty six, nearly thirty years after that terrible night in Las Vegas, prosecutors won't need complicated forensics or unreliable witnesses. They'll just need to play Keffidi's own words back to the jury. That's celebrity trials for today.

16:54 I'm read Carter. Remember, if you're going to confess to murder, maybe don't do it on television for money. Justice isn't always fast, but it's absolutely riveting.