The case without an identified shooter: who is being tried for the murder of Tupac

On August 10, jury selection began in Las Vegas in the murder case of rapper Tupac Shakur, who was shot dead in 1996. The only accused was 63-year-old Dwayne "Caffie Dee" Davis: the investigation believes that he organized the attack and handed over the weapon to other participants, although he is not personally named as the shooter. Davis pleads not guilty, and if convicted, he faces life in prison without the right to parole. Why the investigation took almost 30 years, what the positions of the parties are based on and what questions the process may leave unanswered — in the Izvestia article.

The first defendant after almost three decades

The trial is taking place in Clark County District Court, presided over by Judge Carly Kearney. At the first stage, the parties began to select the jury; opening statements and questioning of witnesses will follow after the formation of the panel. The Associated Press and Reuters estimate that the hearings could last from a month to six weeks. The prosecutor's office intends to call from 35 to 45 witnesses, including former police officers, people from Shakur's entourage and representatives of the music industry.

Davis pleads not guilty. In an interview with ABC News, given from a detention center in 2025, he stated: "I am innocent," and said that he was allegedly in Los Angeles at the time of the attack. The accused did not mention the names of people who could confirm this alibi at the time.

What happened in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996

On the evening of September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur, along with the founder of the Death Row Records label, Marion Sugar Knight, attended the fight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand. After the fight, surveillance cameras recorded a fight in the casino: Shakur, Knight and their escorts attacked Orlando Anderson, Davis' nephew and a member of the rival group South Side Compton Crips.

Shakur and Knight later headed to Club 662. At the intersection of Flamingo Road and Coval Lane, a white Cadillac pulled up next to their BMW. They opened fire from the car. Shakur received several wounds, Knight was slightly wounded by a bullet fragment. The rapper was taken to the University Medical Center of Las Vegas, where he died on September 13 at the age of 25. The grand jury materials confirm that the original investigation team was present at the autopsy and the death was attributed to gunshot wounds.

According to the prosecution, there were four people in the Cadillac: Davis, his nephew Orlando Anderson, Deandre Smith and driver Terry Brown. Except for Davis, all of them had died by the beginning of the trial. For many years, Anderson was called the most likely shooter, but he was not charged during his lifetime, and he denied involvement. In 1998, Anderson died in another shootout.

Even the current process may not establish the name of the person who directly fired the shot. One of the grand jury witnesses claimed that Smith opened fire because Anderson was hampered by the position in the cabin. However, this witness was not present at the scene of the attack. The prosecutor's office is building the case not around the shooter's identity, but around Davis' alleged leadership role.

How Davis' Own Stories brought the Business Back to Life

In the early years, investigators had information about a possible connection between the attack and the conflict between people from Death Row Records and South Side Compton Crips, but were unable to gather enough admissible evidence to bring charges. The investigation was influenced by the witnesses' refusal to cooperate, conflicting testimony, and legal difficulties caused by Davis' contacts with various law enforcement agencies.

In 2008, Davis spoke with members of a joint federal and Los Angeles group investigating the murder of rapper Christopher Wallace, known as The Notorious B.I.G. The conversation took place under the so-called proffer agreement, a limited agreement governing the use of reported information. The defense insisted that the promised protection from prosecution extended to the confessions in Shakur's case.

However, in 2009, Davis gave a separate interview to the Las Vegas police, and later began to speak publicly about the events. In 2018, he appeared in the documentary project Death Row Chronicles, and in 2019, he and his co-author released the memoir Compton Street Legend. In these versions, Davis placed himself in a Cadillac, talked about the search for Shakur and Knight after a fight and about transferring weapons to the back seat.

Las Vegas police said that Davis' statements allowed them to re-activate the investigation and obtain material that can be presented to the court. In July 2023, a house in Henderson was searched and electronic devices, documents, photographs, and a copy of his memoirs were seized. On September 29 of the same year, Davis was arrested after the grand jury's decision to indict.

The main dispute of the trial is whether confessions can be trusted

The key body of evidence for the prosecution is not the found weapon or the confession of the direct shooter, but numerous versions of Davis himself. The prosecutor's office intends to compare interviews with law enforcement officers, public appearances, memoirs and testimony of other witnesses to show that the accused repeatedly reproduced the same basis of events.

The defense, on the contrary, claims that the early statements were made for the sake of an agreement with law enforcement officers, and the later ones were exaggerated for the sake of earnings and attention. In an interview with ABC News, Davis stated that he had not read the book published under his name, and accused the co-author of an artistic reinterpretation of his stories. At the same time, the court allowed the prosecutor's office to use both the memoirs and the recording of the conversation with the police in 2008. The judge pointed out that Davis publicly presented the book as his own true story, which means he actually accepted its contents.

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An attempt to get the case dismissed through the Nevada Supreme Court was also unsuccessful. In November 2025, the court refused to intervene at the pre-trial stage. The ruling noted that Davis had failed to prove the extension of protection provided by one of the agreements with federal authorities to subsequent interviews and had not shown that the state of Nevada was bound by such a promise. At the same time, the court did not assess Davis' guilt and left him the opportunity to challenge the evidence during the trial and possible appeal.

The prosecution's position still has obvious vulnerabilities. Almost 30 years have passed since the crime, three alleged participants of the Cadillac trip have died, the memories of witnesses may have changed, and Davis' versions contradict each other. Some expected witnesses do not know about the circumstances from personal observations. The defense plans to involve a specialist in false confessions and coercive interrogation techniques.

At the same time, contradictory statements can also work against the accused. Over the years, he managed to publicly identify himself as an eyewitness, describe receiving and transferring weapons, and after his arrest, declare that he had not been to Las Vegas at all. The jury will have to decide which of these versions were a confession, which were an attempt to make money from a well—known case, and which appeared as a defense strategy.

What to expect from the court and what questions will remain open

The main question of the trial has already been formulated by the indictment: whether Davis participated in the organization of the attack enough to be responsible for the murder. It is not necessary for the jury to determine who fired the shots if they agree that Davis intentionally helped commit the crime.

Even a guilty verdict will not necessarily provide a definitive answer to the most famous question of the case — who shot Tupac Shakur. The court also does not have to establish the truth about all the conflicts between the rap scenes of the East and West Coasts and does not consider the murder of The Notorious B.I.G., which remains unsolved.

The trial also has a broader meaning: it will test whether the case of a crime from almost 30 years ago can withstand the demands of a modern court, when the central evidence was the repeated stories of the accused himself. The outcome will depend not on the cultural weight of Shakur's figure or the stability of popular theories, but on whether the jury finds the evidence presented sufficient beyond reasonable doubt.

Why is the case still attracting attention?

Shakur's death has become not only one of the most famous unsolved murders in the United States, but also a part of hip-hop history. His songs combined social and political issues with personal vulnerability and harsh street rhetoric. In 2017, the musician was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The albums All Eyez on Me and Greatest Hits received diamond certifications in the USA, corresponding to 10 million credits each. Dear Mama was included in the National Audio Recordings Registry of the Library of Congress as a culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant recording. It was the scale of Shakur's posthumous influence that turned the criminal case into an event far beyond the Clark County Courthouse. But after almost 30 years, the process has to separate the documented facts from the myth that has grown up around the musician's name.