A recording of Dwayne Davis's statement was played in court during the Tupac Shakur trial
A Las Vegas jury listened to a recording of a 2008 interview in which Dwayne “Keffi Dee” Davis told detectives that his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, had shot rapper Tupac Shakur. Davis is accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur in 1996.
According to Davis in the recording, he, Anderson, and two other men were riding in a white Cadillac that pulled up alongside the car carrying Shakur and Death Row Records head Marion “Shug” Knight. Davis said he handed the gun to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith, but Smith refused to take it. After that, according to Davis, Anderson took the gun and started shooting.
At the time of the interview, Anderson had already been dead for about ten years. According to The Guardian, this was Davis’s first conversation with law enforcement in which he directly discussed his possible involvement in Shakur’s murder. Prosecutors consider the recording to be one of the key pieces of evidence in the case against the 63-year-old Davis.
Prosecutors also plan to cite Davis’s later interviews, his statements on podcasts, and his memoir *Compton Street Legend*, co-authored and published in 2019. However, Davis had previously told the FBI that Anderson was not involved in the 1996 shooting and suggested that Knight or Combs might have been involved.
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Davis pleaded not guilty. His attorney called the prosecution’s version of events “a fabrication” and claimed that his client had made up stories about his involvement in the shooting, and that law enforcement allegedly knew this.
Los Angeles Police Department detectives invited Davis for an interview regarding the 1997 death of rapper Notorious BIG. In the recording, investigators assured Davis that the conversation was confidential and that his statements could not be used against him. Prosecutors argue that Davis’s subsequent public accounts of the shooting nullified that agreement.
According to the prosecution, Shakur was killed in retaliation for Anderson being beaten by people in the rapper’s entourage at the MGM Grand following Mike Tyson’s fight a few hours earlier. Davis was present at the fight but, according to a source, did not participate in the altercation.
