Shaimaa Khalil
Reporting from court

A day in court has been a long time coming in the 30-year-old cold case of Tupac Shakur's murder in Las Vegas.

I was inside the courthouse as opening statements began in the trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis, charged with murder in Tupac's death.

Davis walked in wearing a blue suit, scanned the public gallery and then sat quietly beside his lawyer as prosecutors laid out their case against him.

They say Davis orchestrated Tupac Shakur's killing as revenge for an attack on his nephew earlier that night.

The prosecutor told the jury what they can expect to hear in this trial: "You will learn from Keffe D himself."

That's because much of the case against Davis comes from his own words in his memoir Compton Street Legend. He describes being inside a white Cadillac at the scene of the shooting and supplying the gun that was passed into the back seat and used to shoot Tupac.

Davis's defence says that account was a fictional embellishment to sell books, calling the decades-long investigation "biased, sloppy and incomplete".

The jury on Monday also heard about the crucial minutes before and after the shooting from those who were there.

A former police officer said he saw the BMW carrying Tupac and record-label boss Suge Knight riddled with bullets.

Another witness recalled hearing the gunfire: "All hell broke loose."

But she did not see the shooter.

And the detective who investigated the case at the time said witnesses had "skedaddled" - leaving police with little more info than a white car and a glimpse of what he described as "a black arm".

As the jury hears from more witnesses in the coming days, they must decide how reliable their testimony is - and whether Davis's own words were indeed fact or fiction.

We are closing our live coverage. You can read a wrap of today's evidence here.

Image source, Reuters

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 63, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon over the death of Tupac Shakur.

Police allege he planned the shooting after his nephew was involved in a fight in a Las Vegas casino. Davis was arrested near his Las Vegas home in September 2023.

Prosecutors allege Davis - a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang - was the "on-ground, on-site commander" who "ordered the death" of Shakur.

Davis denies the charges, and his defence team says there is no evidence he orchestrated the murder.

Tupac’s murder case had largely gone cold until public statements made by Davis himself, who published a memoir in 2019 in which he claims he was a passenger in the vehicle that fired into Tupac’s car.

He says in the book that he gave the gun used in the murder to his nephew, Orlando Anderson, who shot the rapper.

Defence attorneys argue the book is fictional. A judge ruled it can be introduced in court.

You can follow every twist in the Tupac murder trial on the BBC podcast Fame Under Fire: The Tupac Murder Trial.

It's available now on BBC Sounds, BBC iPlayer or wherever you get your podcasts.

Image source, Getty Images

It's been three decades filled with mystery, conspiracies - and anger.

The drive-by shooting that killed rap superstar Tupac Shakur on 7 September 1996 changed the trajectory of hip-hop and elevated the rapper from the face of the genre to a cultural icon.

His killing became one of popular culture's great mysteries, with countless theories but no arrests until 2023, when Duane "Keffe D" Davis was charged with murdering the rapper.

The 63-year-old former gang boss is standing trial in Las Vegas, where he is accused of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He's pleaded not guilty.

If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. The trial could unravel the intricacies of the bitter and deadly East Coast vs West Coast rap rivalries and turf wars between the Bloods and the Crips street gangs that were immortalised in rap lyrics and news reports in the 1990s.

We've heard a lot of names on the first day of the trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the man charged with the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.

• Frank Alexander: Tupac's bodyguard in 1996 who was in the convoy of cars the night Tupac was shot. Former Las Vegas detective Brent Becker said when he later showed Alexander a line-up of suspects in Tupac's murder - which included Orlando Anderson and Duane Davis - Alexander could not positively identify anyone.
• Christopher Wallace: Birth name of rapper Biggie Smalls, also known as The Notorious B.I.G., who was shot and killed six months after Tupac died. Investigators of both rappers' murders were in contact with each other.
• Orlando Anderson: An alleged member of the South Side Compton Crips gang and Davis's nephew. Hours before Tupac was shot, video showed Anderson being beaten by a group that included Suge Knight.
• Marion "Suge" Knight Jr: Former executive at Death Row Records, the music label Tupac was signed with. Suge was driving the car Tupac was in the night he was shot.
• Reggie Wright Jr: The former head of security at Death Row Records. Wright had told his people to lie to investigators about Tupac's murder, Davis' defence attorney alleges.

With court wrapped up for the day, let's look at some of the visual evidence that was shown.

The jury saw several images of the car that Tupac was riding in when he was shot.

Multiple bullet holes can be seen in one photo, while another shows an investigator scouring the vehicle for evidence.

We've also seen a photo of the accused when he was promoting his tell-all memoir.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

The audio recording of officer Frank Miller interviewing Duane Davis about Biggie Smalls' murder ended after about 40 minutes.

And with that, the jury has been told they are done for the day.

The judge and the legal teams are still in the courtroom, discussing something privately.

Image source, Reuters

In the historic police interview being played to the court, Duane Davis tells officer Frank Miller about the night of Biggie's murder. The audio is played and a video shows the transcript.

Davis says he saw Biggie and Sean "Puffy" Combs, also known as Diddy, at the party. Davis goes over some of the details he remembers; someone was wearing new Jordan sneakers that had just been released, Davis was driving a dark green rental car.

He says he was in a parking structure near the party when he heard people say, "Biggie got shot".

Later in the lengthy interview, there's a moment of frustration from Davis. Miller tells him they are only questioning him because he was at the party.

Miller says he is trying to find new details from those at the party to piece together how Biggie was killed.

Judge Carli Kierny excuses Fred Miller, a retired Los Angeles Police Department investigator, after he completes a stop-start witness testimony via Zoom that was peppered with technical glitches.

Now we are hearing an audio recording of an interview between Davis and Miller which was conducted after the shooting of Biggie.

This is one of the last pieces of evidence for today's proceedings.

The jury has returned, after another brief break due to technical issues with the Zoom feed.

The judge reminds that, while they are currently talking about the death of Biggie Smalls, the defendant Davis is not a suspect in that murder.

We then go back to the video call, which seems to be free of tech issues now. The ex-LAPD witness appears to now be testifying via his iPad.

Image source, Reuters

Former detective Fred Miller says Biggie was at a party before he was shot.

Police had information about the suspect's car. Miller says it was a newer model of a Chevy Impala with "very fancy rims".

He tells the court the suspect was a black male.

The prosecutors were focusing on the death of Biggie but technical issues have put a temporary stop to questioning.

Miller's video keeps stopping, and the court takes a break to try and figure out the glitches.

Image source, WireImage via Getty Images

The jury has been brought back into the courtroom after a short break.

The trial is resuming with testimony from Fred Miller, a retired homicide detective from Los Angeles, who worked on the investigation into the killing of rapper Notorious B.I.G.

He spent 30 years with the LAPD, he begins.

The lawyers finish questioning former homicide detective Brent Becker.

He is excused, and the legal teams approach Judge Carli Kierny's desk.

She calls a 15-minute recess, while the court tries to "get some Zoom things going".

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The defence lawyer is asking about Reggie Wright Jr, the former head of security at Death Row Records.

He asks if Becker was aware that Wright had told his people to lie to investigators.

Becker says he didn't know at the time. "I was later told by Frank Alexander that he said that," says Becker.

Becker, the former Las Vegas detective, says that when he showed Frank Alexander the line-up of suspects in Tupac's murder, Alexander was not able to positively identify anyone.

He adds that Alexander has since died.

Investigators from Las Vegas made many trips to California, he says, because that's where everyone relevant to investigation was from.

He says they tried to speak to Death Row Records but got the runaround.

The prosecutor asks about the murder of The Notorious B.I.G. (real name Christopher Wallace). The rapper was killed about six months after Tupac was shot.

Becker says he had contact with one of the lead detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department, which was investigating that murder.

Frank Alexander, Tupac's former bodyguard had "gotten cross with Death Row Records", Becker believes, and was willing to meet with them and they could show him the photo line-ups.

Orlando Anderson and Duane Davis were among those pictured.

Becker says one witness described the driver of the Cadillac as having an "(expletive) face". He says he perhaps mistakenly thought that meant a younger face.

Asked if any witnesses were able identify anyone in the car, Becker says only one person thought they could identify someone, but no one said they could identify the shooter.

He says one of those witnesses, Yafeu Fula, was later murdered in New Jersey.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The prosecution asks if information from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's investigation was being leaked.

Becker responds that he was "concerned" about leaks. He describes locking the shelves were case files were kept due to "the nature of who the victim was" and the significant media interest in the case.

The ex-officer says on a couple of occasions he returned to the files and found them "different" to how he left them.

The prosecution then asks Becker if he was aware that some of his fellow officers sold a polaroid picture of Tupac on the autopsy table to the Daily Mail newspaper.

He responds that yes, he saw someone walk into the room with a polaroid camera but didn't see the photo get taken.

"It was not a photograph that we took... we had no reason to," Becker says.

He then says he had ongoing concerns about the security of the investigation.

Becker tells the court that the Compton police department, in Los Angeles County, was shown the video from the MGM Grand casino and "immediately" identified Orlando Anderson as well as Knight and others.

Anderson was an alleged member of the South Side Compton Crips, and the nephew of Duane "Keffe D" Davis.

He says they also learned of a "series" of shootings following Tupac's murder and that they were getting a "lot of information" from informants.

However, he says, they didn't have people willing to come forward and testify.

The court also hears that Compton PD executed search warrants as part of their investigation into the ongoing gang war.

"We were told they were serving search warrants on all these locations for these different groups or gangs, but there was also at least one murder warrant for Orlando Anderson that they had there in Compton - so it was our understanding they were going to be arresting him on an outstanding murder warrant there in Compton."

He adds his understanding was the search warrants were based on informants and that he was present when Anderson was arrested.

Image source, Reuters

The prosecution asks Becker about an incident at the MGM Grand casino earlier that night, which took place after a Mike Tyson fight.

Becker says he saw video of Suge Knight kicking and beating someone, alongside a large group that included Tupac.

He says he only learned of the victim's first name, Orlando.

Becker says that police attempted several times to interview Knight about the shooting of Tupac.

Knight repeatedly didn't show up, and when he did, he arrived with multiple lawyers, which Becker says he thought was weird because Knight was considered a victim in the shooting. He was driving the car that Tupac was in.

He says Knight's interview seemed rehearsed and "timid".

"I thought he lied to us," he says. "He just basically said he didn't know anything."