Introducing a new podcast for the true crime-obsessed, "The Crime Scene Weekly," hosted by Brad Mielke. Each week, "The Crime Scene" focuses on what everybody's talking about in true crime: what all your favorite podcasts are covering, and what's taking over your TikTok feed. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen. In this week's episode, the question of who killed Tupac Shakur has been a mystery for nearly 30 years. Now, the only person ever charged in his murder is speaking out for the first time since his arrest — and changing his story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the new true crime podcast about?
This is Deborah Roberts. We've got a new show for you that I think you're really going to want to check out. It's called The Crime Scene Weekly from ABC News. Each week, host Brad Milkey, who you know from Start Here, sits down with the journalists covering the latest true crime stories.
From the discovery of grisly new crimes to breakthroughs in cases that are far from closed, you can stay up to speed on the latest true crime headlines. It's true crime in real time. And for the next few weeks, we're going to bring the Crime Scene Weekly to you here in the 2020 feed. If you like it, make sure to follow the show and keep listening. Again, it's the Crime Scene Weekly.
Now, here's Brad.
The question of who killed rap icon Tupac Shakur has been a mystery for nearly 30 years. Well now, the only person ever charged in his murder is speaking out for the first time since his arrest. Welcome to the crime scene. Every week, we talk about the biggest true crime story of the moment with the ABC News reporters who know it best. I'm Brad Milkey. I host ABC's daily news podcast, Start Here.
Chapter 2: Who was Tupac Shakur and why is his murder significant?
And starting now, I'm bringing you the latest on what's big and what's new in the true crime scene. This week, we're hearing from the man who, for years, put himself at the scene of Tupac's murder and is now changing his story completely. Since his arrest, he had never spoken on camera until he chose to sit down across from ABC's chief investigative reporter, Josh Margolin.
And Josh is with us now. Hey, Josh. Brad, how are you? I'm okay. Thanks for being here, because... This is one of the most infamous murders in rap history, in music history, and it's remained unsolved for nearly three decades. So I guess take me back to the beginning, like the night of September 7th, 1996. What happened?
Chapter 3: What happened the night Tupac was murdered?
Tupac Shakur. He was in Las Vegas. He was in a BMW being driven by Suge Knight, the famous larger than life rap mogul, the leader of Death Row Records. Taking us all back to the 90s. And they had just come from a Mike Tyson fight. And Tupac was hanging out the window of the Beamer. They were driving on the strip, off the strip.
They had an entourage of cars, both Tupac's security, but also there were fans, groupies, who were following them in their own cars. It was a whole scene. And remember, it's Vegas on a fight night. So it is loud and big and... The world's eyes are on Las Vegas. And then at a red light, shots ring out.
Before anyone realizes what has happened, Suge Knight in the driver's seat of the Beamer is injured. He actually would later say that he thought he was dead or going to be dead. And Tupac Shakur is injured very, very seriously, gravely, rushed to a hospital.
dies later that week. Well, and before we even get into the investigation here, can we also just take a moment to talk about how big of a deal this was at the time? Because it is tough to overstate the influence of Tupac Shakur in this moment. He had just released his album All Eyes on Me earlier that year, and that has one of his best known songs, California Love.
At that time, Tupac Shakur was as big a music act and entertainer as there is. We're talking about Frank Sinatra. For that generation, that's what we're talking about. He was only 25. He had already started appearing in films. He was all over culture. He actually, according to people who know rap music, and by the way, I am not one of those people who know rap music. On the record.
But according to people who know rap music, he was in the process of of changing the genre, which rap was only coming into its own at that point in the mid-90s. Think about it. It really had only developed in the inner cities and was below the surface through the 80s and then the early 90s. Tupac was larger than life.
And yet he's also in the middle of what's becoming this intense East Coast, West Coast rivalry. He's on the West Coast.
Well, that's the other thing. So you have Tupac is rising to this level of stardom and the experts were saying that he was about to launch into like super stardom, like Madonna-level stardom at that point. And at the same time, you have to go back in time to what's happening in the world of crime and street culture. And that's the stuff I do know.
So we're talking about a situation where we have the explosion of the crack wars, the drug wars in the inner cities, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago. Simultaneously, the explosion of the gang wars. the battling between the Crips and the Bloods, the Red and the Blue.
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Chapter 4: Why has the Tupac murder case remained unsolved?
So the gangs are part of the feuding. Now, Very quickly, you're looking at me and you're saying, wow, that's actually a recipe for violence. And the answer is yes. A lot of money, legitimate money in the music industry. Then there's illegal money floating around through the drugs that are being peddled by the gangs. Then you have the artists.
In the midst of this really, really toxic situation, really dangerous situation, With a lot of guns floating around, Tupac Shakur is gunned down off Las Vegas Boulevard. Tupac is shot point blank. How did the investigation proceed after that? Right after Tupac is gunned down, the investigation starts and it's aggressive. There's just no question about it.
It's not a broad daylight homicide because it's nighttime, but it's basically a public homicide of a high profile celebrity. The cops are all over it. You really have two key witnesses here, including Suge Knight, who lived through the attack and was in the driver's seat.
it very quickly though becomes obvious to law enforcement that they're going to get no cooperation from anybody that has direct involvement because now we're talking about people who are connected to gangs There's the code of the streets. We don't talk to the cops. We don't snitch.
In fact, later on, Brad, Suge Knight sat down with ABC News and he was asked about the crimes and homicides and all these various things that he knows about. And he was very, very clear that he doesn't get paid to solve homicides. So what happens next? So you have Tupac has gone down in Vegas. Then a few months later, you have the notorious BIG, Biggie Smalls, who's gone down in Los Angeles.
And so you have the whole culture, the newspapers at the time, radio, TV, everybody's talking about this violent East Coast, West Coast rap war that has broken out. Ultimately, both of these crimes go unsolved into 2000, 2010, 2020. And then finally, something happens. And we don't really at this point know what in 2023, but something has happened. A switch has been flipped.
somehow in Las Vegas, and they are going to go and search the home of an alleged former member of the Crips, who happened to move from LA and was now living outside of Vegas in Henderson, Nevada. They were going to search his home. I have to tell you, when I got the phone call from a source saying that we just searched the home of this guy in connection with Tupac,
I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. You're telling me that you did a... First of all, what could you possibly be searching for? It's all these years ago. It's 1996. Are you saying that somebody's got a bloody t-shirt or something? My source said, we think it's him. They went ahead. They searched the home of Dwayne Davis. A few months later, they ended up arresting him.
And he has been in jail awaiting trial ever since. But who is this guy? So Dwayne Davis, he goes by a street named Keefy D. He was a kid who grew up in Compton, California in Los Angeles. And he disputes that he was ever in the Crips. So police and prosecutors say that he was not only a member of the Crips, but that he was a quote unquote shot caller. He was a big deal.
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Chapter 5: Who is Dwayne Davis and how is he linked to Tupac's murder?
Yeah, like there have been various reports over the years, like the L.A. Times has talked about how should not hire known blood members. How does Kifidi get wrapped up in the Tupac case?
There's a really strange winding road that brings us to how Kifidi winds up in jail and charged with Tupac's homicide. The authorities in Los Angeles in the 2000s are getting to the point where they're taking another crack at trying to solve the homicide of Notorious B.I.G., which occurs in Los Angeles after Tupac. They end up building a drug case against Keith E.D., In the biggie thing.
In the biggie thing. As the story goes, they end up getting him cornered on the drug charges and they give him an out. If you cooperate with us, we will give you a sort of get out of jail free card, kind of an immunity kind of deal. There are a lot of particulars, and there's a lot of fighting over what actually went into this negotiation.
But that's the rough outline of it, that there was this offer of immunity in return for information.
So it seems like then, according to police, Kifidi made his admissions as part of what's known as a proffer agreement, right? So you can't be prosecuted for what you say. What did he tell the cops then? Like, what is the information?
He basically told the cops, I don't know anything about Biggie, but I know about Tupac. I can give you info on the Tupac hit in Las Vegas. So that's 2008. In 2009, the Las Vegas police are given access to Kifidi, to Dwayne Davis, on the basis of the discussion from 2008. He says to us that he thinks he has immunity. So whatever he says can't be used against him.
When he meets with Las Vegas police in 2009, he basically repeats the same story. And what does he say? Davis basically says that there was a car that he was in. He's sitting in the front passenger side.
there's a driver and then there are two people behind him in the back seat in that car okay they had come from the mgm after the tyson fight there was some sort of a fight between patrons at the casino tupac somehow was involved in this fight On the other side was Orlando Anderson. Orlando Anderson was reported to be a member of the Crips.
Tupac was allegedly, according to law enforcement, he was with members of the Bloods. So that's where the gang thing circles back into this story. He's in this car with Keefy D after the fight, and they want payback. So they go looking for Tupac. They end up finding him coincidentally on this road off the strip where he ends up stopping at this light.
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Chapter 6: What is the role of gang affiliations in Tupac's murder?
If he confessed then, it seems kind of like law and order that the first thing you do is go arrest the guy, right? So we wanted to find out what was going on with that, but he subsequently gives these additional accounts confirming his account originally that he was there in the car.
so vegas police it turns out in all those years they were following this case vegas police knew about the confession obviously that was made they believed that kifi d was somebody they could charge for this crime that he wasn't necessarily the trigger man but he had this role as the shot caller in the car
and so they spent all of these years trailing him you know figuratively what did he say where did he say it where are the breadcrumbs can we place him here can we get confirmations there i was like why don't you just charge him but they won't confirm they want something stronger than just one guy saying one thing exactly they were concerned that if they arrested him then and proceeded with just his confession if the confession for whatever reason got thrown out of court they'd have no case
So their strategy was, let's wait, let's watch, let's build the case using the map that he was creating for detectives. And that's what they did. And it went year after year after year until finally... Las Vegas police, the Homicide Bureau, and prosecutors came to an agreement. Aha, we have enough. We have a solid case. Even if we lose the confession, we think we can get a conviction.
Let's charge it.
And we're going to take a quick pause right here, but we will be back with Josh Margolin right after the break.
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National Geographic's David Blaine, Do Not Attempt, now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. Don't miss Good American Family.
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Chapter 7: How did Keefy D's confession change the investigation?
Something is off. She's just a little girl. You think she's faking it? She has adult teeth? There are signs of puberty?
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Chapter 8: What led to the arrest of Keefy D in 2023?
He explains them in different ways. He goes back and he says, first, the confessions that he gave to law enforcement. He thought that he had an immunity deal, that he is free and clear from any of that stuff being entered and used against him.
100%.
That's what he's saying. So then the question is, why would you lie if you're being interviewed by police and nothing can be used against you? He says that there was this drug case that had been built against him. And it was not only against him, but there were dozens of other possible defendants. And so he told the lie because there was no penalty for lying.
He just lied to save people from going to jail.
They was going to arrest 48 people. It would have been selfish of me to let everybody go down because of me.
That's his first explanation about why he told the story confessing. Okay. But he didn't just tell it to law enforcement. Well, right. And then he says the reason why he repeated it in interviews down the road, he says he told that story for money. It was basically entertainment. People wanted to hear the story.
So he told the story, he says, in terms of the memoir, he says not only did he not participate in writing it, he didn't actually read it.
A guy wrote that book. A lot of these game details of my life. Told him I played football with Shug. You know what I'm saying? That's all I told him.
This is interesting to me because we've talked in the past about prosecutors holding the words of people in the music world against them. And the artist will say like, oh, that's just my public persona. It doesn't mean it's the truth. Usually in that case, we're talking about songs and lyrics. This is a memoir that Keefie D presented as nonfiction, right? And now he's changing his story.
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