The defense in the murder trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis rested its case Thursday after calling just three witnesses in less than two hours. Closing arguments in the Las Vegas trial are set for Monday.
Davis is the former gang leader charged with the 1996 drive-by shooting murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur. His lawyer, Michael Sanft, built the defense around testimony from three former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers in an effort to raise reasonable doubt.
Former LVMPD Sgt. Stan Hyt and former Lt. Charlie Mangrum testified they were working overtime the night Shakur was shot. According to a trial livestream from Law&Crime, as reported by Rolling Stone, the two said they were keeping watch on the Las Vegas home of Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight, who was expected to host a party after boxer Mike Tyson won a bout at the MGM Grand. They said they saw a light-colored Cadillac arrive at the house and later leave as part of a convoy that included Knight driving Shakur in his BMW.
The testimony was significant because witnesses later told police that a light-colored Cadillac pulled alongside Knight's BMW less than an hour after leaving the property, when someone in the back seat opened fire and fatally wounded Shakur.
Prosecutors allege that Davis, a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, was riding in the front passenger seat of the rented white Cadillac. They say he was the shot-caller that night and allowed his nephew, Orlando Anderson, to open fire on the BMW in retaliation for an attack by Shakur and his entourage on Anderson inside the MGM Grand about two hours earlier.
Under cross-examination Thursday, Mangrum confirmed that his report from that night included the license plate numbers of all vehicles that entered Knight's property, and that homicide detectives in 1996 would have followed up on that information.
The third and final defense witness was former homicide detective Dan Long, who led the original Shakur murder investigation.
Earlier in the trial, jurors heard about an alternate conspiracy theory involving Knight's security chief, Reggie Wright Jr. Former Knight associate James McDonald, also known as "Mob James," testified under a court order and rejected the idea. "It's not true," he said. "If Reggie killed Tupac, then Death Row was over with. Tupac was the money source. Tupac was that guy at Death Row."
Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.
