Nearly three decades after Tupac Shakur was fatally shot on the Las Vegas Strip, prosecutors are preparing to rely on statements made by the man accused of orchestrating the killing — including accounts that later appeared in a memoir.
According to Fox News, Duane "Keffe D" Davis has repeatedly discussed his alleged connection to the shooting over the years.
His statements came during interviews with investigators, a television appearance and while he was working as a confidential informant, as well as in his memoir.
That book could become especially important at Trial because prosecutors have listed its ghostwriter, Yusef Jah, as a potential witness.
Retired LAPD detective Moses Castillo believes Jah could face direct questions about whether the book reflected conversations he had with Davis.
The defense has suggested that portions of the memoir were fictionalized and has maintained that Davis was not responsible for Shakur's killing.
"I suspect that the prosecution is going to have to call the writer of this book and ask him point-blank and directly: Did you write this based on what Davis told you?" Castillo told Fox News Digital.
"If he says yes, and this is what he told me, then it's gonna be very hard to dispute that fact," Castillo said.
Prosecutors have already placed Davis' previous accounts before jurors.
Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said in opening arguments that Davis spoke with investigators several times beginning in the late 1990s and later discussed the shooting publicly.
Jurors also heard portions of a 2008 interview in which Davis described how the gun was obtained and alleged that his nephew, who is now deceased, fired the shots.
Defense attorney Michael Sanft urged jurors to question whether Davis' accounts represent proven facts or stories that were never properly verified.
"What they are telling you, they're representing it to be a fact when it really is fiction," Sanft said. "And it's up to you to determine what the facts are in this case."
Sanft also argued that investigators failed to follow up with people who were allegedly inside the suspect vehicle before some of those potential witnesses died.
The case faces another obstacle: time. Shakur was killed Sept. 7, 1996, and Castillo said investigators had difficulty getting people connected to the shooting to cooperate.
Marion "Suge" Knight, who was driving the BMW when Shakur was shot, survived the attack but has indicated he does not want to testify if prosecutors call him.
A gunman in a white Cadillac opened fire on Shakur and Knight on the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur was 25 when he died from his injuries six days later.