Keefe D has been found guilty of the murder of Tupac Shakur–a conviction that came 30 years after the rapper was shot in the streets of Las Vegas. Despite a memoir and public statements on numerous podcasts and platforms, Keefe D maintained his innocence throughout the trial and intends to appeal the verdict.
According to All Hip Hop, his attorney argued that the handling of the investigation was ruined from the start since the police didn’t go after key leads outside of Davis. Michael Sanft said there were plenty of people who wanted to kill Tupac at the time. And while he gave credit to the jurors for doing their job, he believed that they didn’t push back against assumptions made by the prosecution.
“They were inquisitive, but my problem is that I don’t believe they stood up at the end,” Sanft told reporters. “I think what they did is they sort of just allowed this to happen this way without challenging the premises that everyone else had.”
Keefe D's Attorney Speaks Out
One of the premises surrounded the ownership of the white Cadillac. “What I’ll tell you flat out is that there is evidence out there of ownership of Cadillacs that was never looked into by people that had some motive here to get rid of Tupac Shakur,” he said.
The white Cadillac, of course, was the vehicle that rolled up next to the black BMW that Tupac and Suge were driving in on September 7th, 1996, when it was shot up. What Sanft took issue with is that the prosecution didn’t have a murder weapon, evidence of the rental car or whose name it was rented under, or even that Keefe D was in Las Vegas at the time of the shooting. The jurors largely relied on Keefe D's statements to reach their verdict. Sanft thinks that the defense had an uphill battle to fight because of the failures mentioned, along with the legal motions that were shut down before the trial even began. Keefe D is expected to be sentenced on October 13th.
