Former street gang leader Duane 'Keffe D' Davis has been found guilty of the 1996 murder of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur, concluding a case that remained unsolved for nearly three decades.

Davis, 63, was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on Monday of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Judge Carli Kierny has scheduled sentencing for 13 October, though Davis informed the court shortly after the verdict that he intends to appeal.

The panel of 12 jurors deliberated for three hours following nine days of testimony from detectives, former gang associates and documentarians. Davis appeared straight-faced as the decision was read, briefly raising a fist towards the public gallery as he was escorted from the courtroom. Shakur's sister, Sekyiwa 'Set' Shakur, wept quietly in the gallery as the verdict was delivered.

Davis is the only person ever charged in connection with the September 1996 shooting near the Las Vegas Strip, which took place while the 25-year-old Shakur was travelling to perform at a local club. Prosecutors did not allege that Davis fired the fatal shots himself, but demonstrated that he orchestrated the retaliatory attack, procured the firearm, and sat in the front passenger seat of the car alongside the shooter.

Under Nevada law, aiding or abetting a murder carries the same legal culpability as firing the weapon. The jury heard evidence from a 2008 police interview in which Davis stated that his nephew, Orlando 'Baby Lane' Anderson, fired the fatal shots from the rear of the vehicle. Anderson, who was involved in a fight with Shakur at the MGM Grand hotel hours before the shooting, died in an unrelated shooting in 1998, a decade before Davis gave that account to police.

The defence, led by Michael Sanft, argued that prosecutors lacked forensic evidence, such as DNA, fingerprints or surveillance footage, linking Davis to the crime scene on 7 September 1996, maintaining that the state relied entirely on Davis's uncorroborated accounts in media interviews and his 2019 memoir.

Davis remains the sole surviving occupant of the car used in the ambush. I will continue to track the proceedings as the defence prepares its formal appeal ahead of the sentencing hearing in October.