By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
Nearly three decades after Tupac Shakur was gunned down on the Las Vegas Strip, a courtroom finally heard opening arguments in the case — and the man in the defendant's chair is someone who once talked about the murder more than anyone.
Duane "Keffe D" Davis is on trial in the 1996 killing of the rap icon, whose death has haunted hip-hop for thirty years without a conviction. According to NPR, a prosecutor told jurors that while few people connected to the case have been willing to discuss what happened that night, Davis is "the one person who has a hard time being silent" — a reference, reporting indicates, to Davis's own public statements and a memoir in which he described details of the shooting.
The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil, covering the opening statements, walked through the key arguments now before the court as the long-delayed trial formally got under way.
Both outlets note this is a case built as much on the defendant's own words as on physical evidence — an unusual dynamic prosecutors appear eager to use, and one the defense will have to answer directly as testimony proceeds. Neither report yet details the defense's opening strategy in full; we'll follow the trial and update as the evidentiary record grows.
Shakur was 25 when he was shot in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip in September 1996. His death, and the unsolved nature of the case for decades afterward, became one of the defining unresolved mysteries in American music.
If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by NPR and BBC News.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."