Tupac murder trial: Witness tells Las Vegas court ‘all hell broke loose’ on night of rapper’s shooting

The audio recording of officer Frank Miller interviewing Duane Davis about Biggie Smalls’ murder ended after about 40 minutes.

And with that, the jury has been told they are done for the day.

The judge and the legal teams are still in the courtroom, discussing something privately.

Image source, Reuters

In the historic police interview being played to the court, Duane Davis tells officer Frank Miller about the night of Biggie’s murder. The audio is played and a video shows the transcript.

Davis says he saw Biggie and Sean “Puffy” Combs, also known as Diddy, at the party. Davis goes over some of the details he remembers; someone was wearing new Jordan sneakers that had just been released, Davis was driving a dark green rental car.

He says he was in a parking structure near the party when he heard people say, “Biggie got shot”.

Later in the lengthy interview, there’s a moment of frustration from Davis. Miller tells him they are only questioning him because he was at the party.

Miller says he is trying to find new details from those at the party to piece together how Biggie was killed.

Judge Carli Kierny excuses Fred Miller, a retired Los Angeles Police Department investigator, after he completes a stop-start witness testimony via Zoom that was peppered with technical glitches.

Now we are hearing an audio recording of an interview between Davis and Miller which was conducted after the shooting of Biggie.

This is one of the last pieces of evidence for today’s proceedings.

The jury has returned, after another brief break due to technical issues with the Zoom feed.

The judge reminds that, while they are currently talking about the death of Biggie Smalls, the defendant Davis is not a suspect in that murder.

We then go back to the video call, which seems to be free of tech issues now. The ex-LAPD witness appears to now be testifying via his iPad.

Image source, Reuters

Former detective Fred Miller says Biggie was at a party before he was shot.

Police had information about the suspect’s car. Miller says it was a newer model of a Chevy Impala with “very fancy rims”.

He tells the court the suspect was a black male.

The prosecutors were focusing on the death of Biggie but technical issues have put a temporary stop to questioning.

Miller’s video keeps stopping, and the court takes a break to try and figure out the glitches.

Image source, WireImage via Getty Images

The jury has been brought back into the courtroom after a short break.

The trial is resuming with testimony from Fred Miller, a retired homicide detective from Los Angeles, who worked on the investigation into the killing of rapper Notorious B.I.G.

He spent 30 years with the LAPD, he begins.

The lawyers finish questioning former homicide detective Brent Becker.

He is excused, and the legal teams approach Judge Carli Kierny’s desk.

She calls a 15-minute recess, while the court tries to “get some Zoom things going”.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The defence lawyer is asking about Reggie Wright Jr, the former head of security at Death Row Records.

He asks if Becker was aware that Wright had told his people to lie to investigators.

Becker says he didn’t know at the time. “I was later told by Frank Alexander that he said that,” says Becker.

Becker, the former Las Vegas detective, says that when he showed Frank Alexander the line-up of suspects in Tupac’s murder, Alexander was not able to positively identify anyone.

He adds that Alexander has since died.

Investigators from Las Vegas made many trips to California, he says, because that’s where everyone relevant to investigation was from.

He says they tried to speak to Death Row Records but got the runaround.

The prosecutor asks about the murder of The Notorious B.I.G. (real name Christopher Wallace). The rapper was killed about six months after Tupac was shot.

Becker says he had contact with one of the lead detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department, which was investigating that murder.

Frank Alexander, Tupac’s former bodyguard had “gotten cross with Death Row Records”, Becker believes, and was willing to meet with them and they could show him the photo line-ups.

Orlando Anderson and Duane Davis were among those pictured.

Becker says one witness described the driver of the Cadillac as having an “(expletive) face”. He says he perhaps mistakenly thought that meant a younger face.

Asked if any witnesses were able identify anyone in the car, Becker says only one person thought they could identify someone, but no one said they could identify the shooter.

He says one of those witnesses, Yafeu Fula, was later murdered in New Jersey.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The prosecution asks if information from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s investigation was being leaked.

Becker responds that he was “concerned” about leaks. He describes locking the shelves were case files were kept due to “the nature of who the victim was” and the significant media interest in the case.

The ex-officer says on a couple of occasions he returned to the files and found them “different” to how he left them.

The prosecution then asks Becker if he was aware that some of his fellow officers sold a polaroid picture of Tupac on the autopsy table to the Daily Mail newspaper.

He responds that yes, he saw someone walk into the room with a polaroid camera but didn’t see the photo get taken.

“It was not a photograph that we took… we had no reason to,” Becker says.

He then says he had ongoing concerns about the security of the investigation.

Becker tells the court that the Compton police department, in Los Angeles County, was shown the video from the MGM Grand casino and “immediately” identified Orlando Anderson as well as Knight and others.

Anderson was an alleged member of the South Side Compton Crips, and the nephew of Duane “Keffe D” Davis.

He says they also learned of a “series” of shootings following Tupac’s murder and that they were getting a “lot of information” from informants.

However, he says, they didn’t have people willing to come forward and testify.

The court also hears that Compton PD executed search warrants as part of their investigation into the ongoing gang war.

“We were told they were serving search warrants on all these locations for these different groups or gangs, but there was also at least one murder warrant for Orlando Anderson that they had there in Compton – so it was our understanding they were going to be arresting him on an outstanding murder warrant there in Compton.”

He adds his understanding was the search warrants were based on informants and that he was present when Anderson was arrested.

Image source, Reuters

The prosecution asks Becker about an incident at the MGM Grand casino earlier that night, which took place after a Mike Tyson fight.

Becker says he saw video of Suge Knight kicking and beating someone, alongside a large group that included Tupac.

He says he only learned of the victim’s first name, Orlando.

Becker says that police attempted several times to interview Knight about the shooting of Tupac.

Knight repeatedly didn’t show up, and when he did, he arrived with multiple lawyers, which Becker says he thought was weird because Knight was considered a victim in the shooting. He was driving the car that Tupac was in.

He says Knight’s interview seemed rehearsed and “timid”.

“I thought he lied to us,” he says. “He just basically said he didn’t know anything.”

Image source, US Courts

When asked if the police tested the weapon cartridge cases, Becker said they were, and that he “believes” the firearms examiner determined that the bullets came from a Glock brand of gun.

Becker is then asked if he received descriptions of the suspects.

“The only thing we had was two to four people, probably all black males,” Becker answers. “The shooter, all we had was a black arm.

The former officer then says witnesses to the shooting had “skedaddled” by the time he arrived on the scene.

Image source, Reuters

Becker says he interviewed witnesses who said they were in the car behind Tupac and Knight. They told him a white car pulled alongside Knight’s car and someone in the white car began “opening fire or shooting” into the car.

He says the descriptions “varied a bit” but he believes they all said it was a white car, while there “might have been a little bit of variance” between two and four occupants.

Asked next about the bullet holes – Becker says he saw “impact strikes” on the right hand side of the car as well as “some sort of mark or impact” on the windshield.

He explains however that he cannot know how many shots were fired, only seeing those that struck the vehicle, and adds some fired cartridges could have been thrown aside by other traffic or caught up in the tread of tires.

Brent Becker is now testifying as a witness via a video link. He says he was a police officer for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department from 1984 to 2011.

At the time Tupac was killed in 1996, Becker was a detective for the homicide section, he says.

He tells the court he was called out to a shooting on 8 September 1996, adding he got there about 1am.

Becker says Tupac wasn’t at the scene when he arrived, adding it was unusual for homicide to get called out when the victim was not yet dead. Tupac died six days after the shooting.

The former detective says because “of the nature of who the victim was”, he was asked to come out.

The court has returned – prosecutors are now calling their next witness.

Tara Mewawalla
Live reporter

The prosecution and defence in the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis both gave their opening statements this morning.

Here is a snapshot of what they said:

Binu Palal, prosecuting:

• In September 1996, there was an encounter in which Tupac Shakur and others attacked Orlando Anderson, the defendant’s nephew, Palal alleged
• He said that on September 7, Davis was in a white Cadillac with three other men when he passed a gun to his nephew Anderson who shot into Tupac’s car
• It is Palal’s case that in the ensuing years, Davis made a “number of statements“, including an interview with a federal taskforce that was secretly recorded and released later, where Davis “admits to his role in the murder”
• The prosecutor said Davis’ “visceral anger” at Tupac Shakur for putting his hands on his nephew” was clear over the years, including in Davis’ own book, Compton Street Legend

Michael Sanft, defending:

• Sanft argued there were issues with the investigative practices that oversaw the case, for example multiple reports by one detective going missing
• He alleged another investigator, Detective Long, faced significant obstacles when he took over the investigation – Sanft told the jury Long would testify to this later in the trial
• Sanft’s statement aimed to undermine state witnesses, calling them “unreliable people with criminal records, financial motivations and inconsistent statements”

Pria Rai
BBC Newsbeat presenter

The ex-gang leader was known to law enforcement before his arrest in 2023.

He’d made a deal with them. In exchange for information about Tupac’s case, he wouldn’t be charged. It stood for years.

But then came his book in 2019.

Compton Street Legend is a memoir co-written by Duane “Keffe D” Davis, which claims he’d “tossed” the gun used to kill Tupac into the backseat of the car from which the shots came.

Prosecutors argued it broke the deal because Davis had gone public with his knowledge. Davis’s defence have argued sections were fictionalised to make a profit.

The judge allow the book to be used in the case against Davis. It’s not claimed in the book or otherwise that Davis actually fired the shots that killed Tupac. Davis has pleaded not guilty.

For those of you in the UK, you can watch the video below in which we explain the charge, and the role the book played in reigniting the investigation into Tupac’s murder.