Tupac murder trial faces ‘snitches get stitches’ problem but defendant's ghostwriter could be key
Tupac Shakur's murder trial could come down to the words of his accused killer and a ghostwriter involved in the book that helped authorities bring charges in the decades-old cold case, according to a retired LAPD detective.
Although the mantra of "snitches get stitches" hangs over the case, defendant Duane "Keffe D" Davis outlined his alleged involvement in a series of interviews with law enforcement — in part while working as a confidential informant — in a TV interview and again in his own memoir.
While the defense has hinted that Davis' ghostwriter Yusef Jah fictionalized some details and that the defendant wasn't involved in the crime, prosecutors have Jah's name on their witness list.
"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?" said Moses Castillo, a retired LAPD detective. "And then if he says yes, and this is what he told me, then it's gonna be very hard to dispute that fact."
Still, he told Fox News Digital, prosecutors have a tough case because Shakur's murder happened nearly 30 years ago and few witnesses cooperated at the time.
Even survivor Marion "Suge" Knight, a co-founder of Death Row Records who was in the car with Shakur and wounded in the shooting, has said he does not want to testify if called to the stand. Like Jah, he's also on the witness list.
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"When you're in this circle of gangs and gang involvement, you don't want to be a snitch," Castillo added. "You don't wanna be that person that's being classified as a rat. Because as they say: snitches get stitches, and that is really true."
But as Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal said in his opening statement Monday, one person did talk. That was Davis, who sat for interviews with investigators in 1998, 1999, 2008 and 2009, in addition to sitting for a BET documentary and discussing details in his book.
Prosecutors played some of his statements from 2008 in court on Monday — including his account of obtaining the gun and his claim that his nephew, who has since died, fired the shots.
Defense attorney Michael Sanft countered that it's up to jurors to decide what the facts are, based on evidence shown in court.
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"What they are telling you, they're representing it to be a fact when it really is fiction. And it's up to you to determine what the facts are in this case," he said in his own opening.
Sanft said investigators never vetted the claims in Davis' book, not even interviewing other witnesses allegedly in the suspect vehicle before they died.
A gunman in a white Cadillac opened fire on a BMW carrying Shakur and Knight on Sept. 7, 1996, on the Las Vegas Strip. Knight recovered from minor injuries. Shakur succumbed to his injuries six days later at 25 years old.