Tupac Trial Week 2 Recap: Murder Case Heads to Jury After Explosive Recording & More Testimony

The second week of the Tupac Shakur murder trial saw an explosive jailhouse recording, prosecutors rest their case and attorneys for Duane “Keffe D” Davis quickly wrap their own brief defense, sending the trial to the jury far sooner than expected.

You’re reading Billboard’s weekly Tupac trial recap, a one-sheet breakdown of everything that happened in the epic murder case over the past week.

Stay tuned here each Friday for all the testimony and big events you might have missed.

Related Tupac Murder Trial Week 1 Recap: An ‘Act of Revenge,’ Heated Testimony & Police Tapes Dale Morris, Nashville Manager Who Guided Careers of Alabama & Kenny Chesney, Dies at 89 HYBE Pledges Over $300k for Colombia Earthquake Recovery After a first week filled with fireworks, prosecutors resumed their case on Monday (Aug.

24) with testimony from filmmaker Michael Dorsey, who worked on a BET docuseries in which Davis gave interviews discussing his role in the killing.

Jurors watched hours of unedited interview footage, which featured Davis declining to apologize to Tupac’s family.

Later in the week, prosecutors called police officers and investigators to the stand, including Robert Ladd, who testified that Davis was a “shot caller” within his Compton gang.

Ladd told jurors that Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, who allegedly pulled the trigger, could not have opened fire on Tupac without his uncle’s permission: “The younger gang members are supposed to do what they’re told without hesitation.” As prosecutors neared the end of their case, they played a jailhouse recording from 2023 in which Davis uttered a line that the state clearly wanted jurors to remember: “I got blood on my money,” he said in the tape .

On Wednesday (Aug.

26), the prosecution rested its case — far sooner than expected for a trial that was anticipated to run for at least four weeks.

In total, they had called 24 witnesses and played more than eight hours of recordings, mostly of Davis himself discussing his role in the killing.

When the defense kicked off its case on Thursday (Aug.

27), it didn’t last long.

They called just three witnesses — all of them former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers — in less than two hours, aimed at poking holes and raising reasonable doubt in the mind of jurors.