Dr Lisa Gavin, forensic pathologist, testifies as expert analyst in Shakur’s autopsy
Dr. Lisa Gavin, a forensic pathologist in Clark County, Nevada, is now testifying as an expert analyst, reviewing the report and photos of Tupac Shakur’s body from his autopsy.
Highlighting the challenges of holding a murder trial 30 years after a death actually occurred, the medical examiner who actually conducted the autopsy has since died.
Gavin noted that she was in medical school in 1996, but has years of experience in interpreting evidence.
The next witness is William Heidmeyer, a former security officer at the Maxim Hotel and Casino, now known as the Westin.
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The night of Shakur’s killing in 1996, he was working with Las Vegas police officers to investigate the theft of some vehicles on the third floor of a Las Vegas parking garage.
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“We just suddenly heard a lot of gunfire, and we ran to the barrier wall that was overlooking” Koval and Flamingo streets in Las Vegas.
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Heidmeyer he said he heard “three volleys” of gunfire, with “Three to four, maybe even five,” shots in each volley of gunfire.
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He described looking down at the street, seeing a line of vehicles on Flamingo, heading east, including “a white Dodge Stratus at front, a Black BMW behind it….a white Chevy suburban behind that, and several more cars.”
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There were a number of people standing outside vehicles, including one Black man who was visibily holding a pistol in his hand, Heidmeyer said. “He wasn’t pointing it in any direction, it was just off to the side.”
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He described the Black man holding the pistol as “very young, well dressed, he was wearing a very bright white three-quarter sleeved shirt, black pants and a black dress vest.”
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His conclusion at the time was that the man with the gun that he had seen was the suspect in the shooting, Heidmeyer testified. “That’s what I deduced at the time.”
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Everyone on the street quickly got back in the cars and headed back towards Las Vegas Boulevard, Heidmeyer testified.
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So far, the second day of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas has focused on authenticating some of the basic evidence in the case, with expert testimony from a Las Vegas medical examiner’s review of photographs and the autopsy report of Shakur’s body, followed by testimony from an MGM Grand surveillance expert about the surveillance footage from 1996 used in the case.
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The MGM Grand surveillance footage is essential to the case because it establishes the motive for the shooting that killed Shakur nearly 30 years ago.
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Prosecutors have charged Duane Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, with orchestrating Shakur’s murder in Las Vegas in 1996, as revenge for the assault of his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in the MGM Grand.
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“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors yesterday.
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The evidence against Davis will include his own description of his role in the shooting in a 2019 memoir.
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Davis’ defense attorney, Michael Sanft, has argued that Davis’ own statements about the killing were lies meant to inflate his reputation. Davis’ lawyers previously argued that his book should not be used as evidence that he and his co-author exaggerated what happened in an effort to “falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain”.
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“At the end of the day you have to ask yourself: is what they are saying truth or fiction?” Sanft told the jury on Monday.
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Sanft argued on Monday that while Davis spoke about the killing to different law enforcement agencies over the years, including the FBI, they did not follow up because, Sanft said, they did not believe what Davis said was credible.
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The Associated Press contributed reporting
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Dr. Lisa Gavin, a forensic pathologist in Clark County, Nevada, is now testifying as an expert analyst, reviewing the report and photos of Tupac Shakur’s body from his autopsy.
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Highlighting the challenges of holding a murder trial 30 years after a death actually occurred, the medical examiner who actually conducted the autopsy has since died.
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Gavin noted that she was in medical school in 1996, but has years of experience in interpreting evidence.
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The second day of the Tupac Shakur’s murder trial began with more audio from a years-old interview between Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is accused of orchestrating Shakur’s shooting, and Fred Miller, a former Los Angeles police detective who had investigated Davis in connection with the 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, the rapper known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious BIG. Attorneys continued to play a lengthy audio recording of Miller questioning Davis in 1997.
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As reported yesterday, Davis was present at a party that Wallace had attended before he was shot, but Davis’s attorney emphasized he was not charged in Wallace’s murder, and the judge told jurors that law enforcement did not believe Davis was involved.
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We’ll be sharing live updates today from the second day of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas.
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Nearly 30 years after the iconic artist’s killing, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, a former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon in connection with the 1996 shooting. Prosecutors are alleging that Davis helped orchestrate the shooting, though he is not accused of being the gunman. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
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Here’s an overview of what we know about Tupac Shakur’s death and what to expect from this murder trial. And here are some key takeaways from yesterday’s opening arguments.
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Key events
Defense attorney Michael Sanft is now questioning William Heidmeyer, a former security officer, about his exact location on the night of the shooting, and his precise vantage point on the aftermath of the shooting.
Sanft emphasizes what the security guard already testified: that he heard gunfire and then saw a young man standing in the street with a gun, but did not actually see that young man shoot his weapon.
Former security officer describes witnessing aftermath of shooting
The next witness is William Heidmeyer, a former security officer at the Maxim Hotel and Casino, now known as the Westin.
The night of Shakur’s killing in 1996, he was working with Las Vegas police officers to investigate the theft of some vehicles on the third floor of a Las Vegas parking garage.
“We just suddenly heard a lot of gunfire, and we ran to the barrier wall that was overlooking” Koval and Flamingo streets in Las Vegas.
Heidmeyer he said he heard “three volleys” of gunfire, with “Three to four, maybe even five,” shots in each volley of gunfire.
He described looking down at the street, seeing a line of vehicles on Flamingo, heading east, including “a white Dodge Stratus at front, a Black BMW behind it….a white Chevy suburban behind that, and several more cars.”
There were a number of people standing outside vehicles, including one Black man who was visibily holding a pistol in his hand, Heidmeyer said. “He wasn’t pointing it in any direction, it was just off to the side.”
He described the Black man holding the pistol as “very young, well dressed, he was wearing a very bright white three-quarter sleeved shirt, black pants and a black dress vest.”
His conclusion at the time was that the man with the gun that he had seen was the suspect in the shooting, Heidmeyer testified. “That’s what I deduced at the time.”
Everyone on the street quickly got back in the cars and headed back towards Las Vegas Boulevard, Heidmeyer testified.
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Michael Sanft, former Las Vegas police officer Kenneth Rios says that he does not recall where he wrote up the report about his interaction with Orlando Anderson, or the exact circumstances of why he wrote up the report.
Through the judge, a member of the jury asks retired officer Rios about why he stayed with the apparent victim of the fight in the MGM Grand rather than following those who had done the assault. Rios said that his role was to check if the victim needed medical assistance or two file ar report. “We had already radioed to other officers who were on scene and the MGM Security had radioed to officers up front….It was my responsibility to stay with the victim.”
Kenneth Rios, former Las Vegas police sergeant, identifies himself as one of the police officers in the surveillance footage from the MGM Grand.
The footage shows Rios interacting with a man in a Dan Marino jersey football jersey, who was described as the victim in a fight in the hotel that night. Rios said the man was identified using a California driver’s license.
“I asked him if he needed medical assistance and he refused, he was fine…He told me basically that a couple of guys that he didn’t know jumped him…I asked him if he wanted to file a report, he said no,” Rios testified.
At that point he was released and allowed to go on his way, Rios said.
Later that night, after Rios learned about the shooting of Tupac Shakur, Rios was asked to write a report about his interaction with Orlando Anderson, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo, said. He remembered the man’s first name as Orlando, Rios confirmed.
The court took a brief ten-minute morning recess, and has now returned.
The next witness to testify is Kenneth Rios, a retired Las Vegas police sergeant, who served in the department for 28 years, and was working patrol at the MGM hotel on the night of Shakur’s killing.
The evidence heard earlier this morning, including graphic images of Tupac Shakur’s body, has been difficult for members of Shakur’s family who are present in the courtroom, according to reporters on the scene. From the Associated Press:
Some members of Tupac Shakur’s family stepped out of the courtroom Tuesday before prosecutors showed photos from his 1996 autopsy…
Jurors were shown a photo of a green body bag at the beginning of her questioning, followed by a grisly photo of his body. His relatives who remained in the courtroom looked away. One woman got up to leave once the photos were shown.
As Gavin explained the autopsy photos, Duane Davis [who is charged in Shakur’s killing] sat still, looking at the screen in front of him. He occasionally whispered in his attorney’s ear.
A map of the MGM Grand was examined during the second day of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Did the man charged in Tupac’s death tell the truth about his role?
So far, the second day of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas has focused on authenticating some of the basic evidence in the case, with expert testimony from a Las Vegas medical examiner’s review of photographs and the autopsy report of Shakur’s body, followed by testimony from an MGM Grand surveillance expert about the surveillance footage from 1996 used in the case.
The MGM Grand surveillance footage is essential to the case because it establishes the motive for the shooting that killed Shakur nearly 30 years ago.
Prosecutors have charged Duane Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, with orchestrating Shakur’s murder in Las Vegas in 1996, as revenge for the assault of his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in the MGM Grand.
“Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors yesterday.
The evidence against Davis will include his own description of his role in the shooting in a 2019 memoir.
Davis’ defense attorney, Michael Sanft, has argued that Davis’ own statements about the killing were lies meant to inflate his reputation. Davis’ lawyers previously argued that his book should not be used as evidence that he and his co-author exaggerated what happened in an effort to “falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain”.
“At the end of the day you have to ask yourself: is what they are saying truth or fiction?” Sanft told the jury on Monday.
Sanft argued on Monday that while Davis spoke about the killing to different law enforcement agencies over the years, including the FBI, they did not follow up because, Sanft said, they did not believe what Davis said was credible.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Michael Ingram, an investigator for MGM resorts in Las Vegas, is now testifying to authenticate the surveillance video from MGM resorts that is being used as evidence in the trial.
As the Associated Press noted, during the trial’s first day, “Jurors were shown video of Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson outside the boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas hours before the shooting on Sept. 7, 1996.”
Here’s the key video evidence from Monday:
District Court Judge Carli Kierney relayed a few questions directly from the jury to medical examiner Dr. Lisa Gavin.
“Where there any wounds to the head that you or Dr. Jordan observed or noted?”
“No, there were not,” Gavin said.
“Were all the bullets found of the same caliber?”
Gavin said she did not know.
Michael Sanft, the defense attorney for Duane Davis, asked expert witness Dr. Lisa Gavin, a medical examiner, if there were any records missing from the autopsy report done by the late Dr. Jordan.
Gavin said there were not anything missing, but noted that there were relatively few photos were taken during the autopsy, “and so we had few photos of the body itself, so consequently the crime scene analyst photos were helpful in order to come to a determination, in addition to the reports.”
Dr Lisa Gavin testified that the Nevada coroner’s office records identifying Tupac Shakur’s body include “medical records, some photographs, the autopsy report, the investigation report and the toxicology report”.
She also confirmed that the office had an affidavit from Shakur’s mother confirming that the body was that of her son and that he was dead.
“He died of gunshot wounds of chest and abdomen,” Dr. Lisa Gavin said. She confirmed the manner of death was “homicide … death at the hands of another.”
Vanessa Murphy, an investigative reporter for 8News Now in Las Vegas, is reporting live from the Nevada courtroom. She noted that “during this portion where pics of the body of Tupac Shakur were shown, most family members of Tupac Shakur left the courtroom.”
The photographs of Shakur’s body, which are being described in court but not shown on the trial live stream, showed evidence of the medical attempts to save his life after he was shot, Dr. Lisa Gavin confirmed.
Shakur was shot on 7 September 1996, and died in a Las Vegas hospital on 13 Sept, 1996.
Dr Lisa Gavin, forensic pathologist, testifies as expert analyst in Shakur’s autopsy
Dr. Lisa Gavin, a forensic pathologist in Clark County, Nevada, is now testifying as an expert analyst, reviewing the report and photos of Tupac Shakur’s body from his autopsy.
Highlighting the challenges of holding a murder trial 30 years after a death actually occurred, the medical examiner who actually conducted the autopsy has since died.
Gavin noted that she was in medical school in 1996, but has years of experience in interpreting evidence.
Trial starts with 1997 audio between man accused of planning Shakur’s murder and police detective
The second day of the Tupac Shakur’s murder trial began with more audio from a years-old interview between Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is accused of orchestrating Shakur’s shooting, and Fred Miller, a former Los Angeles police detective who had investigated Davis in connection with the 1997 murder of Christopher Wallace, the rapper known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious BIG. Attorneys continued to play a lengthy audio recording of Miller questioning Davis in 1997.
As reported yesterday, Davis was present at a party that Wallace had attended before he was shot, but Davis’s attorney emphasized he was not charged in Wallace’s murder, and the judge told jurors that law enforcement did not believe Davis was involved.
If you’re catching up now on what’s happened so far in th Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas, here is video of key evidence presented to the Las Vegas jury yesterday:
The court heard brief testimony from Thomas Kern, who was a crime scene analyst for the Las Vegas police department in 1996, who was present at the autopsy of Tupac Shakur, and is authenticating evidence from the autopsy. Kern did not face any cross-examination.
Day two begins of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas
We’ll be sharing live updates today from the second day of the Tupac Shakur murder trial in Las Vegas.
Nearly 30 years after the iconic artist’s killing, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, a former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon in connection with the 1996 shooting. Prosecutors are alleging that Davis helped orchestrate the shooting, though he is not accused of being the gunman. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
Here’s an overview of what we know about Tupac Shakur’s death and what to expect from this murder trial. And here are some key takeaways from yesterday’s opening arguments.
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