Almost 30 years ago, on the night of September 7th, 1996, just after 11 p.m., Marian Shug Knight, the feared 31-year-old CEO of Death Row Records, was behind the wheel of a black BMW 750 sedan cruising through Las Vegas just off the strip. Him sat Tupac Shakur, only 25 years old, but already a legend. Rocking a Versace shirt and a thick gold chain, Tupac was out on bond and glowing with fame. Hours earlier, he'd been caught on camera assaulting a known [ __ ] gang member inside the MGM Grand right after the Mike Tyson fight. Them about 10 cars from the death row entourage trailed through traffic like a moving fortress. It happened. The intersection of Flamingo and Kaval under the flicker of Vegas neon. A late model Cadillac crept up beside them. Within seconds, everything changed. In new court filings from July 2024, Las Vegas prosecutors revealed a major twist. Orlando baby Lane Anderson, long suspected as Tupac's killer, may not have even fired the gun. According to investigators, Anderson didn't have the right angle to shoot from his position in the car. That detail directly contradicts a December 203 filing that named Anderson as the alleged triggerman. Prosecutors say DeAndre Big Dre Smith, another member of the Southside Compton Crips, was the real shooter. Allegedly, Anderson handed him the 40 caliber Glock from the front seat. Smith, sitting in the back, leaned out and fired 13 shots. Four of those bullets hit Tupac in the chest, arm, and thigh. Knight was grazed by shrapnel, but survived. Tupac didn't. In a tragic twist of fate, he wasn't wearing his bulletproof vest that night. Inside the BMW that night, Tupac's unreleased track never had a friend like me was playing in the car when the 28-year sentence at California's Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility for a deadly hit and run. Knight remains the only living witness to the shooting that changed hip hop forever. From behind bars, he reflected on that haunting moment, the music, the chaos, and the bullets that ended Tupac's life. For nearly three decades, no one was ever held accountable for Tupac Shakur's murder. The shooting happened at one of the most heavily surveiled intersections in the country, right in the heart of Las Vegas. And yet, no arrests, no charges, no justice. While tensions boiled between gang affiliated record labels, and the industry teetered on the edge of allout war, believed the case didn't go cold by accident. Went cold because too many were afraid to confront the truth. A truth tangled in power, fear, and influence that stretched far beyond. But in September 2023, everything changed. Dwayne Keefe D. Davis, a former Crips shot caller and the last known living suspect tied to the infamous white Cadillac, was finally arrested. Say he wasn't just in the car. He was the mastermind. Man who orchestrated Tupac's murder, the hit that's haunted hip hop for nearly 30 years. >> Did you actually see a gun? No [ __ ] Once he got the region, I got the ducking. >> So someone from your car, >> that's what happened. >> Started shooting at Tupac and shook. >> So Orlando shot across Dre. >> He leaned over on the window. We roll down the window. Popped. >> Who was it? >> They would have drove on my side. I was popped. You know what I'm saying? But they was on the >> inside the murder allegations and Diddy's alleged involvement. Then came the real shocker. A bombshell court filing dated July 18th, 2020. The Clark County District Attorney unsealed a long hidden 2009 police interview with Dwayne Keef D. Davis. The time Davis was cooperating as a confidential informant and what he allegedly revealed sent shock waves through the case. Not only did he describe his own role in Tupac's murder, repeatedly named music mogul Shawn Diddy Diddy Combmes, then known as Puff Daddy, as the man who ordered the hit on Tupac Shakur. Accusation that had lived in whispers was now in writing. >> Tupac man. >> In this way, Bit Sin is making fun of Puff Daddy, and he wrote the following in a post. #no Puffy Juice. He killed your favorite rapper. Davis claimed that Shawn Combmes was furious, pushed over the edge by Tupac's constant taunts in public shots. According to a 2008 interview later detailed in a report by the DEA and US Department of Justice, Davis alleged that Combmes told him point blank he needed to get rid of Knight and Shakur and the million offered to Davis to handle the problem. A chilling claim that added fuel to one of hip hop's darkest conspiracies. In the documentary, it is claimed that Puff Daddy gave Crips gang member Kei D $1 million to kill Tupac and Suge Knight, who was recently arrested. >> And these are Eminem's lines from the Kill Shot track. Joe Biden recounted how Puffy reacted to it. >> Puff said it's in his hands and he said, "I can say it." Uh, and and that's the end of that. >> Have fun with that one. >> He said, "You know, there's nothing there's nothing to say about it. It's in my hands. >> Even Suge Knight gets angry at people who think that he killed Tupac. But >> [ __ ] ass puffy can give him a mother star and every rat in the world said he the one kill Tupac or had him shot. >> And now after the arrest of Kei D who said the Puff Daddy offered him a million bucks to murder Tupac. Many raised the question, will Puff Daddy face charges? >> Still processing the betrayal and bloodshed, Suge Knight doesn't hold back. I took a bullet an inch from my brain, he says, voice steady. But somehow everybody knew where that million dollars came from. He pauses, then delivers the line with weight. What would Pack want? He'd want the truth. And if something smells like [ __ ] and looks like [ __ ] then it is [ __ ] No denial. Just Suge still standing, still speaking, and still calling it like he sees it. Shan Combmes has repeatedly and vehemently denied having any involvement in Tupac Shakur's murder. And as of July 24th, 2024, a spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to People Shan Combmes has never been considered a suspect in the Tupac Shakur homicide investigation. He's never been charged in connection with the 1996 killing. However, Combmes is currently facing unrelated but serious federal charges. off right now. >> Yes. Yes. >> Now, it was this documentary that claimed which we know wasn't true. >> Yeah. Yeah. Check this out. We don't we don't talk about um things that are that are nonsense. We don't even entertain nonsense, my brother. So, we not even going to even go there. With all due respect, >> maybe I should my brother because he got Tupac. >> We going to kill all you [ __ ] [Music] Do you think that people really know you? >> No, people don't really know me. And that's by design. >> Who is this person, the Shawn Combmes, that we don't know? >> We have yet to find out. You have to come along for the ride. >> You got to see this movie all the way through, baby. Believe me, I got an accident. >> Awaiting trial, Davis's legal battle. Dwayne Keefe D. Davis, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, remains behind bars as he awaits trial, now delayed until February 9th, 2026. His legal team claims new witness testimony could place him in Los Angeles, more than 300 miles away from Las Vegas at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors continue to lean on Davis's own words, especially his explosive 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, in which he openly discusses his involvement in the case. Knight's final hours with Tupac. Back in September 1996, on that violent night in Vegas, everything unraveled in seconds. After the shots rang out, Shug Knight, bleeding from the head, whipped the BMW into a U-turn and sped westbound down Las Vegas Boulevard. Patrol officers already responding to another call heard the gunfire and immediately called for backup. They spotted the BMW, his tires blown out, barreling through traffic. Once stopped, police called for medics, got out, bleeding everywhere, trying to tell the officers what happened. Knight recalls. Door was open and I had to unbuckle his seat belt myself, still covered in blood. The two were rushed by ambulance to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Tupac was still conscious, joking, even >> was funny as [ __ ] Knight says, cracking a rare smile. Both bleeding and he's like, "Sh, when we heal up, you know what we doing." That was pack. No matter what, he was still pack. At the hospital, Knight was treated and Tupac though was listed in critical condition. Knight returned to visit him. Shakur was still talking. Sat up and said, "Bring me a blunt." Nah, bring two, I said. You going to smoke in the hospital? Pack said, "Yeah, I am." Knight laughed softly, recalling Tupac's request for Hennessy, too. Classic Pack. Unbothered, even in a trauma, the laughter faded fast. Doctors prepped Tupac for a second emergency surgery, including the removal of his right lung. Knight claims Tupac made a terrifying request, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Kill me. Shoot me." According to Knight, Tupac didn't want to go back to prison, a fate he feared more than death. He spoke clearly, even suggested it be caught on camera, recorded as a will, a final message to the world. Believed no matter what, they'd blame me, Knight says. Was trying to spare me from that, but I told him, "No, Pack, we can't do it." Tupac feared returning to prison for the casino beatdown, caught on surveillance just hours before, but he refused to take his own life, believing suicide would cost him his soul. Thought that if he died by someone else's hand, maybe he'd still make it to heaven," Knight says quietly. In the cold glow of hospital lights, surrounded by beeping monitors, blood stained memories, and fading hope, Suge Knight claims Tupac made one final plea. Not to a doctor, to his crew, to his mother, Apheni Shakur. May go, he allegedly whispered to Knight, who stayed by his side through the pain and chaos. Tupac begged his mother to help end his suffering. Knight says a fenny torn between a mother's love and her son's agony gave him pills in a desperate attempt to honor his wishes. Doctors rushed in and brought him back. Knight recalls. That's when Aphenny said, "Don't ever do that again. If he's struggling, don't touch him. Don't bring him back. Let him go." Knight calls it a mother's last act of mercy, a vow to respect her son's pain. Even as it broke her own the final hours, doctors placed Tupac in a medically induced coma, trying to ease the pressure on his failing body. A respirator kept him alive, but just barely. Damage was done. On September 13th, 1996, at 4:03 p.m., Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead. A silenced, born in pain. What happened next, Suge Knight says, was as intense and surreal as Tupac himself. Moments after doctors pronounced Tupac dead, Knight claims of Fainy Shakur, grieving but composed, turned to him with a firm, unwavering command. Get it done now. She wanted her son cremated, looked at her, and said, I don't know if I can do that, Knight recalls. Because I was saying no. But because Pack had told me something different just weeks before. According to Knight, the two had talked about death during a late night studio. Tupac had envisioned a sendoff full of love, legacy, and hip hop royalty. Once cremated, it was reported that the outlaws rolled up a blunt with Tupac's ashes and smoked them. The night the music died for Suge Knight. For Suge Knight, everything changed the night Tupac died. His empire, his purpose, even his identity. It wasn't just the loss of a friend. It was the collapse of a movement. Is nothing better to pack. No one greater than him. No one better. Knight says, his voice heavy with finality. Grief didn't just linger. It consumed him. Tupac's passing. I walked away from the music business. Knight admits was just no way. I didn't want to be in the studio with another artist. Didn't want to go on tour. I couldn't. I lost trust in so many people. I trust in hip hop for night. Tupac's death didn't just mark the end of an era. It marked the end. Heavenly Father, here [ __ ] down here, tell me who do you believe in? [Music] Blessed. I see mothers in black crying brothers and packs John plus everybody's high too up to ask why watching our own fall witness the end it's like we don't believe in God cuz we living in sin I asked my homie on the block why he strapped he laugh pointed his pistol as the cop pass and blast is just another murder nobody mourns no more my tear drops getting bigger but can't figure what I'm crying for is it the miniature caskets little babies victims of a straight from drug dealers going crazy it's Just the drugs visions of how the block was. Crack came and it was strange how it rocked us. Perhaps the underlying facts they hide explain genocide. It's when we ride on our own. What is it we all fear? Reflections in the mirror. We can't escape fate. The end is getting nearer.