Jada Pinkett Smith is sharing her reaction to the arrest of a suspect in connection with to the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.
Smith, 52, said she hopes for “closure” over the death of Shakur — with whom she had a close friendship for many years — in a post on her Instagram Story, following the news of the suspect’s arrest on Friday.
“Now I hope we can get some answers and have some closure,” Smith wrote in response to the arrest. “R.I.P. Pac,” she finished, adding a dove emoji.
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On Friday, it was reported by the Associated Press and ABC News that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department had arrested Duane “Keffe D” Davis as a suspect in connection to the murder of Shakur, who died by shooting on Sept. 13, 1996. The arrest is the first major development in the cold case since the incident occurred 27 years ago.
According to the AP, Davis was taken into custody Friday morning. The arrested suspect was charged with one count of murder with a gang enhancement. He was described as the “on-ground, on-site commander” who “ordered the death” of Shakur by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at a press conference on Friday, per AP.
On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times as he sat in a car on his way to a nightclub in Las Vegas. The 25-year-old rapper was at the height of his success at the time and died from his injuries on Sept. 13. Despite speculation on his murder, the case went cold soon afterward.
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Smith has spoken publicly many times about her close connection with Shakur — who she has said was her “best friend.”
The pair first met as students at Baltimore School of the Arts in Maryland. “It was the first day and he came over to me and introduced himself,” Pinkett Smith once said in an interview. “Definitely from looking at him, wasn’t necessarily the type of cat that I would even like, deal with.”
“But as soon as he approached me, he was like a magnet,” she continued. “Once you paid attention to him he kind of sucked you in. And we hit it off from that moment on.”
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Smith described Shakur as a “brother” and “father figure” to her. “The type of relationship we had…you only get that once in a lifetime…,” she emotionally added.
In a 2015 interview with Howard Stern, Smith also spoke about her friendship with Shakur.
“I’ve never in my life met a person like Pac. He had so much charisma,” she said of Shakur, the son of activist and Black Panther Afeni Shakur Davis.
Smith revealed that she and Shakur attempted to take their connection further at one point as they kissed — but they both felt that it didn’t feel right. “Being older, I have more of an understanding of what that was between us,” Smith, who went on to marry Will Smith, continued.
“When you have two young people that have very strong feelings, but there was no physical chemistry between us at all.”
The new development in the Shakur murder case comes after the investigation was reopened earlier this summer. On July 17, authorities executed a search warrant at a home in Henderson, Nev. connected to Davis.
The suspect, now 60, claimed he is one of three “living eyewitnesses” to Shakur’s murder, according to the book Compton Street Legends, published in 2019.
Source: People.com