The former LAPD officer at the center of the Tupac Shakur murder trial has labeled chief suspect Keefe D as stupid and said he sank his own ship with his media admissions.
Confessed gangster Keefe D has publicly blamed Greg Kading for his incarceration after he was arrested last summer.
Ex-gang task force special detective Kading is currently penning a book about the Pac murder probe - which spelled out Keefe’s confession of being ring leader in the rapper's shooting.
Keefe, real name Duane Davis, is facing life imprisonment for the first degree murder of Tupac in a Las Vegas district court.
He blames Kading for causing his legal woes after he gave a secret interview to the detective in 2008, where Keefe detailed how he helped his nephew Orlando Anderson gun down Tupac in a car.
That interview - known as a proffer - was recorded and segments were printed in Kading’s book and featured on TV series Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder.
Earlier this year, much to Keefe’s fury, prosecutors entered the entire tape into evidence, which Kading insists must be included in the upcoming trial.
In an exclusive interview, Kading defended the move, insisting that Keefe was central to the Ghetto Gospel star’s death.
Kading calls Keefe’s boasts about masterminding the killing in September 1996 as “damning” and “key evidence”.
Publicly Keefe’s defense has been that he has lied about killing Tupac for fame and money - however Kading says he “one hundred percent believes” Keefe was telling the truth during their 150 minute interview.
He told The U.S. Sun, Kading said, “It's not my job to protect Keith from his own stupidity.
“I never dealt with Keefe in any kind of underhanded, manipulative way.
“Everything was always very straightforward and clear, and when he took it upon himself to go out and start publicly boasting about Tupac, he sank his own ship.
"He created his problems. I didn't create his problems for him. He created whatever problems he has currently are the problem."
Vegas authorities charged Keefe based on his confessions in media interviews and his own memoir after a Grand Jury hearing last year.
Keefe complained that Kading included the recording of the proffer in the Murder Rap documentary because “it was his story to tell” - but then through lawyers says that that interview should not be evidence as it’s a false confession.
Kading said, "There's a contradiction in his thoughts and in his words, and the contradiction is that he says that I told his story, that it was his story to tell.
“When he goes out and tells his story, he has created these problems that he's currently having to deal with.
“When I tell the story, it's not a problem for him. I told the story 11, 13 years ago, and there was no repercussions for Keefe.
“He didn't go to jail because of what I did, because if he would've, it would've been 13 years ago.
The reality of the matter is that he [Keefe] talked himself into jail. I didn't talk him into jail.”
Greg Kading
“So when I told the story, there was no consequences for him other than being judged in the court of public opinion. But when he tells the story, there are consequences for him. And so there's just the reality of the matter is that he talked himself into jail. I didn't talk him into jail.”
Kading hopes that judge Carli Kierny allows the proffer to be key evidence, despite Keefe’s lawyer Carl Arnold’s plan to have it struck from the case. Keefe claims that he lied about Tupac’s killing to gain notoriety and earn money for media interviews.
“No defense lawyer is going to welcome evidence that's so damning against his client.
“It is to be expected that they wouldn't want the proffer in there. But they face this Catch 22 where you've got Keefe D essentially violating the terms of the proffer by denying that he was involved in the murder and that he had done it all for entertainment purposes and for money.
“Well, if that's true, if he's making that claim, then he lied to us in the proffer, which no longer makes him proffer protected.“
Kading asserts Keefe, who was not paid for his police time in 2008, did tell the truth to him.
“We absolutely believed he was telling the truth at the time. And still do today.”
Kading came to probe Tupac’s killing almost by accident when the Los Angeles Police Department brought him in to head up a multi law-enforcement task force to find rapper Biggie Smalls’ assassin in the mid-2000s.
During his probe, Keefe, who spearheaded the Southside Crips of Compton, was pulled in as an informant by Kading to explain the dynamics of the rap wars.
During his interview Keefe revealed almost out of nowhere how Tupac was killed. But after that intel was gathered, the case hit a dead end when all investigations were handed to Metro Police.
“We absolutely believed he [Keefe] was telling the truth at the time. And still do today.”
Greg Kading
Kading still recalls being stunned that Keefe volunteered information about Tupac’s murder even though their interview was centered on Biggie Smalls' killing.
Kading said: “We had no idea that that would be a story that he would be telling.
“We were aware that his nephew was the primary suspect in Tupac's murder.
“But as far as him putting himself there, admitting his role, providing the gun and all of those details [of the night], we had no expectation to hear.”
He was shocked at Keefe’s confessions, which included him laughing at the sight of the rapper fighting for his life in an ambulance.
“It was a highlight receiving a confession on such a high profile murder," Kading said.
“There were mixed feelings in the sense that yes, it's like we finally got it, but now it's like, how are we going to effectively use this information?
"It was a case now we've got the answer, but we know we can't necessarily, it's not a confession that you can just run off and use to file charges. So it was a complicated moment, but it was also, and there was a moment of elation.
“Then it was what we do with it now knowing that it's under these proffer conditions?”
Keefe remains in custody at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas after failing to post his $750,000 bail.
