Inmate Confesses to Shooting Tupac Shakur in 1994

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Raymond Boyd / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Tupac Shakur in concert, circa 1990

An inmate serving a life sentence says he shot Tupac Shakur in 1994, two years before the rap icon was murdered.

In a statement posted on AllHipHop.com yesterday, Dexter Isaac, who has spent the last 13 years detained in Brooklyn (for unrelated crimes), admits to the Nov. 3 ambush that left the rapper shot five times. He confesses that he was paid $2,500 dollars by James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond to rob Shakur at Quad Studios in Manhattan.

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Music executive Rosemond is most commonly known as the founder of Czar Entertainment. His lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman is denouncing the statement, telling the New York Post: “Wouldn’t you know it, [Isaac] spins this tale.”

Shakur recovered from the attack, but was fatally shot in Las Vegas two years later, on Sept. 13, 1996. He was 25. Shortly after, The Notorious B.I.G. was shot and killed in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Both murders remain unsolved; many believe the cases are related and linked to Isaac’s infamous 1994 attack.

Outlawz member E.D.I. Mean believes the confession will help solve both murders, he told MTV. “This will really lead up to their actual murderers. Both Big and ‘Pac and everybody can move on, and this will be like some closure for not only the families, but the whole hip-hop community, because it’s been an open wound since 1996 and 1997.”

A top NYPD official said detectives plan to interview prisoner Isaac, reports the New York Post.

“I want to apologize to [Shakur’s] family and for the mistake I did for that sucker [Jimmy Henchman],” Isaac told AllHipHop.com from prison. “I am trying to clean it up to give [Tupac and Biggie’s] mothers some closure.”

The Harlem-born Shakur, one of the best selling music artists worldwide, would have turned 40 today.

(MORE: Tupac Lives! In the Library of Congress, At Least)