Feds charge two men in cold-case homicide of Run-DMC member Jam-Master Jay
NEW YORK (UPI) — Federal prosecutors released murder charges for two men Monday in the cold-case 2002 killing of former Run-DMC hip-hop star and deejay Jam-Master Jay, one of New York’s most well-known unsolved murders.
Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan, Jr. were indicted by a grand jury Monday in what federal prosecutors described as a “drug-related homicide.”
Jay, whose real name was Jason Mizell, 37, was shot and killed at his recording studio in Queens on Oct. 30, 2002. Mizell left behind a wife and three children.
“This is a case that’s been around for a long time,” Seth Ducharme, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a press conference. “We allege that Jordan and Washington walked into the music studio in Queens and shot [Mizell] in cold blood.”
“There was a beef — it didn’t go as planned,” one official told the New York Times.
Washington, who was named as a suspect in the case as early as 2007, is currently in federal prison on related convictions of robberies committed while on the run after Mizell’s death. Jordan was taken into custody.
Ducharme thanked the New York Police Department and the Queens Cold Case Detective Squad along with the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for their work on the case.
“It’s important to us to bring justice for the victim and his family and friends and the community that cared so much about those events,” Ducharme said.
Prosecutors allege Washington was living in Jay’s home in the days preceding his death. Washington allegedly threatened people at the recoding studio with a handgun and Jordan, wearing a mask, shot Mizell in the head.
Both men were charged with homicide and weapons charges and Jordan was additionally charged with seven narcotics-related charges, Ducharme said Monday.
Run-DMC., founded by Mizell, Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons, and Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels was the first hip-hop group to release an album that went platinum in 1985 with King of Rock.
In 2018, Netflix released a true-crime documentary on the unsolved killing of Mizell, interviewing family and friends.
Mizell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumously in 2009 with bandmates Simmons and McDaniels. In 2016, Run-DMC were honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys.
Reporting by Jean Lotus
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