This year will mark 20 years since Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay was murdered in his studio in Queens.
It took authorities until 2020 to finally indict the two men they believe were responsible for his murder. Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan were indicted in August of 2020 and the prosecutors are saying it was all because of drugs.
Now, after almost 2 years, a trial date has been finally set. As reported by VladTV, jury selection is supposed to start later this year on September 22nd with the trial set to start on September 26th.
Here is what we know about the murder of Jam Master Jay.
On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 7:30 pm, Mizell was fatally shot by an unknown person in New York City in a recording studio on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. Another person in the room, 25-year-old Urieco Rincon, was shot in the ankle and survived.
In 2003, Kenneth McGriff, a convicted drug dealer and longtime friend of Murder Inc. founders Irving “Irv Gotti” Lorenzo and his older brother Christopher, was investigated for targeting Mizell because the DJ defied an industry blacklist of rapper 50 Cent that was imposed because of “Ghetto Qu’ran”, a song 50 Cent wrote about McGriff’s drug history.
In December 2003, Playboy magazine published an article by investigative journalist Frank Owen, “The Last Days of Jam Master Jay”, which traced the murder to a drug deal gone bad. Owen said he uncovered evidence Mizell, not normally involved in crime as an adult, had turned to cocaine distribution to pay mounting bills. Mizell owed substantial debts to the Internal Revenue Service, among others, after his music career stalled in the late 1990s. According to Owen, several sources indicated Mizell traveled to Washington, D.C., on July 31, 2002, to obtain ten kilograms of cocaine valued at about a quarter-million dollars from a trafficker known as “Uncle”. Mizell reportedly agreed to pay for the drugs in about a week. However, Mizell failed to repay Uncle, who allegedly arranged to have Mizell murdered.
In April 2007, federal prosecutors named Ronald Washington as an accomplice in the murder. Washington also is a suspect in the 1995 murder of Randy “Stretch” Walker, a former close associate of rapper Tupac Shakur, who was also murdered. According to court papers filed by the prosecution, Washington “pointed his gun at those present in the studio, ordered them to get on the ground and provided cover for his associate to shoot and kill Jason Mizell.”
In 2018, Netflix released a documentary analyzing the circumstances of his murder. ReMastered: Who Killed Jam Master Jay?, the third episode of Netflix’s ReMastered music documentary series, interviews several of Mizell’s friends, family members and acquaintances who share stories they have heard regarding suspects in his murder. The documentary does not come to a conclusion regarding who the murderer(s) are. Also in 2018, former prosecutor Marcia Clark featured Jam Master Jay’s murder in an episode of her series Marcia Clark Investigates The First 48 on A&E where she examined several scenarios and suspects for the murder. She spoke to former Run DMC road manager Darren “Big D” Jordan, who denied allegations of involvement made against him by Ronald Washington. Clark further interviewed Owen, who stood by his 2003 article as largely accurate and stated he did not know who shot Mizell but believed the murder was facilitated by Mizell’s close friend Ronald Washington.
In 2020, Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. were indicted for Mizell’s murder. The indictment alleges that Mizell had recently acquired ten kilograms of cocaine from a distributor based in Maryland. Mizell, Washington, and Jordan had an agreement to sell the cocaine on consignment, but Mizell cut the two men out after a dispute. Washington had been considered a suspect very early in the investigation, and Jordan had been charged in August 2003 with attempted murder after shooting Mizell’s nephew, Rodney Jones, in the leg.
Washington and Jordan Jr. have pleaded not guilty. In November 2021, it was announced that the government will not seek the death penalty if they are convicted.
It is sad that Jay had to turn to drugs to settle his debts when he was so influential in the hip-hop community. Someone should have helped him.
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