Two men have been found guilty of the cold-case murder of Run-DMC rapper Jam Master Jay, following a five week trial.
Karl Jordan, 40, and Ronald Washington, 59, were found guilty on all counts in the murder of the hip hop star who was gunned down in October 2002 on Tuesday.
The two men face at least 20 years behind bars and a maximum of life in prison for the murder of the DJ, real name Jason Mizell.
Prosecutors said that Mizell was murdered in October 2002 during a cocaine deal gone bad.
The case had gone unsolved for more than two decades with prosecutors charging the two men with murder in 2020.
Jam Master Jay – born Jason Mizell – was part of the legendary hip-hop group Run-DMC. He was shot and killed inside a recording studio in Queens in 2022
Karl Jordan Jr. (left), now 40, the hip-hop star’s godson, is on trial for Jam Master Jay’s murder. He is being tried along with co-defendant Ronald Washington (right), 59
Both men were well known to Mizell, who prosecutors said was killed in a business dispute over a lucrative deal to distribute cocaine in Baltimore. Washington was a childhood friend, and Jordan was Mizell’s godson.
All of them grew up in the same neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
Prosecutors said Jordan and Washington conspired to kill Mizell after the musician cut them out of the drug deal in Baltimore worth nearly $200,000.
Lawyers defending Washington and Jordan both bluntly told the jury that the defendants did not kill Mizell.
The defense called a single witness, an expert who testified on the frailty of human memory, in order to discredit prosecution witnesses recounting decades-old events.
In their respective closing arguments on Wednesday, defense teams said a third person, Jay Bryant, was in fact Mizell’s killer.
Prosecutors accused Bryant of letting Mizell’s murderers into the musician’s studio, where he was shot dead, but say Bryant was an accomplice to the larger conspiracy, rather than the shooter himself. He will be tried separately in 2026.
Defense teams pointed out that Bryant’s hat was discovered at the crime scene, and say the spotlight should be on him, not their clients.
Attorney Michael Hueston, who represents Jordan, worked to poke holes and point out inconsistencies in witness testimony, urging the jury that reasonable doubt as to Jordan and Washington’s involvement in the murder remained.
‘This is an attempt to make a mockery of the judicial system,’ said Susan Kellman, a lawyer on Washington’s team. ‘They have no case against anybody but Jay Bryant.’
But in their rebuttal prosecutors reiterated their arguments that Jordan and Washington were in fact executioners who ambushed Mizell as part of a drug dispute.
Prosecutors said Jordan and Washington conspired to kill Mizell after the musician, seen here in 1986, cut them out of the drug deal in Baltimore worth nearly $200,000
Mizell worked the turntables alongside rappers Joe ‘Run’ Simmons and Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels as the group helped bring hip-hop into the mainstream in the 1980s with hits like ‘It’s Tricky’ and a remake of Aerosmith´s ‘Walk This Way’ off the best-selling 1986 album ‘Raising Hell’
Mizell was in his recording studio in Hollis, the Queens neighborhood in eastern New York City where he and the two defendants grew up
A weapon was found outside of the crime scene and was part of evidence being shown to the jury
The body of Mizell is removed from a recording studio where he was shot and killed, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002 in the Queens borough of New York
Angry after being cut out of a cocaine deal, Jordan — the slain musician’s godson — shot a 40-caliber bullet into Mizell’s head, as Washington held others in the room back at gunpoint, the prosecution says.
In the prosecutors’ account of the night of the murder, Bryant, a friend of Jordan whom Mizell did not know, entered the front door and let Washington and Jordan in through a locked back fire exit, both armed with handguns, prosecutors said.
Mizell stood up from a couch to greet his godson. Jordan shot him in the head from a few inches away, killing him instantly, prosecutors told the jury. All three defendants fled moments later, they said.
Singer Yarrah Concepcion saw Jay slumped on the floor with his arms to his head moments after the shooting, she testified.
‘I didn’t have to check for a pulse. When his arm moved his brain stuff came out of his head’, she recalled earlier this month.
Prosecutors said Rincon and other eyewitnesses were too afraid to tell police at the time who killed Mizell, and even fled New York in fear of their own safety.
For years two key witnesses Lydia High and Uriel ‘Tony’ Rincon, the latter of whom was shot in the leg the night of the murder, had resisted cooperating with law enforcement, reticence both they and prosecutors ascribed to fear.
Prosecutor Mark Misorek said defense teams’ efforts to transfer focus to Bryant represented ‘pure speculation.’
‘Karl Jordan Jr. shot Jason Mizell through the head and he did it while Ronald Washington did crowd control,’ he said.
Mizell performs on stage. Mizell was 37 and a father-of-three when he was shot dead after allegedly acquiring 10 kilograms of cocaine from a Midwest distributor, which Washington, Jordan and others planned to distribute in the Baltimore area
The coffin of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay, the rapper born Jason Mizell, is carried out of a cathedral in Queens, New York, after his funeral in November 2002
Police (pictured at the scene in 2002) identified at least four people in the studio with Mizell, including the two armed gunmen. The city and Mizell’s friends offered more than $60,000 in reward money, but witnesses refused to come forward and the case languished
The trial has revealed a lesser-known side of Mizell, who along with his band Run-DMC had railed against drug culture.
But prosecutors say Mizell got involved in the drug trade to support his lifestyle and those close to him, as buzz around the group’s music — hits include ‘It’s Tricky’ and ‘Walk This Way’ — began to fade.
He was a quiet middle man in the drug trade, and a financial fount for family and friends, in the years preceding his death, they say.
Jordan and Washington hatched their plan, according to prosecutors, after Mizell cut them out of a job.
Mizell shot to stardom in the 80s as a member of 1980s hip-hop sensation Run-DMC (pictured in 1985) with Joseph ‘Run’ Simmons and Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniel. Their hits included It’s Tricky, Christmas in Hollis and Run’s House
Along with LL Cool J and Public Enemy, Run-DMC were trailblazers of new-school hip hop, mixing rock elements, aggressive boasting and sociopolitical commentary, and its outgrowth, golden era hip hop, which included eclectic sampling.
The seminal group were the first rappers featured on MTV, and established a new rap aesthetic incorporating street culture, a departure from the flashy, disco-inflected attire of their predecessors.
Prior to his death, Mizell was influential in New York as a cultivator of local talent, working with young rappers and co-founding a DJ academy.
Jam Master Jay’s slaying followed a spate of murders within the rap community in the 1990s, including the shootings of superstars Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.