Nearly 18 years after his death, two men have been charged with the unsolved murder of Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay in 2002, whose real name was Jason Mizell.
Run-DMC are credited with helping break hip hop into the mainstream and are best known for 'It's Tricky' and their Aerosmith collaboration, 'Walk This Way'.Prosecutors for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York have alleged Ronald Washington, 56, and Karl Jordan, 36, murdered Mizell after a drug deal turned sour.
In a press conference on Monday (US time), officials said Mizell had acquired about 10kg of cocaine in the months prior to his murder, with Mizell, Washington and Jordan to sell the cocaine and share the profits.
When Mizell threatened to cut out the suspects from the profit, that led to a dispute and allegedly a murder plot.
Jam Master Jay was in his home studio in Queens, New York, on the evening if 30 October, 2002, when he was killed with a single gunshot. The group's two remaining members – Joseph 'Run' Simmons and Darryl 'DMC' McDaniels – disbanded Run-DMC a week later.
"They walked in and murdered him in cold blood," said prosecutor Seth DuCharme, adding that one of the men hugged Mizell before opening fire.
Washigton, who had been couching surfing at Mizell's residence in the days leading up to his death, was first publicly named as a possible suspect/ witness in 2007.
He is currently serving a federal prison sentence for a number of robberies he committed while on the run from police after Jam Master Jay's death.
