20 years after the brutal murder of Jason Mizell, also known as Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay where he was shot in his personal recording studio in Jamaica, Queens, a new date for Mizell’s murder trial has been set. Previously thought of as a cold case due to a lack of evidence, the hunt for Mizell’s alleged killer was reopened in 2020 when FBI authorities and other law enforcement institutions marked Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. as potential suspects. Both men currently have a criminal record, with Washington facing time for robbery and Jordan already having been to prison for a crime scarily similar to the one he is currently being tried for: shooting Mizell’s nephew (NME.com).
In response to allegations from the prosecution that pursual of this case would be unnecessary and a waste of time because of the time lapse between the time of the murder and the date of the trial, as it would render key witnesses’ testimonies invalid and allegedly untrustworthy in its accuracy and mobile records unretrievable, the defense pleaded with the judge and urged her to dismiss the case because, according to Damian Jones of NME.com, after the two men were charged, their lawyers allegedly argued that prosecutors waited too long to charge them, which caused crucial evidence to be lost” but federal judge LaShenn DeArcy Hall countered that “their arguments were too ‘speculative’ to serve as a cause for dismissal.”
While the Run-DMC rapper’s murder trial was originally set to be enacted on September 26, 2022, a federal judge has opted to move the trial date to next February to allow for more time to investigate on September 19th, just two days before jury selection for the trial was designated to begin on the 22nd.
To hear more about the two men allegedly responsible for Jam Master Jay’s murder, read this article.
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