BROOKLYN (CN) — Eyewitnesses recounted the night of Jam Master Jay’s murder in front of a federal jury Thursday, over two decades after the Run-DMC member was gunned down in his Queens recording studio.
Jason “Jay” Mizell, or Jam Master Jay, was shot in the head and killed in 2002, leaving behind his wife and three children. Federal prosecutors claim Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington killed Mizell after being cut out of a drug deal worth approximately $200,000. Until their arrest and indictment in 2020, the case sat for nearly two decades as one of New York City’s most infamous unsolved murder cases.
Yarrah Concepcion, who was just 18 at the time, said she came to Mizell’s recording studio to play her “demo” for Mizell or his colleagues. When she arrived at the studio, she greeted Mizell and was brought to the control room with Mizell’s colleagues Mike Rapley and Randy Allen.
While she played her music, which she described as R&B and hip-hop, she said Mizell and his friend were playing “Madden” video games in the lounge.
About halfway through her second song, she said the door to the control room shut abruptly. At first she ignored it, but then she heard gunshots.
“There was some tussling sound. Two gunshots went off, pop, pop,” Concepcion said Thursday. “So I became very frantic and tried to figure out how to get out of there.”
She said she began to try to kick the window air-conditioner unit out the window, but it was too heavy so she decided to hide behind a sofa in the control room.
“I had a son, he was one, so I was thinking about him and trying to get out of here,” Concepcion said.
When she thought the coast was clear, she exited the control room into the main lounge area.
“Holding my heart, looking around to see what was going on, I could smell gun smoke,” Concepcion said.
She saw Mizell’s friend, Tony Rincon, on the couch with a gunshot wound in his leg and then said she noticed Mizell on the floor.
She said Rincon helped her pull Mizell’s body over and then she noticed the gunshot wound in his head.
“When his arm moved over, his brain stuff came out of his head,” Concepcion said, breaking into tears.
Michael Rapley, also known as “Mike B,” was also called to the stand Thursday. Rapley, who grew up in Hollis, Queens, said he met Mizell in the neighborhood as an adult.
As Rapley recounted his friendship with Mizell, including an instance when he lent Rapley money for his mother’s funeral, he began to tear up.
“He was always helping everyone around him,” Rapley said, as U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall told him there were tissues at the podium.
Like Concepcion, Rapley was in the control room adjacent to the lounge where Mizell was shot at the time of the murder. As soon as he heard the gunshots, he said, he ran out to find Mizell’s nephew Rodney Jones who had left the studio earlier to get a haircut.
Stephon Watford, Mizell’s cousin, was also called to the stand Thursday. Though he grew up in Boston, Watford said he was often in Queens to see family and would stay at Mizell’s mother, Connie’s, house.
At the time of Mizell’s murder, Watford was staying at the house with other members of the family. He added that Washington, also known as “Tinard,” was sleeping on the couch at the time.
In the days leading up to the murder, Watford said Washington asked him if he had any 40-caliber bullet shells. But Watford added, he thought nothing of it at the time.
“That was normal behavior in the environment we grew up around,” Watford said Thursday.
In a separate conversation a few days before the murder, Watford said, Washington told him to stay away from the studio because “something bad was going to happen.”
Again, Watford said he thought nothing of it at the time.
The night of Mizell’s murder, Watford said he was planning a Halloween party with Mizell’s sister, Bonita. As soon as he got the call that Mizell had been shot, he ran out and went “100 miles an hour” to the recording studio.
When he arrived at the scene, he said a detective confirmed that Mizell had been shot and killed. Slowly, he said, a crowd began to gather at the scene filled with friends, family and fans.
Later that night, he said Washington returned home with a bottle of Hennessy.
According to Watford, Washington placed the bottle on the table and said to keep it because it was the last bottle Mizell drank from.
Washington and Jordan face a minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York not to seek the death penalty.
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