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- Witnesses testified about Jam Master Jay’s final moments when he was shot inside a Queens recording studio in 2002.
- The testimony came during the trial of two suspects accused of the rap superstar’s murder.
Singer Yarrah Concepción watched Jam Master Jay collapse to the floor with his arms over his head moments after he was shot and killed at age 37 inside a Queens recording studio in 2002.
“I didn’t have to take my pulse,” Concepción testified Thursday as she wiped away tears as she recounted the murder. “When his arm moved, his brain stuff came out of her head.”
Concepción was prosecutors’ star witness as they continue to prove their case against Karl Jordan Jr., 40, and Ronald Washington, 59. The two suspects are on trial in Brooklyn federal court following their 2020 arrests in connection with the infamous Estrella Run-DMC murder.
Concepción, then 18, was in the studio on the fateful day in October when gunfire erupted. She recalled trying to pull out the air conditioning unit to escape the chaos, but she had to hide behind a couch when she was unsuccessful.
“The first thing I thought about was Jay, because he was slumped on the ground with his arms over his head,” he said, then heard another man shout that he had also been shot. ‘I asked him, “They shot you in the leg, but where did they shoot Jay?”‘
Prosecutors have said Jam Master Jay, whose real name is Jason Mizell, was murdered in a drug deal gone bad.
Defense attorneys for Washington and Jordan have denied their clients’ involvement in the murder. Jordan has been accused of firing the shot that killed the rap superstar.
Mizell worked on the turntables alongside rappers Joe ‘Run’ Simmons and Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels as the group helped bring hip-hop to the mainstream in the 1980s with hits like ‘It’s Tricky’ and a new version of ‘Walk This’ by Aerosmith. A far cry from the best-selling album of 1986, Raising Hell.
Some of their songs advocated against illegal narcotics, and the group even recorded ‘Just Say No!’ Anti-drug public service announcement in the late 1980s for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Miranda Gonzalez said that as the attention faded, Mizell turned to drug trafficking, serving as a middleman with sellers and buyers across the country.
Mizell was inside the studio that acted as a community gathering place when Jordan and Washington entered, witnesses said. Tony Rincón, who testified Wednesday, said Jordan approached the superstar and shot him dead before fleeing.
Concepción said he was in the control room of the recording studio when the two suspects arrived.
“I was on my second song and I heard the studio door slam and that made me come back,” said Concepción, now 40.
There was a sound of fighting. Two shots rang out, pop, pop, so I became very frantic and tried to find a way to get out of there.
After his failed attempt to flee out the second-story window, Concepción said he hid behind the couch.
“That’s when I jumped behind the couch and couldn’t see anyone. I only heard jumping and fighting,” she said.
He came out of the control room and could smell the smoke from the gunshots. She saw Rincón and he was screaming that she had been shot in the leg. That’s when she saw Mizell on the ground with his arms over his head.
He then remembered asking to check Mizell’s pulse, but he was already dead.
“I’m sorry, I can’t think about things like this,” she said before pausing momentarily to wipe tears from her eyes.
“I started gagging and almost vomited.”
Witness Stephon Watford, Mizell’s cousin, also testified Thursday. He said Washington asked him for bullets and warned him not to come to the studio days before filming because “something bad is going to happen.”
‘We don’t think too much about it, we live in the neighborhood. “Begging for bullets was normal behavior in the environment we grew up in,” Watford told the jury.
The day before Mizell was killed, he had just returned from Milwaukee, where the Run-DMC star had met with rapper 50 Cent, Watford said.
“I was very happy that 50 Cent signed with Dr. Dre. We laugh, we cry about it. “It meant a lot to him,” the cousin said.
After the murder, Watford said he received a phone call and rushed to the scene. When he ran to get into his car, he saw suspect Jordan’s father, who demanded that he accompany him to the studio.
When they arrived, police were already on the scene and had blocked off the area.
Watford returned home and saw Washington that same night with an “I didn’t care” attitude.
“He walked up to the house with a bottle of Hennessy and said, ‘Don’t throw this bottle away, this is the last one Jason drank,'” Watford testified.
Washington also downplayed the murder in a media interview, Watford recalled.
“This happens every day in the neighborhood,” Watford recalled Washington saying, “it was nothing to him.”
A rapper known as Mike B, whose real name is Michael Rapley, was also in the studio at the time of the shooting. He also took the witness stand Thursday, where he said many details of the night were “hazy.”
He admitted that he could not identify the suspects when he saw them on a security monitor in 2002.
He said he ran out of the recording studio to find Mizell’s nephew, Rodney Jones, to tell him what happened.
The two then came across Jay’s body on the ground. “I just looked at it and didn’t know what to do,” he said. “So I looked at him and walked over him to Rodney.”
Washington’s attorney questioned Rapley about his testimony and got the man to admit that the traumatic experience made the incident a blur.
“Yes, ma’am, but certain things stand out,” Rapley said.