21 YEARS LATER

3rd Man Charged in 2002 Murder of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay

Two other suspects were arrested in the case in 2020, more than a decade after the hip-hop legend was gunned down in his recording studio in Queens.

A third suspect was charged Tuesday in the murder of Jason Mizell, a hip-hop legend who performed as part of Run-DMC under the name Jam Master Jay before he was gunned down in his recording studio in 2002. Jay Bryant, 49, was being held on unrelated federal drug charges on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, and will be arraigned on the murder charge at a later date. Bryant was seen entering Mizell’s studio on the day of his murder, and his DNA was found on a piece of clothing at the scene, according to court filings obtained by the New York Daily News. In 2020, marking the first break in the case in nearly 18 years, Karl Jordan and Ronald Washington were arrested and charged with murder while engaged in drug trafficking. The two men are both currently awaiting a January 2024 trial, and could be hit with life sentences if convicted. Federal prosecutors are expected to argue that Jordan was the triggerman in the murder, according to court documents.