Jam Master Jay’s closing moments revealed at homicide trial

Singer Yarrah Concepcion noticed Jam Master Jay slumped on the ground together with his arms to his head moments after he was shot useless at age 37 inside a Queens recording studio in 2002.

‘I didn’t need to verify for a pulse,’ Concepcion testified on Thursday as she wiped away tears recounting the homicide. ‘When his arm moved his brain stuff came out of his head.’ 

Concepcion was the highest witness for prosecutors as they proceed to show their case in opposition to Karl Jordan Jr., 40, and Ronald Washington, 59. The two suspects are on trial in Brooklyn federal courtroom following their 2020 arrests in connection to the notorious killing of the Run-DMC star. 

Concepcion, then 18, was within the studio on the fateful October day when gunfire erupted. She recalled making an attempt to kick out the air-con unit to flee the mayhem, however needed to conceal behind a sofa when it was unsuccessful. 

‘The first thing I thought about was Jay because he was slumped on the floor with his arms on his head,’ she said, then hearing another man yelling out he had been shot as well. ‘I asked “you got shot in the leg but where did Jay get shot?”’

Prosecutors have mentioned that Jam Master Jay, whose actual identify is Jason Mizell, was killed in a drug deal gone unhealthy. 

Defense attorneys for Washington and Jordan have denied their purchasers’ involvement within the killing. Jordan has been accused of firing the shot that killed the rap famous person. 

Mizell labored the turntables alongside rappers Joe ‘Run’ Simmons and Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels because the group helped deliver hip-hop into the mainstream within the Nineteen Eighties with hits like ‘It´s Tricky’ and a remake of Aerosmith´s ‘Walk This Way’ off the best-selling 1986 album ‘Raising Hell.’

Some of their songs advocated in opposition to unlawful narcotics, and the group even recorded a ‘Just Say No!’ anti-drug public service announcement within the late Nineteen Eighties for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Miranda Gonzalez mentioned that because the highlight pale, Mizell turned to the drug commerce, serving as a intermediary to sellers and consumers throughout the nation.

Mizell was contained in the studio that acted as a neighborhood hangout when Jordan and Washington entered, witnesses mentioned. Tony Rincon, who testified on Wednesday, mentioned Jordan walked up to the famous person and shot him useless earlier than fleeing. 

Concepcion mentioned she was within the recording studio’s management room when the 2 suspects arrived.

‘I was on my second song and I hear the door slam to the studio and it made me turn back,’ Concepcion, now 40, mentioned. 

‘There was some tussling sound. Two gunshots went off, pop, pop, so I became very frantic and tried to figure out how to get out of there.’

After her unsuccessful attempt to flee out of the second-story window, Concepcion said she hid behind the couch. 

‘That’s once I jumped behind the sofa and I couldn’t see anyone. I simply heard leaping and scrambling,’ she mentioned. 

She left the management room and  might scent the smoke from the gunfire. She noticed Rincon and he was screaming that he had been shot within the leg. That is when she noticed Mizell on the ground together with his arms over his head. 

She then recalled asking to verify for Mizell’s pulse, however he was already useless. 

‘Sorry I can’t take into consideration stuff like this,’ she mentioned earlier than taking a momentary pause to wipe the tears from her eyes.

‘I started dry heaving and I almost threw up.’

Fellow witness Stephon Watford, who was Mizell’s cousin, also testified on Thursday. He said Washington asked him for bullets and warned him not to go to the studio days before the shooting because ‘something bad is going to happen.’ 

‘We didn’t suppose an excessive amount of about it, we reside within the hood. Asking for bullets was regular conduct within the atmosphere we grew up in,’ Watford advised the jury. 

The day earlier than Mizell was killed he had simply returned from Milwaukee, the place the Run-DMC star had met with rapper 50 Cent, Watford mentioned. 

‘He was so happy about 50 Cent getting signed to Dr. Dre. We laughed, we cried about it. It meant so much to him,’ the cousin said. 

After the murder, Watford said he got a phone call and rushed to the scene. When he ran to get into his car, he spotted the father of suspect Jordan, who demanded he ride with him to the studio. 

By the time they arrived, police were already on scene and they had blocked off the area. 

Watford returned home and saw Washington later that same evening with a ‘didn’t care’ demeanor. 

‘He walked to the house with a Hennessy bottle, he said: “Don’t throw this bottle away, that is the final one Jason drank out of,”’ Watford testified.

Washington additionally downplayed the homicide in a media interview, Watford recalled. 

‘This occurs day by day within the hood,’ Watford recalled Washington saying, ‘It was nothing to him.’

A rapper often called Mike B, whose actual identify is Michael Rapley, was additionally within the studio on the of the taking pictures. He additionally took the witness stand on Thursday the place he mentioned many particulars of the night time have been a ‘blur.’

He admitted he could not inform the identities of the suspects when he noticed them on a safety monitor in 2002.

He mentioned he ran out of the recording studio to seek out Mizell’s nephew, Rodney Jones, to inform him what occurred. 

The two then got here throughout Jay’s physique on the ground. ‘I just looked at him and I didn’t know what to do,’ he mentioned. ‘So I looked over him and stepped over him to Rodney.’

Washington’s legal professional quizzed Rapley about his testimony and obtained the person to confess that the traumatic expertise led to the incident being a blur. 

‘Yes ma’am however sure issues stand out,’ Rapley mentioned.