After 15 years, probe into Run-DMC star’s slaying has gone cold
NEW YORK — A mural of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay, his arms crossed in defiance, looms over the hallway of the Queens recording studio where he was shot to death 15 years ago. The memorial gives no hint of a disturbing footnote to the DJ’s tale of fame and misfortune: The killer, so far, has gotten away with it.
New York City police detectives acknowledge that their investigation into the Oct. 30, 2002, killing of the artist, whose given name was Jason Mizell, has gone cold. But some in the borough where Jam Master Jay, Joe “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels emerged as rap sensations in the 1980s hold out hope that witnesses could still come forward.
“It’s not resolved to the legal eye, but the street always talks,” said Jeremy “JL” Lam, a friend of Jam Master Jay’s family and a partner in the latest version of the Queens studio.
Family members, however, are less optimistic.
“We know it’s an anniversary, but we don’t like to talk about it much anymore,” Jam Master Jay’s older sister, Bonita Jones, said from their mother’s home in North Carolina.
A cousin, Ryan Thompson, believes the potential witnesses may never come forward because they “could go to jail as accomplices.”
Thompson, also a DJ using the moniker “Base,” credits himself with introducing Run-DMC to one of its signature fashion statements: Adidas sneakers without laces. But Mizell should be remembered more “for the music he created and his kindness.”
That music included spinning the turntable on such RunDMC hits as “King of Rock,” ”It’s Tricky” and a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” And one of Jam Master Jay’s acts of kindness included opening a 24/7 studio in a then-violent section of Queens for artists who needed a start. Famed rapper 50 Cent was among those he mentored there.
It was in that studio on the night before Halloween 2002 when police say two armed men were buzzed inside. Thompson, once hired as security “to keep the riff raff out,” said he had left the job because he wasn’t getting paid.
According to some reports, the 37-year-old Jam Master Jay hugged one of the men before gunfire erupted. One round missed him but a second, fired from pointblank range, entered the left side of his head. The men vanished.