VIC’S KIN: HE WAS TORCHED FOR NOTHING
Jam Master Jay witness describes gruesome scene and effort to save shot DJ
A Brooklyn man set on fire by his neighbor over a debt had been harassed about the money for months — even though the loan had already been paid back, according to the victim's distraught sister.
Steven Wilks, 73, remains at Staten Island University Hospital after Denise Wylie, 62, allegedly doused him in gasoline and lit him aflame in their Brownsville supportive housing building.
Wilks was so frightened after he was set on fire he hid in his bed and so wasn't treated immediately, according to his sister, Patricia Davis, 69.
“He owed $100 and then she made it become $500. Street money, interest,” said Davis, who says in October she paid Wylie the $100 her brother owed the suspect.
“I let his case manager know about it,” she added. “They had a meeting with her. She signed the paper and I signed the paper that the money was paid.”
Despite getting the cash and signing the agreement, Wylie insisted Wilks still owed her, the sister says.
“She's telling him its $5 [hundred] and she's telling [staff] it's $1 [hundred],” said Davis. “She acts one way in front of [staff] and another with him.”
Wilks is a former city correction officer who suffers from mental illness, making him an easy mark, Davis said.
“He's not violent. He's very passive, actually. He don't cause any problems,” she said. “What she's been doing is coming to his house at night and harassing him.”
On Sunday, Wylie went from her sixth-floor apartment to Wilks' home on the second floor of the Chester St. building near Riverdale Ave. and once more demanded the money, according to cops. When Wilks said he didn't have it but would pay her the following day, Wylie allegedly poured gasoline on his face and back and lit a match.
“I didn't get a call until later,” said Davis. “When they found him he was under the covers. He got in the bed after the incident. I guess he panicked and he didn't think to call the security.”
“He did fall on the floor and roll his body to get the fire out, but he has some very bad wounds,” she added.
Police caught up with Wylie on Monday and charged her with attempted murder. Following an arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court, she was held on a $500,000 bail.
Wilks ended up with secondand third-degree burns. He had surgery on his arm Wednesday, Davis said.
“I just want the pain to subside,” she said. “His arm is very, very bad. The hole is very deep. They had to graft skin to put on his arm.”
In addition to the physical damage, Wilks' sister is worried about the mental toll of the ordeal. “This is a trauma for him to have to go through this,” she said. “He's going to be afraid to go back there. He'll probably think she's still there. He might not even want to come outside. For $400, this is the rest of his life.”
Davis had warned her brother and Wylie to stay away from each other after the $100 was repaid, she said.
“I said, ‘Don't talk to her.' I said, ‘I don't want any problems, and I don't want you talking to him. If he asks you to borrow a penny, don't do it.'”
Davis recalled a now-chilling conversation she had with her brother over the debt before it was paid. “He said, ‘Please pay for the money because she's dangerous.' I kind of know how he talks, and I didn't take it so seriously,” she said.
“I would have never thought this in a million years. Everybody else I've told so far can't believe another human being can even think to do this.”
A young R&B singer auditioning at Jam Master Jay’s music studio described how her appointment with fame ended in horror — her songs interrupted by the gunshots that ended the Run-DMC star’s life.
Wearing a tartan plaid bodysuit and her blond dreadlocks tied in a bun atop her head, Yarrah Concepcion wept Thursday as she described how she and Jay’s friend Uriel Rincon tried to check the fallen DJ for a pulse after the fatal shooting.
“When his arm moved, his brains — I’m sorry, I can’t talk about stuff like this. His brain stuff came out of his head,” she said. “I just started dry-heaving … I just had to see if he was alive. I knew he was gone.”
Concepcion took the stand Thursday at the Brooklyn Federal Court murder trial of Karl “Little D” Jordan Jr. and Ronald “Tinard” Washington, who are accused of murdering Mizell because he cut them out of a drug deal.
She was 18 when she and her brother took a long train ride to Queens on Oct. 30, 2002 for an appointment at the DJ’s music studio on Merrick Blvd. in Hollis, she said.
Her brother headed off to Jamaica, and she was buzzed upstairs sometime before 7:30 p.m., where she saw Jay, born Jason Mizell, sitting on a couch playing video games — with a gun visible on the armrest.
“The first thing that came to mind was, oh I guess this is just the music lifestyle that they live,” she said.
Concepcion told the jury about her brief talk with Mizell (photo), who asked why she was there. When she mentioned her appointment, he said he didn’t have time to see her.
She insisted that she wouldn’t leave after a long trip without someone hearing her music, and a moment later, rapper Michael “Mike B” Rapley stepped out of the control room and told her to enter. Randy Allen, Mizell’s close friend and business partner, was also in the room.
She gave Rapley her demo tape and started singing — and as she was belting out her second song, chaos unfolded.
Concepcion said she was startled by the control room door slamming, and when she heard two shots, she panicked, while Rapley grabbed a gun and Allen stared at a computer monitor, trying to figure out what was happening on his security camera feed.
Rapley, who testified later Thursday, said he didn’t have a gun, and he didn’t make out who he saw on the security cameras in the control room.
“I became frantic a little. Well, not a little, a lot,” Concepcion said.
Her thoughts rushed to her 1-year-old son, and she tried to kick out a wall air conditioner to escape, but it was too heavy and bolted to the wall. So she pulled out a couch and hid behind it until she thought it was safe.
“I was still inside of the control room, holding my heart, and I could smell the gun smoke,” she said. She stepped out cautiously and saw Rincon, who she described as “the light-skinned, tall kid,” screaming, “I got shot! I got shot in the leg!”
She asked him, “You got shot in your leg, but where did Jay get shot?”
She and Rincon moved Mizell’s arm, but didn’t need to check his pulse. It was clear from the gore he was dead.
The jury also heard from Mizell’s cousin Stephon Watford, who said the night before Mizell’s killing he had returned from Milwaukee, where he helped rap superstar 50 Cent sign with Dr. Dre’s music label.
“His main concern was the blessing of 50 Cent. He was so happy about 50 Cent getting signed with Dr. Dre. We laughed. We cried. It meant so much to him,” said the barrel-chested, deep-voiced Watford, who wore a white fur-lined leather jacket.
Watford talked about how he grew up with Mizell, how Mizell “took me on the journey with him” as Run-DMC became famous. And he testified about knowing Jordan and Washington.
Watford was staying at Mizell’s sister’s house in Hollis with two other relatives. Washington was crashing on the couch there, he said.
The night of the shooting, the house got a phone call and Mizell’s sister, Bonita Jones, picked up, he said.
“She fell to the floor, and I grabbed the phone to see what was going on, and that’s how I learned that Jay was killed,” he said.
He ran outside to find Jordan’s father, “Big D,” in a car outside, and they rushed to the studio, “100 miles an hour,” he said.
But the yellow crime scene tape was already up. “I walked up to one of the detectives, and they just confirmed to me he was demised.”
He returned to Mizell’s sister’s house, and Washington came in later, with a bottle of Hennessy, which he put on a table.
“Don’t throw that bottle away, because this was the last bottle that Jay drunk out of,” Washington said, according to Watford.
When asked about Washington’s demeanor, Watford explained, “He didn’t care.”