2 men indicted in 2002 killing of rap star

NEW YORK — The question of who killed Jam Master Jay, the DJ for pioneering rap group RunDMC, has remained a mystery for nearly 18 years.

But federal prosecutors Monday afternoon announced the indictment of two men whom investigators have long suspected of participating in killing the DJ, whose real name was Jason Mizell, inside a Queens recording studio.

Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. were charged with murder while engaged in drug trafficking in a 10count indictment unsealed Monday.

“They walked in and murdered him in cold blood,” said Seth DuCharme, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

On Oct. 30, 2002, court papers say, Washington and Jordan, both armed, broke into Mizell’s studio in Queens. As Washington forced a person in the studio to the ground, the papers say, Jordan fired a bullet into Mizell’s head, killing him almost instantly.

Prosecutors claim that the two had “executed” Mizell after he sought to exclude them from a “multistate narcotics transaction.” In July 2002, just months before the murder, court papers say, Mizell had received about 10 kilos of cocaine “on consignment” from a supplier in Maryland. Washington and Jordan were supposed to have been his partners in the deal, the papers say, but after a dispute, Mizell threatened to cut them out.

Washington, 56, is now serving a federal prison sentence for robbery. Jordan, 36, was taken into custody Sunday.