Man pleads guilty in the 2002 killing of Jam Master Jay of rap pioneers
Run-DMC
[April 28, 2026]
By JENNIFER PELTZ
NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly a quarter-century after rap star Jam Master Jay
of Run-DMC was shot to death, a man admitted in court Monday to a role
in a killing that stymied investigators for decades.
Jay Bryant pleaded guilty to a federal murder charge, telling a judge
that he helped other people get into a recording studio to ambush the
DJ, born Jason Mizell.
“I knew a gun was going to be used to shoot Jason Mizell,” Bryant told a
federal magistrate. “I knew that what I was doing was wrong and a
crime.”
Bryant’s admission brings some closure — but also adds complexity — to a
knotty case.
Bryant didn’t name the other people with whom he acted. But a jury in
2024 convicted two other men, Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, yet
a judge subsequently cleared Jordan.
Washington has also challenged his conviction. His lawyer, Susan Kellman,
noted Monday that evidence against Bryant included his DNA on a hat at
the crime scene and witness testimony that Bryant once claimed he fired
the gun himself. Jordan's lawyers declined to comment.
Bryant, 52, is expected to face a sentence somewhere between 15 and 20
years in prison for the killing plus unrelated drug and gun charges, to
which he pleaded guilty earlier. No sentencing date has been set.
He gave a thumbs-up to someone in the audience before leaving court. The
person declined to comment afterward, as did Bryant's attorneys.
Prosecutors had no immediate comment.
Mizell handled the turntables in Run-DMC, a pathbreaking trio he formed
with friends Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Joseph Simmons, known as DJ Run
and Rev. Run.
With such 1980s hits as “It’s Tricky,” “My Adidas,” and a version of
Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” they helped rap climb the ladder from an
urban genre into mainstream popularity. Run-DMC was the first rap group
with gold- and platinum-selling albums, a Rolling Stone cover, and a
video on MTV. The trio was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in
2009. Mizell also mentored other hip-hop artists, including a young 50
Cent.
At 37, Mizell was gunned down in his studio in the Queens neighborhood
where he’d grown up. His October 2002 death followed the late 1990s
killings of two other hip-hop greats, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious
B.I.G. Authorities struggled with all three cases for years.
Jordan and Washington — Mizell’s godson and old friend, respectively —
were arrested in 2020. Prosecutors said the men were bitter about losing
out on a piece of a failed cocaine deal that Mizell had tried to line
up. Though Run-DMC was known for its anti-drug message, prosecutors and
a trial witness said the DJ moonlighted in the cocaine trade in his
later years to cover his bills and keep being generous to friends after
music money dried up somewhat.
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Run-D.M.C.'s Jason Mizell, Jam-Master Jay, poses with teenagers
gathered at New York's Madison Square Garden, Oct. 7, 1986, in New
York City. (AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett, File)
 According to prosecutors and trial
witnesses, Jordan shot Mizell while Washington blocked the door
during the shooting and ordered one of Mizell’s aides to get on the
ground. Both men denied the allegations. Jordan’s attorneys said he
was at his girlfriend’s home when the DJ was shot, and Washington’s
lawyers said he had no incentive to kill the famous friend who
helped him financially.
Nearly three years after their arrests, prosecutors abruptly brought
Bryant into their picture of the killing.
Saying that Bryant’s DNA had been found on a hat in the studio and
that he’d been seen entering the building, prosecutors added him to
the murder indictment. He was already jailed on the drug and gun
case.
Bryant knew someone in common with Jordan and Washington, according
to testimony at their trial. But unlike them, Bryant had little, if
any, connection to Mizell.
Bryant said in court Monday that he was connected with people who
were involved in a cocaine deal with the DJ and that he "helped them
kill Jason Mizell by helping them gain entry to the recording
studio.”
Bryant’s uncle has said his nephew told him he shot Mizell after the
artist reached for a gun. But no one else testified that Bryant even
entered the studio.
Instead, prosecutors contended that Bryant was enlisted to make his
way into the studio building and open a back fire door, allowing
Washington and Jordan to walk in without buzzing up and alerting
Mizell they were coming.
While neither Jordan’s nor Washington’s DNA was on the cap,
then-prosecutor Artie McConnell suggested one of them had
accidentally left it behind, and that Bryant had simply touched it
at some point beforehand.
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