A trial in Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay's 2002 killing is starting, and testing his anti-drug image

For almost two decades, the 2002 killing of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay stood as one of the hip-hop world’s most infamous and elusive crimes, one of three long-unsolved slayings of major rap stars.

Now Jay’s case is the first of those killings to go to trial. Opening statements are set for Monday in the federal murder trial of Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, who were arrested in 2020.

“A brazen act,” then-Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said at the time, “has finally caught up with them.”

Washington and Jordan are accused of gunning down Jay in his recording studio over a drug dispute, a prosecution narrative challenging the public understanding