A man pleaded guilty to his role in the 1992 murder of Jam Master Jay, the legendary Run-D.M.C. DJ whose death had gone unsolved for three decades. He faces 15 to 20 years in prison.
The killing happened in a Queens studio on October 30, 2002, when Jam Master Jay was shot during what appeared to be a robbery. For years, the case stalled. No arrests. No charges. Just questions about what happened to one of hip-hop's foundational figures, the man who shaped Run-D.M.C.'s sonic identity and helped launch one of rap's first supergroups.
The guilty plea closes a chapter that the music world had mostly stopped expecting to close. It won't bring back the artist, but it does something else: it puts a name and a sentence to the violence that touched a cornerstone of the culture.