Jam Master Jay: Turning the pager

We're at a loss to understand exactly how it is that Jam Master Jay's two-way pager - which he lost a couple of days before he was shot - has only just emerged. Jay had left it behind at a Milwaukee club, and Eric Shake James had picked it up to give to him. But, of course, Jay was shot before he could be reunited with the device.

After three years, Shake has apparently realised that, you know, what with the death being a mystery, it could contain some crucial information. Having wasted three years, Shake knew exactly what to do - and put the pager into the hands of the proper authorities.

Or, at least, MTV. Tim Kash, to be precise, whose forensic skills have previously only been on display in the Top of the Pops Star Bar.

Shake's explanation for sitting on the pager (not literally, not with the vibrate function switched on) was vague:

"The pager's like a part of Jay," Shake says when asked why he's kept it all these years. "I keep it for memory's sake."

The main bulk of the messages, it turns out, are of the 'I just heard you've been shot' type that came through after news of Jay's death broke - and, somewhat oddly, people who had discovered he was dead asking Jay questions about the shooting, as if heaven got really good Cingular coverage. It's probably a lot less crucial to the case than MTV might be playing it.

And it's not entirely Shake's fault that he hasn't passed the pager over to cops - despite having hung out with Jay during his last days, he's never been spoken to by the investigation at all. The police, presumably, are ex-directory round his way.