A verdict in the slaying of Atlanta-based rapper Slim Dunkin will have to wait until next week.
The jury hearing the murder trial of Vinson Hardimon was sent home Friday evening without a decision, after a full day of deliberations.
Jurors are being asked to decide whether Hardimon, 30, shot and killed Slim Dunkin, whose real name is Mario Hamilton, at an east Atlanta studio in December 2011.
An altercation started between the two men – Hardimon is also a journeyman lyricist known as Young Vito – when Hamilton began rapping about a rival with dreadlocks, which Hardimon was wearing at the time, according to witnesses.
Witnesses told police Hardimon stormed into the recording booth and began to fight. When they were separated and Hamilton went after his adversary, Hardimon shot, prosecutors said.
Hamilton, 24, was taken to the Grady Memorial Hospital emergency room, where he died.
Hardimon was eventually arrested and held without bond, and even recorded a hip-hop CD while incarcerated.
Fulton County Jail records show three previous arrests on gun charges. Hardimon was arrested in April 2011 for allegedly threatening a woman and her daughter with a pistol.
Hardimon was arrested and released days later on $36,000 bond, according to jail records.
He pleaded guilty last May to aggravated assault charges in the April 2011 incident while in custody awaiting the Hamilton murder trial, and saw prosecutors drop child cruelty and gun charges.
Hardimon could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of all the charges he faces — murder, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of felony murder (causing a person’s death while committing a felony) and two counts of gun possession by a convicted felon.
The jury will resume deliberations Monday at 9 a.m. at the Fulton County Courthouse.
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