A warning before you start reading this article, it does feature some gruesome stuff and may not be suitable for those who are faint of heart.
In the Seattle grunge scene of the 1990s, there were a lot of deaths. Most of these deaths were done by their own hand, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Andrew Wood and Layne Stanley’s drug overdoses, and so on. There was one particular death that shook the whole scene to its core. A singer who was about to be unleashed on the world’s stage but never got the chance. This week the Beat Marches On to July 7th 1993, the day Mia Zapata was brutally murdered.
It was three days before Mia Zapata’s band the Gits were about to embark on a world tour with L7 and Seven Year Bitch. A tour that US dates coincides with the Pope visiting the same cities. A Pro-Choice, Anti-Pope tour was the working title, but that’s as far as it got.
The band had just recorded their second album. Everyone in the scene knew this was going to be their big chance. Formed in 1986 in Ohio the band, a four-piece with Mia singing, guitarist Joe Spleen (born Andy Kessler), bassist Matt Dresdner, and drummer Steve Moriarty, were named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch.
The band, like most did at that time, moved to Seattle because that was the place to be at that time. They adjusted to the move well and got plaudits from the likes of Nirvana and other big bands in the area.
Zapata’s singing style was unique compared to the other female-fronted bands on the scene, growing up in Kentucky the vocals had a country tinge to it. She was likened, in singing terms, to another gone way too soon star Janis Joplin.
Mia was at a bar with some bandmates and other friends. She was there until about 1 am when she left looking for her ex-boyfriend, angry and drunk to tell him what for. After about an hour Zapata went to a friend’s house to cool down after she couldn’t find him.
Still angry when leaving the friend’s house the singer said she was going home and was going to take a taxi home. She didn’t and this was the last time any of her friends saw her alive. Her body was found by a prostitute at 320am, just an hour after she was supposed to take the taxi.
No one knows what happened in between the walk from her friends to where her body was found but the brief evidence from the scene gives us some gruesome details. What is assumed is unable to get a taxi/or just deciding to walk home, Zapata was listening to music while walking on the summer’s night. She was wearing a hoodie with her band’s logo on it. Distracted by the music, she probably didn’t hear the assailant creeping up behind her and he managed to knock her to the ground, then put her underwear in her pocket and forced himself on her. After he had finished, he strangled her with the cord from her hoodie. He also caused many cuts and bruises on her body including a lacerated liver. It wasn’t until the next day that the body was identified, when the coroner, a fan of the music scene, recognised who it was.
The whole grunge scene was shocked at what happened, suddenly the women involved were nervous and frightened that they could be next. They were buying guns for protection. The police were keeping their cards close to their chest, including the information that she was raped. There was, however, very little evidence at the scene to get a lead.
Many people thought it was the Green River killer at first who was one of America’s most prolific serial killers, but the evidence didn’t fit the motive. Then the police, struggling to pin down a suspect started to turn on Zapata’s friends, bandmates and other people in the music scene. This infuriated them and they felt that the police weren’t taking them seriously. They decided to take things into their own hands.
They wanted to hire a private investigator to see if the police missed anything. However, they didn’t have the funds, so they did what they did best to raise money. They played music. They hosted a benefit concert with a host of local bands, including local band TAD and Nirvana, which no one knew then but would be their last show in Seattle. Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder donated $20,000 towards the cause.
They raised enough for a private investigator to look at the case for three years, even after the time had finished the investigator, Leigh Hearon, kept chasing the case. The police didn’t take her seriously though as whenever she handed in evidence, they seemed disinterested.
Another use of the money was to teach local women in the area self-defence classes. Devised by a group of women close to Mia, it helped raise awareness of rape and violence towards them in the area. They called it Home Alive.
Over the years since Zapata’s death, there have been multiple benefit concerts to raise awareness and funds for the charity. They have included some big names such as Punk OG Joan Jett and Hootie and the Blowfish.
By 1998 the trail to capture Mia’s killer had run cold. The police admitted that they were no closer to catching her killer than the day after she was murdered and were no longer primarily investigating the case. Although the Grunge scene was angry, they weren’t surprised that they had stopped. They thought that the killer would go free forever and there would be no justice.
In 1993 DNA evidence was still in its infancy, so it was more difficult for killers to be captured. Especially if they had no prior crimes. There weren’t any crime databases for references nor many laboratories to analyse the evidence. But at the time of Mia Zapata’s murder, the medical examiner noticed the body had bite marks around her nipple, and took a sample of the saliva around the bite mark, knowing that the technology wasn’t there at the time but hopefully will eventually catch up in time.
It wasn’t until 2002 that the DNA got a match to Mia’s killer. It was on the CODIS system for a year but the killer’s sample wasn’t on the system. When Jesus Mazquia, a Cuban fisherman’s DNA was captured as part of his parole for a different crime, it finally identified him as the killer some ten years earlier. Not in Seattle but now living in Florida, the complete opposite side of the states, Mazquia was arrested.
Although pleading not guilty Mazquia was found to have killed Mia Zapata, the DNA evidence being the crucial part with the odds being 1 in 1.15 trillion that it could have been anyone else. The killer was sentenced to 36 years in prison and would end up dying during incarceration in 2021.
This death hits harder than the others in the scene, mainly as the attack was random and others in Seattle at that time were mistakes by the party who were involved. All Mia Zapata was doing was walking home. It would be great to say that this is now a thing of the past, but thirty years later it still can be just as dangerous for women to walk on their own at night. In 2021 according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), 40,572 sexual assaults on women were reported in England and Wales. Men really need to take a look in the mirror.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
Mia Zapata And Her Tragic Death | Revised 2023 (rocksoffmag.com)
The Tragic Murder Of Punk Rock Singer Mia Zapata (grunge.com)
The murder of musician Mia Zapata and how her killer was found (frontpagedetectives.com)
The Book ‘Everybody Loves Our Town: A History Of Grunge’ by Mark Yarm was also used in research.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered