Mia Zapata

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Mia Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the underground rock band The Gits. Highly influential in the Seattle, Washington music scene, she was considered a dynamic live performer and a uniquely gifted lyricist and painter.

Mia was raised in Louisville, Kentucky where she learned to sing and play guitar. She and the other band members founded The Gits at Antioch College in the late 1980s. Zapata was influenced by: Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles and Hank Williams; television entertainers the Three Stooges; hardcore punk; imaginal poetry such as Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations; and artwork by Egon Schiele and Willem De Kooning.

She was raped and murdered while walking home one night in Seattle. In the aftermath of her murder, friends created a self-defense group, "Home Alive," which exists to this day. "Home Alive" produced fundraising concerts and CDs with the participation of many of Seattle's music elite, such as Pearl Jam, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States. Joan Jett recorded an album with the surviving members of The Gits called "Evil Stig" ("Gits Live" backwards.)

She was last seen leaving a friend's home around 2am to walk the mile to her apartment. Around 2:30am, according to Unsolved Mysteries, a couple watching the late show heard what sounded like screams. A streetwalker found her beaten and mutilated body posed in a Christ-like fashion around 3:30am. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled she would have died from the internal injuries suffered during the beating.

A jury convicted a Florida fisherman, Jesus Mezquia, of her murder on March 25, 2004, and he was sentenced to 36 years in prison. Her case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and on 48 Hours. Mezquia was linked to the crime in 2003 when a DNA profile was extracted from a saliva sample left on her body. It had been kept in cold storage until the STR technology was developed for full extraction. An original entry in 2001 failed to generate a positive result, also known as a "hit", but Mezquia's DNA entered the national databank after he was arrested for burglary in 2002.

In 2005, a documentary was completed on her life, The Gits and the Seattle music scene. It aired at the Seattle International Film Festival in May of that year.

She was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

[edit] Trivia

Less than a year before his own death, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana staged a benefit concert in tribute to Mia on 6th August 1993. A recording of this concert is one of the most sought after in the Nirvana trading community, after a short clip believed to be from this concert surfaced on the Internet, seemingly confirming the existence of an audience recording.

Zapata's murder, Mezquia lived in Seattle at the time and his home address was barely three blocks from where her body was found. He had a history of violence towards women including domestic abuse as well as burglary and assault-and-battery. All of his ex-girlfriends and his wife all filed reports against him. There was even a report of indecent exposure on file against him in Seattle within two weeks of Mia's murder. Moreover he was one of several thousand criminals Fidel Castro released in the original Mariel Boatlift.

Since Mia was last seen walking down the street with her headset on, she probably never heard Mezquia sneaking up on her and it is surmised that he dragged her to his car where he assaulted her. Or, possibly, he offered her a ride but attacked once she was inside. Either way she was found not where she was murdered but simply dumped there.