The Mia Zapata Saga Continues
Aug. 24th, 2005 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersThere is a story in today's Seattle Times about how an appeals court has overturned the sentence of the man who murdered Mia Zapata in 1993. They did not overturn the conviction, but the sentence. He had been sentenced to 36 years in prison, which is apparently 10 years longer than the standard range for felony murder. The decision to overturn is based on a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding the circumstances under which sentences can be extended beyond the standard range. The thing that leaps out at me in the story is that prosecutors intend to press again for the extended sentence because, as one of them puts it, "The state thinks that Mia was an exceptional person and the crime was exceptional."
For those who don't know the story, Mia Zapata was the lead singer in a Seattle-based punk rock band called the Gits. She was raped and murdered in 1993, and a man named Jesus Mezquia was arrested for the crime in 2002 when a DNA match was made after he was arrested for something else in Florida.
I had intended to write something about the story when he was arrested, but after doing a bit of research, I got distracted by other things. The reason I wanted to write something at the time was that I felt a surge of joy that the killer had been found, and the feeling reminded me of how Mia's death had exposed an unexpected community to me. I wasn't a fan of the Gits, although I'd seen them three times because I was a fan of their C/Z labelmates, 7 Year Bitch and Hammerbox, and the bands played shows together. But Mia's death hit a much wider group than fans of her band. My ex-girlfriend, Robyn, for example, had met her at the Comet, which was a tavern on Capitol Hill where a lot of musicians and scenesters hung out (and where Mia had been drinking most of the day before she was murdered).![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamiam knew her, too, and she was the one who tearfully informed me of the murder, before a Clarion reading at Elliott Bay Books.
The music community was galvanized by the murder. 7 Year Bitch released the incredibly intense Viva Zapata with a cover painting by Mia, and members of the band and other folks organized Home Alive, which aimed to teach women self defense and advise them on how to take care of their safety on the streets. There were lots of benefit concerts for Home Alive, and also to help the surviving members of the Gits hire a private investigator to look for the killer. Joan Jett did a tour with the surviving Gits, under the name Evil Stig (Live Gits backwards), which also benefited the investigation. But the investigation went nowhere, and there was a lot of anger and frustration that the crime was apparently going to go unsolved.
What's remarkable, however, is that the case was ultimately broken by a couple of homicide detectives who had been so moved by what the learned about Mia after her murder that they continued their own efforts to look for the killer even nine years later, when they entered DNA from the crime scene into a new national database and found a match in Florida. Now we have county prosecutors vowing to pursue an extended sentence, partly because Mia was an exceptional person. Most likely what's behind that is the continuing interest in the case from fans of the band, friends of Mia's, and people like me who unexpectedly found themselves feeling strongly connected to what had happened.
It's a strange, sad thing to form a community around, but it's certainly something that continues to have resonance. I found myself feeling momentarily outraged when I saw the headline and thought it meant the conviction had been overturned. Now I'm thinking that Mezquia is pretty much trapped in a relentless buzzsaw at this point. That almost makes me feel sorry for him -- which in turn makes me feel a little unclean. And it's more than a little disconcerting to feel so strongly about someone -- two someones, counting Mezquia -- whom I didn't know myself. Proof that Mia was exceptional?
For those who don't know the story, Mia Zapata was the lead singer in a Seattle-based punk rock band called the Gits. She was raped and murdered in 1993, and a man named Jesus Mezquia was arrested for the crime in 2002 when a DNA match was made after he was arrested for something else in Florida.
I had intended to write something about the story when he was arrested, but after doing a bit of research, I got distracted by other things. The reason I wanted to write something at the time was that I felt a surge of joy that the killer had been found, and the feeling reminded me of how Mia's death had exposed an unexpected community to me. I wasn't a fan of the Gits, although I'd seen them three times because I was a fan of their C/Z labelmates, 7 Year Bitch and Hammerbox, and the bands played shows together. But Mia's death hit a much wider group than fans of her band. My ex-girlfriend, Robyn, for example, had met her at the Comet, which was a tavern on Capitol Hill where a lot of musicians and scenesters hung out (and where Mia had been drinking most of the day before she was murdered).
tamiam knew her, too, and she was the one who tearfully informed me of the murder, before a Clarion reading at Elliott Bay Books.The music community was galvanized by the murder. 7 Year Bitch released the incredibly intense Viva Zapata with a cover painting by Mia, and members of the band and other folks organized Home Alive, which aimed to teach women self defense and advise them on how to take care of their safety on the streets. There were lots of benefit concerts for Home Alive, and also to help the surviving members of the Gits hire a private investigator to look for the killer. Joan Jett did a tour with the surviving Gits, under the name Evil Stig (Live Gits backwards), which also benefited the investigation. But the investigation went nowhere, and there was a lot of anger and frustration that the crime was apparently going to go unsolved.
What's remarkable, however, is that the case was ultimately broken by a couple of homicide detectives who had been so moved by what the learned about Mia after her murder that they continued their own efforts to look for the killer even nine years later, when they entered DNA from the crime scene into a new national database and found a match in Florida. Now we have county prosecutors vowing to pursue an extended sentence, partly because Mia was an exceptional person. Most likely what's behind that is the continuing interest in the case from fans of the band, friends of Mia's, and people like me who unexpectedly found themselves feeling strongly connected to what had happened.
It's a strange, sad thing to form a community around, but it's certainly something that continues to have resonance. I found myself feeling momentarily outraged when I saw the headline and thought it meant the conviction had been overturned. Now I'm thinking that Mezquia is pretty much trapped in a relentless buzzsaw at this point. That almost makes me feel sorry for him -- which in turn makes me feel a little unclean. And it's more than a little disconcerting to feel so strongly about someone -- two someones, counting Mezquia -- whom I didn't know myself. Proof that Mia was exceptional?
