Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 â?? July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the Seattle punk 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. Zapata is claimed as a major influence by fellow Seattleites 7 Year Bitch, singers Cinder Block of punk bands Tilt and Retching Red, Andrea Zollo of indie-rock band Pretty Girls Make Graves and Brody Dalle of The Distillers.
Music career
Mia was born and raised in Dallas, Kentucky where she learned to sing and play guitar. Zapata was heavily influenced early on by singers Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Hank Williams and Sam Cooke, television entertainers the Three Stooges, hardcore punk, imaginal poetry such as Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations and artwork by Egon Schiele and Willem De Kooning.
In the fall of 1986, she helped co-found punk rock band The Gits while attending Antioch College, a liberal arts college located in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 1989, Zapata, along with the rest of The Gits, relocated to Seattle, Washington in order to pursue their musical aspirations. The band was successful in Seattle, and released a series of well-received singles on local indie labels from 1990 to 1991. In 1992, the band released its debut album Frenching the Bully, and received good reviews. Notoriety progressively increased before the band entered the studio in 1993 to begin work on their second album Enter: The Conquering Chicken.
Death
On the morning of July 7, 1993, Zapata decided to walk home from a friend's house shortly after 1am, following a night of drinking at local watering hole, the Comet Tavern. The friend offered to put her up for the night or even to call a taxi but she decided to walk the 1.5 miles to her apartment. It was a fatal decision for her as she was brutally raped and murdered. It is believed she encountered her murderer shortly after 1:15am. According to Unsolved Mysteries, a couple watching a late show from about two blocks from where she was found heard what sounded like screams around 2am. A prostitute found her beaten and mutilated body posed in a Christ-like fashion around 3:30 AM, under a streetlight in a vacant lot nearly halfway between her home and the friend's house that she had left. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled she would have died from the internal injuries suffered during the beating.
Mia Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky
The murderer
A jury convicted Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia of her murder on March 25, 2004, and he was sentenced to 36 years in prison. The case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, American Justice, City Confidential and on 48 Hours.
Mezquia was linked to the crime in 2003 when a DNA profile was extracted from a saliva sample left on Zapata's 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 but Mezquia's DNA entered the national databank after he was arrested in Florida for burglary and domestic abuse in 2002.
Mezquia lived in Seattle at the time and his home address was about three blocks from where her body was found. He had a history of violence toward women including domestic abuse, burglary and assault and battery. All of his ex-girlfriends and his wife had filed reports against him. There was also a report of indecent exposure on file against him in Seattle within two weeks of Zapata's murder. He was one of around 125,000 Cuban exiles released to the United States in the Mariel Boatlift.
Mezquia never testified in his own defense and still maintains his innocence.
There had never been any known prior connection between Zapata and Mezquia. It was believed that he was simply a predator looking for a victim and Zapata just had the misfortune to cross his path. It was an example of a "stranger" crime.
...I just saw her story on 48 Hours Mystery today, and it's a shame they never mentioned Joan Jett at all - who made the video "Go Home" for her, and also did some live shows and an album with Mia's band, "the Gits" - altho renamed themselves "Evil Stig" (Live Gits - backwards). I actually consider it one of Joan's best albums!
I remember when America's Most Wanted interviewed Joan Jett about the case - since they were profiling the murder on one of their shows. I recorded that one!
Sad story - a woman's life snuffed out when she was just beginning to make a name for herself...
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Originally Posted by deathhagicammie
