While You’re Twisting, I’m Still Screaming: The Tragic Story of Mia Zapata

In this episode, Robin discusses the heartbreaking story of Mia Zapata, the charismatic lead singer of the punk band The Gits, whose life was tragically cut short in 1993. Mia was a rising star in Seattle’s grunge and punk music scene, known for her raw, emotional vocals and undeniable stage presence. Her shocking and brutal murder not only devastated her bandmates and fans but also sent shockwaves through the global music community.
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The Gits website: The Gits
Sub Pop Records website: Sub Pop Records
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Sunny spaces, smiling faces, happy places. But every sunny space
holds a shadow. Behind every smile, our sharp teeth, and
every happy place has something sinister lurking just below the surface.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to We Saw the Devil, the podcast diving deep
into the chilling realms of true crime. Join your host
Robin as she unravels mysteries that have left investigators baffled
and armchair sleuth's obsessed. Be forewarned, Dear listener, We Saw
the Devil is not for the faint of heart. Our
unflinching exploration will take you to the darkest corners of

(00:41):
the psyche and through the unimaginable depths of human darkness
to unearth stark secrets. To the harsh light of day.
Nothing will be left untouched. Are you ready? Are you sure?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
We Saw the Devil? Hello everyone, and you are listening
to We Saw the Devil. This is Robin and Merry Christmas,
Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanza, happy Hanukah, whatever it is that
you celebrate. I hope it's amazing and full of love.
I'm going to be in Boston for Christmas and I

(01:15):
am so excited to be back in New England. Words
can simply not express how much I have missed it.
I've missed the cold, I've missed the snow, I've missed Salem,
the people, and I mean y'all. If you see me
at Mike's Pastry on the North End, please do not
judge me by the sheer amount of conoley that I
am going to be buying because oh my god, I

(01:36):
missed it, Like I don't know where you live or whatever.
Sorry to New York City people. Mike's Pastry is quite
literally the shit and it is incredible and I am
going to gorge on Connoli. But yes, in any case,
I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday.
Just really quickly quick housekeeping today, guys, because we're going

(01:58):
to get right into business again. Listening to We Saw
the Devil, I'm your host, Robin. If you're not, please
follow the show on Instagram that We Saw the Devil podcast.
You can also follow me on Insta at Robin Underscore WSTD.
I'm still working on the new website and I'm hoping
to have that up shortly. It has been down for
a bit. Had an awesome website and it's been down

(02:19):
for a little while making changes, changed hosts and I
should have that up and running. It has been a
labor of love for sure. And again, sorry about my voice.
Since I've had COVID, my voice has been extra gravelly
and I don't know why. I feel fine, everything is wonderful,
but my voice is just I sound like I've put
I smoked twelve packs of cigarettes a day. Also, you guys,

(02:41):
big milestone, I quit vaping. I have been a huge
vapor for a very long time and I actually recently quit,
so I don't know. Maybe my voice will even out.
Who knows, but in any case, apologies, I guess if
it bothers you. In terms of the episode, y'all, I
have wanted to do this episode years. I honestly have

(03:02):
no idea why I haven't. I think partially because I
know the associated history of it is pretty niche And
then you know, there are other cases that we've covered
Lori Valo, Chris Chan all the other stuff. Del Fi.
It just kind of took over the spotlight and as
y'all can probably tell from you know, we saw the
double episodes over the last few years, even the one

(03:23):
last week. I mean, Chelsea Wolf as a goddess. Music
is my life going to shows playing guitar writing. You know,
I wanted to be in a band more than anything
in this world growing up, and my parents made damn
sure that I was aware that that was in no
way going to be a feasible career choice for me.
You know, I did end up playing in a garage

(03:44):
band when I went to Antioch College. Keep that name
in mind in this episode for my freshman year. This
episode is about the brutal murder of me as a Pata,
the front woman of the punk band The Gets, as
well as the fight for justice and also how it
impacted the worldwide music community, also her music legacy. And

(04:08):
I've again, I've wanted to do this episode for quite
a long time, and I've discussed this a couple times
in the past. I would say, but stay with me here, Okay.
To understand the sheer importance of me as a Pata
and the gravity of her loss, first, we have to
start in late nineteen eighties Washington State. If you turned
on a mainstream radio station in nineteen eighty six, you'd

(04:31):
probably be hearing one of the following Cindi Lauper, True Colors,
John von Jovi, You give love a bad name, or
living on a prayer. The Bengals walk like an Egyptian Madonna,
like a prayer or like a virgin you too, with
or without you, you would hear a lot of that,
and then you had outliers of different genres like metal

(04:53):
and punk. You know, heavy metal, Iron Maiden, Thrash, Metallica
was one of the biggest bands in the late eighties.
You still had your glam or hair metal like Motley Crue,
you know, pop would be Bon Jovi, and then you
had the death metal, which in the late eighties would
typically be you know, Slayer or just hard rock, you know,

(05:14):
guns n' roses. So you did have some popular outliers
the punk scene, you know, for punk, Iggy Pomps, the Stooges,
and the Ramones have been around since the nineteen seventies.
As well. There was CBGB, the legendary New York City nightclub.
It hosted an insane amount of bands that went on
to form what was known as the New York Sound

(05:35):
that included the Ramones, the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Television,
and the Patti Smith Group. One of the most magical
moments of my life complete side note, was actually seeing
Patti Smith at Bonnaroo in the early two thousands. I
can't remember which year it was. I barely remembered any
of those my times at Bonnaroo and the early living
in Nashville, growing up in Nashville, you know, Bonnaroo was

(05:56):
only like an hour and a half away, so I
went to most of them. Yeah, I mean, it was
just absolutely incredible. And we all know Blondie as the
pop almost disco like singer with Call Me and Heart
of Glass, but she actually started out in the New
York City punk scene and is considered a legit punk icon.
I mean, seriously, look up footage from her playing at

(06:18):
CBGB in the seventies. It is wild. It is absolutely wild.
The nineteen eighties overall, I mean, was pretty much the
mainstream era of synthpop, new wave and glam rock, with
artists like Michael Jackson, Jackson, Madonna, Duran, Duran and Queen
and with all of these other artists just kind of

(06:39):
floating in the background in their own communities mostly right,
Some indie bands are kind of in their you know,
staying in their same region, some gaining more traction than
others and would go out on you know, national world
tours and then enter Washington State. At this point, almost
everyone in the world, even if you know nothing about

(07:00):
punk music, grunge music. I hate the term grunge, but
that is what it is known as. You know, everyone
in the world associates Seattle with this quote unquote grunge
music scene. And there's a reason Sound Garden, Nirvana, Alison Chains,
Pearl Jam, the Melvins, all of them originated from Seattle

(07:21):
in the surrounding suburbs. But why Seattle. I mean, Seattle
quite literally was the perfect storm. And there are a
few times throughout history where something comes together so just
randomly and beautifully and it just creates something spectacular, and
that was basically Seattle in the late eighties. It was

(07:43):
the perfect storm for it. Seattle is geographically isolated, and
at that time, Washington and Oregon were basically economically struggling backwaters.
Most big acts and big bands didn't actually go there
or play shows. But there were a lot of under
round punk bands from La and San Francisco that did

(08:04):
West coast tours. They would just you know, go up
and down the coast of their up and down the
coasts of the West. That's all that they could really
afford to They weren't huge, huge, so they would end
up in Portland Olympia in Seattle, and it influenced the
local independent DIY music scene with quite a bit of
punk aesthetic. And I mean, y'all think of the aesthetic

(08:27):
of grunge, right, I mean always is always associated with
Court Cobaine or Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, flannel shirts,
ripped jeans, combat boots, unkempt, long, greasy or messy hair.
It wasn't a fashion statement like Madonna and the other
artists of the time. It was what blue collar, working

(08:50):
class people of the Pacific Northwest were wearing at the time,
and a lot of people from that region just rejected
the excess of what main stream rock had become. And
so that's where that look slash style came from. It
was a combination of Pacific Northwest with kind of like
a little bit of an edition of punk aesthetic. And

(09:13):
worth mentioning too in terms of the importance of founding,
you know, the grund quote unquote grunge movement. The founding
of sub Pop Records in nineteen eighty six was a
completely pivotal moment. Subpop went on to sign Nirvana, mud Honey,
and sound Garden. In the early nineties, in the scene itself,
I mean, there were hundreds of bands playing rock music,

(09:34):
mingling with one another, living in shared spaces and collectives,
sharing members, playing together. Everyone knew everyone. It was a
diy fuck the establishment. We don't want any labels, you know,
even if we were offered a record label, we're not
gonna take it because we are creating independent we transcend

(09:56):
genres kind of movement. So, just to kind of quickly recap,
a bunch of kids from the same region formed all
of these bands with their friends and start making move
music in Portland, Olympia, Seattle, that entire region. They just
start making music together. Then a couple of years later,

(10:17):
some of those bands from that group end up getting attention,
critical acclaim like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, so on and
so forth. Right a handful of them gained national notoriety.
It was a relatively new sound and esthetic against the
backdrop of like late eighties Metallica, Cindi Lauper, Madonna, and

(10:37):
journalists and people had no idea what to call it.
So because of the flannel shirts, ripped jeans, you know,
they were labeled as grunge more or less for categorization
and marketing purposes, and most of the bands in it
actually hate this term, particularly Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder

(10:58):
like they hate the term grunge. But you may notice
one glaring thing from most of the bands that I've
discussed so far, they were all male fronted. Sexism in
the music industry is obvious. We see it every single
day in the mainstream, even in not in the mainstream.
You know, whether it's Sabrina Carpenter, Britney Spears, Lizzo Joan

(11:20):
Jet Madonna. Women are discussed, written about, and generally receive
fewer opportunities to break into the industry than men, so
many are forced to basically show their tits or be
really hyper sexualized in order to create mass appeal. And
as we all know, sex cells, women are also defined

(11:41):
by their relationships to men. I mean, Courtney Love of
the band whole is insanely talented. I mean, even if
you don't like her voice or hers of human she
is insanely talented. But yet she will always and forever
be defined by her relationship to Kurt Cobain. I mean,

(12:02):
fun fact, to take that home. Courtney Love formed Whole
in nineteen eighty nine. She didn't even meet Kurt for
for another year. They started dating in nineteen ninety one,
when Kurt was twenty four. They ended up pregnant almost
immediately they got married, had a baby the following year,
when Kurt was twenty five. They were already almost, you know,

(12:24):
getting ready for divorce in nineteen ninety three, when Kurt
was twenty six, and then Kurt died in nineteen ninety
four when he was twenty seven years old. Y'all, Courtney
Love and Kurt Cobain's relationship was less than three years long,
less than three years long, and she's completely defined by it,
even though she had a known, established band before she

(12:48):
even met Kurt Cobain. And you see examples of this
all the time. Women are tied to either relationships, their partners,
who their producer was. A lot of women are defined
by the men around them, and that transcends genres. In
the Seattle area music scene, and when I say Seattle area,

(13:08):
I'm also lumping in Olympia and also Portland, Oregon, because
a lot of the same bands either, you know, they
went back and forth from Portland to Seattle in terms
of you know, playing and where they're located and so forth.
But the punkin rock scene was dominated by men. Many
women who attended punk shows were groped or worse. The
few female bands that formed and tried to make it

(13:30):
garnered almost zero success whatsoever. Instead, they would have beer
bottles and beer bottles and rape threats thrown at them
on stage. Indie labels wouldn't really sign them, and with
the liberal leaning politics of the Pacific Northwest, you know,
women too began their own magazines and bands at that time.
I've mentioned the riot girl movement before in multiple previous episodes.

(13:53):
I mean, how it truly formed who I am as
a person today. And I'm also really excited about this
episode because historically it's also a part of this story
in terms of understanding what the vibe was at the time,
how this event, how MIA's a pot is death, the
timing of it, the location of it, just how it

(14:16):
impacted so many people so deeply, and at this time
in the you know, late nineteen eighties early nineties, women
in the scene were frustrated, to say the least. And
this was made clear and again those self published scene magazines,
which those actually originated from the UK punk scene. People
would publish their own little DIY magazines. They'd be all

(14:40):
stylized and stuff and you know punk, and they would
give their opinions on local bands along with political issues
like war, rape, racism, feminism, abortion, and these scenes would
be shared at punk shows and women would gather a
handful of women created these znes across specific Northwest. They

(15:01):
would mail them or hand them out to people. Then
they started having public meetings and they would get together
and discuss these issues. You know, we're a community, we're women, like,
let's get together and talk about it. Some of these
women were musicians and they started playing together more frequently.
They would review female fronted bands, you know, trying to

(15:21):
get the word out. It was really again a sense
of community, and I mean I could spend the next
three hours talking about the establishment of the riot girl
of movement because it's a lot, but basically to just
bring it down. Women like Alison Wolf, Mollie Newman, Toby Vale, Queen,
Kathleen Hannah, Kathy Wilcox, Carry Brownsteen, Korn Tucker's and others

(15:44):
ended up being the first original wave of the riot
girl music scene. And these bands would go on to
form or go on to be like Heavens to Betsy
with Corn with Lord Krn Tucker, Bikini Kill with Kathleen
Hannah and Tobel Sleader Kenny with Corn Tucker and Kerry Brownstein.

(16:04):
Riot Girl was an actual term coined by Alison Wolf
and Molly Newman in nineteen ninety one to describe the
power of a girl in a sense, girls can be
ferocious like a wild animal, and the three rs in
the word signify more or less like an animalistic sounder growl,
and riotgirl took off in nineteen ninety three, Jessica Adams

(16:28):
of one of my favorite bands, Jack Off Jill, coined
the term riot goth as it was an esthetically darker
band that espoused a lot of the same ideals as
Riot Girl music in terms of politics and feminism and
all of that stuff. And unlike grunge, riot girl wasn't
just a corporate marketing ploy in the beginning. It was

(16:48):
an actual, raw and important political and music movement, and
it spread worldwide, with Riot Girl chapters in many cities
and dozens of countries across the globe. Women would meet
in person and discuss important political topics that impacted their community,
and then the music was written about or highlighted in
the scenes that were published. If you guys have even

(17:09):
an iota of interest in this. Over the summer, I
listened to the punk singer Kathleen Hannah's autobiography, and god
it was. It's incredible in terms of just music history.
Like it's incredible in terms of music history. Now, mi
as Apata was not a part of the Right Girl movement.

(17:29):
Neither was the band The Gets. They were not a
part of the Right Girl movement. The reason I'm kind
of laying the foundation of it is just the location
and what the community was like and what it was
like at that time. But in the punk singer with
Kathleen Hannah, if you know Bikini Kill her band at all,
her rallying cry when they first started out, she would

(17:50):
come out on stage and she would yell girls to
the front, girls to the front. And that was because
at punk shows and music shows and whatnot, like metal show,
two girls were just relegated to the back. You know,
the men would come in bargain be like oak Fish
and take over the top spots and whatnot. That was
something that Kathleen Hannah as a teenager she would be

(18:13):
able to be upfront safely, she'd get the shit knocked
out of her or groped or something like that. And
so when she started a bikini kill and she came
out on stage like her rallying cry was girls to
the front, Girls to the front, and that struck a
huge chord with a lot of women, especially in the
Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Portland, Olympia areas, where a lot of

(18:37):
where this music scene was was, you know, being birthed.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
Kids go back, girls to the front. That is the
thing that never happened before.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Men could be in the room, but men could never
dominate the room.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
It was a flip of the script that blew people's mind.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
To quote Liz Naylor, the manager of the English riot
girl band Huggi Bear, she said, quote, there was a
lot of anger and self mutilation in a symbolic sense.
Women were cutting and destroying the established image of femininity,
aggressively tearing it down. And that was kind of the
scene at the time, in the late in the early

(19:29):
nineteen nineties. And this wasn't you know, this was also grunge,
right again, a lot of these bands, like in Bikini
Kills sense. Kathleen Hannah was great friends with Kurt Cobain
of Nirvana. A lot of them hung out, met each other,
knew each other, played together. Fun fact, Kathleen Hannah and
Kurt Cobain hung out one night, got trashed and I

(19:51):
think Kurt trashed the apartment and Kathleen Hannah wrote smells
like teen Spirit on his wall and then we I'll
know what smells like teen Spirit is, right, That's how
that song was birth the song title. But I mean,
you guys are not probably not here for a lesson
in music history, but I really wanted to lay the
foundation of why it was so important, in such a

(20:15):
huge deal for a woman like me as a Pata
to come into the grunge scene specifically and start to
make waves like she was. I mean, it is a
testament to her power, to her talent. I mean, she
really kind of just came in and they released. We'll

(20:37):
get to the history of them, but you know, I mean,
she really was incredible. I discovered me as a Pata
and the gets not from a zine, even though they
were mentioned quite a bit in the znes that I
was reading or friends, but from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
and I hate that that's how I discovered them, but

(21:00):
it's true now. I mean, never mind the fact that
I was listening to the album Viva Zapata by seven
Year Bitch as a thirteen year old child, but I
had no idea the history or meaning of the title,
and the story of her tragic rape and murder was
featured on the eighth season of Unsolved Mysteries back in
nineteen ninety six. I mean, my little twelve year old

(21:21):
self saw that episode. I was already starting to kind
of discover the riot girl stuff. It had been around
for a couple of years, but somehow I had never
really delved in or got the gets or me as
a pada, but that episode her story devastated me. And
I think this particular episode is still available on streaming services,

(21:43):
so you should definitely check it out if you're able to.
They actually did a really great job painting the overall
picture and story, the locations. I mean, it was incredibly helpful,
at least for background information. This story was also featured
on an episode of Forensic Files, but I haven't seen it,
and then I know a lot of other podcasts have
covered this story sallaciously. I have not listened to any

(22:06):
of them, so I've only seen the Unsolved Mysteries episode
on this particular case. But I'm a massive Gifts fan,
So let's talk about miyaz A PoTA. Born on August
twenty fifth, nineteen sixty five, in Louisville, Kentucky, Miya Zapata
grew up surrounded by music. Her father played the piano,

(22:26):
and her mother encouraged creativity, fostering MIA's interest in the arts.
She grew up in an affluent household, which goes against
what I think a lot of people would think. She
attended parochial schools and then also the Presentation Academy, an
expensive all girls prep school in Louisville, for high school.
She began singing at an early age and taught herself

(22:48):
how to play both the piano and guitar. By age nine,
music became her outlet for self expression, and she quickly
realized that her life dream, her dream, you know, was
making this this music her life work. She would listen
to Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Hank Williams, and

(23:11):
Ray Charles for hours, singing along and learning how to
play their songs on piano or guitar. She particularly liked
the black blues artist from the South. In nineteen eighty six,
Mia moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio to attend Antioch College.
And as I've stayed many times before, you guys, Antioch
College was my first college. I was there for a

(23:32):
year and a half for my freshman year. It's a
very small, liberal, I mean very liberal, liberal arts school,
about three hours from Louisville, right in the middle of
a cornfield. It's feminist, it's very queer and queer friendly,
extremely emphasized, extremely political. Everyone I went to school with

(23:56):
wanted to change the world, whether it was through music, science, politics, language,
or teaching. I wanted to change the world. I came
in as a French and political science major. I wanted
to either work with doctors without Borders NATO like I
wanted to do something to help. A girl I dated

(24:18):
was actually a centerfold in Time magazine back in two
thousand and two for being at a protest against the
war in Iraq while we were there, you know, because
everyone at that school went to constant anti war protests
in two thousand and one. In two thousand and two,
myself included. So I think it's also important for you
to understand kind of what Antioch was about, because it

(24:39):
speaks of volumes to the type of heart that Mia
and her bandmates had. When you go to Antioch, you
are a certain type of person. You know, you want
to change the world. You are very liberal in left
leaning in your beliefs. Typically you'd have to be to
pretty much survive there. But you're also acutely aware of
a few things after you go, at least now right

(25:01):
modern day now, when you go to Antioch, you're acutely
aware of two things. Number one would be that Charles
Manson spend a lot of time at Antioch College hanging
out with friends and playing music. There's actually a picture
of him. He snuck into a photo with some people
and it's hanging in the main hall. And then also
number two, you are very aware as a woman coming
into Antioch College, at least you know I was when

(25:23):
I went there, that me as a PoTA formed the Gets.
You know, she and her friends formed the Gets with
three of her classmates, and there are pictures of them
in various places around campus, like the cafe. They frequently
have art exhibitions, or you know, post pictures and things
of it. I've hung out in her old dorm room.
I mean, her presence was well known, even though she

(25:44):
had been long gone, even in two thousand and two.
And it was there at Antioch that she met her
future bandmates Steve Murarti on drums, Matt Dresner, and Andy Kessler.
Initially their name was Sniveling Little rat Faced Gets, named
after a Monty python skit, but they later shortened it
to the Gets. I mean, they would play around town,

(26:04):
they'd play in various places. The best way to describe
Yellow Springs is it's a cute little hippie town. When
I was there, the houses in the little town were
painted bright colors, right like something you would expect from
San Francisco, almost like Neon pink and teal and blue
and neon green. Like. Houses were just painted all these

(26:25):
crazy colors, and people had to bet in peace flags
and it was just such an amazing little community. And
I actually missed Yellow Springs. I would love to live there,
I mean if it wasn't in Ohio. No offense to
you people in Ohio, but it was a great place
to go as a freshman in college. Hahas pizza. I
would eat their pizza like quite two to three times

(26:46):
a week. Sometimes they had a skateboard shop. I mean,
it was just a quaint little town, and they played
around town and they became, you know, pretty solid, and
it seemed like, hey, this is something that we want
to continue with. And in nineteen eighty eight, prior to
their graduation, they recorded a collection of tracks for a
cassette only release. Unfortunately, those songs didn't see the light

(27:06):
of day until after Mari Mia Zapata died. But they
decided that they would make a go of it, and
considering the genre of music that they were in, they
ended up relocating to Seattle in nineteen eighty nine, just
as the Seattle Sound as it was called, was exploding
onto the national stage. Mia took a job at a

(27:27):
bar as a dishwasher so she could have the freedom
to come and go as she needed for shows and rehearsals.
And at this time, you know, bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden,
Pearl Jam, they were all gaining really heavy attention in Seattle.
But the Gets carved out their own niche. And what's
so interesting to me about the Gits as a whole,

(27:51):
the instrumentals are very much classic punk rock right like
no no no no, no no no no no, like
very tightly played, fast guitars. But MIA's voice was unlike
anything else at the time. I mean, I don't even
I can't even think of another band in general that
is even close to me as a PoTA of that.

(28:12):
That just sound, the vibe, the feeling of it. It
threw everyone for loop, especially at that time. You know,
it was male dominated and other bands, I mean bless them,
but like other bands even that came after me as
a potta and I love me some riagirl music, y'all,
Like I really do love me some rite girl music.

(28:33):
But a lot of those bands are not technically savvy
on instruments, and the vocals are just kind of angry yelling.
You know, I get that. I accept that. It's you know,
it's it's more for you know, showing anger and feeling
and things like that and political topics. But MIA's voice
was just incredible. It was different, it didn't fit, it

(28:56):
was unique, and her lyrics often delved into themes of loss, love,
lightly on the social injustice, but she wasn't overtly angry
feminist like the upcoming Riot girls would be. You know,
her friends would later say that she preferred to connect
with her audience on a more personal level and most
of their lyrics had that sincere and honest touch to them. Nirvana,

(29:21):
you know, Kurt Cobain himself invited them to open a
show for them in nineteen ninety. And again going back
to Kathleen Hannah, please again check out the audiobook for
her autobiography, The Punk Singer. She narrates it herself, and
she really does a great job describing the Seattle that
scene at the time, about how everyone knew each other,

(29:42):
played party with one another. So it's not surprising in
any way that Kurt Cobain knew who me as a
PoTA and the Gets were, and that he invited them
to open for Nirvana. And I can't remember, but it
was a quote that I read earlier and I've tried
to find it, but it was basically after the gig
Kurt went up to or after they're set that Gets set,

(30:02):
you know, Kurt went up to her and was like, Wow,
you're a really fucking amazing singer, because she was. The
Gets released their first debut album, Frenching the Bully, in
nineteen ninety two, which did actually earn pretty critical acclaim
and a very devoted following in the Seattle music scene.
I have read countless posts and people online from blogs

(30:24):
where they actually have pictures still of the bills of
the show bills from the early nineties from going to
see the Gets. I know several people when I lived
in Portland who saw the Gets, and I've talked to
them for hours about it, about the bands that they
saw in Portland that came down from you know, Seattle

(30:45):
or Olympia, God Bratmobile, Bikini Kill Team, dresh L seven
although they're not really Riot Girl Whole played in Portland
a lot, you know, And that's beyond just your Pearl
Jim and Nirvana and all the rest of the male
dominated stuff. Like there were so many bands in this
area at this time, But the night of July sixth,

(31:08):
nineteen ninety three, would change everything. It began at one
of MIA's favorite bars, the Comet Tavern. She met friends there,
including members of the band Seven Year Bitch, at around
ten pm. Mia was in town only briefly because she
and her band had been on the road for several
weeks and were about to start a new tour in
the upcoming days. When Mia left the Comet tavern, she

(31:30):
walked a block east up Pike Street to a local
rehearsal studio and visited a friend who lived in the
same building as the studio, I believe on the second floor.
At around two am, she left her friend's apartment, saying
that she planned to take a cab ride home. Mia
didn't have a driver's license, and she never really needed it.
She either used Seattle's public transport, friends, or most frequently

(31:54):
called cabs, except she never made it home. At three
thirty am, a sex worker walking Seattle's Central District found
the body of a woman in the road near an intersection.
She had been brutally beaten, raped, and strangled. Because she
never carried identification on her, police and responders did did

(32:15):
not immediately identify her fire did end up coming ems.
She was pronounced dead at the scene. She was then
taken to the medical examiner, and sadly, the medical examiner
had actually been a huge fan of the gets and
immediately recognized the body as Mia Zapata. When Mia didn't

(32:37):
show up for a recording session for the new album
at a studio later that morning, concerned friends contacted the
hospital and then the police. They had a phone tree.
They started contacting all the local area hospitals. GETS drummer
Stephen Murray recalled how they found out. He told Rolling
Stone Magazine quote, then somebody had the nerve to call

(32:58):
the morgue and the emmy who was a fan of
the music, who was a music fan had seen the
Gets says it's your singer. I'm sorry. You should get
someone to come down and identify her again. She had
been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled to death, strangled to
death with the strings from the GETS hoodie that she

(33:18):
had been wearing that morning. There were signs of a
struggle that she had fought back. She had blunt impact
to her abdomen and a lacerated lover, and it was
stated that even if she had somehow survived the attempt
at strangulation, she would have in fact died from her
internal injuries. She was just twenty seven years old. Sapota's

(33:40):
wake was held in Seattle, and she was buried at
Cave Hill Cemetery in her home of Louisville, Kentucky. MIA's
murder sent shockwaves through the Seattle music community and beyond.
Rolling Stone wrote about it frequently, as did all the zines, news,
her friends, and fellow musicians, whether on the national stage

(34:03):
or local. Everyone was devastated, and for many her death
underscored the dangers that women faced, even in seemingly safe
and familiar environments. I've seen multiple comments and you know,
researching for this episode and what not, made from people,
even politicians or local officials in Seattle that considered Mia

(34:24):
Zapata's murder kind of like that moment where they realized, shit,
you know, Seattle is not invincible. Was a direct quote,
Seattle really isn't invincible because that level of violence against
women was way, way, way more unheard of than in
other major cities. Mia was a force. She was strong,

(34:47):
opinionated and independent. You know, a lot of her friends
and people in the community were like, how could this
happen to her? Many bands like Nirvana and Sound Garden,
who at that point were global names, helped raise money
to hire a private investigator to investigate Zapota's murder. They would,

(35:07):
along with Joan Jet, the band Heart and many many others,
hold benefit shows to both pay tribute and raise money
for the investigation. Everyone was angry, and everyone wanted answers.
It cost seventy thousand dollars to hire a private investigator
for three years. Now I'm doing this live. If we

(35:29):
look up nineteen ninety three seventy thousand dollars inflation calculator,
that would have been roughly one hundred and fifty two thousand,
eight hundred and thirty three dollars the equivalent in nineteen
ninety three one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars. And

(35:50):
all of these bands came together, and as you know,
there is actually with most I mean, none of those bands,
even in nineteen ninetywo or nineteen ninety three were making
that kind of money. You don't actually make a lot
of money in music, especially you know, rock and punk
and things like that, or grunge as it were at
the time. The funds they hired, they spent the seventy

(36:11):
thousand dollars to hire a private investigator for three years,
and the funds ended up drying up without any sort
of forward motion on the case. But the investigator that
they had hired, Leah Herron, sheic or sorry Lee Hron,
continued to investigate on our own time because she was
that committed Joan Jet, who worked with the band to

(36:36):
pay tribute to Zapata and also raise money for the funds,
would go on to tell Rolling Stone magazine quote, you
can imagine this vibe that sort of came over Seattle
when it happened. People just not knowing if it was
one of their friends, you know, or an acquaintance or
an audience member. You just didn't know. The police immediately

(36:56):
targeted her friends and colleagues, particularly her recent ex boyfriend
Robert Jenkins. Mia had gone to see him the night
that she died. He wasn't there, but the police investigated
him relentlessly. Then they investigated the cab drivers in the area,
as Mia took cabs, I mean so frequently that most
of them knew her just by side her name, but

(37:18):
no one had picked her up that night. The police
had no eyewitnesses, no real suspects, no murder weapon outside
of the hoodie strings, and no perpetrator, blood or seamen
found at the scene. Valerie Agnew, the drummer for seven
Year Bitch, was present at the Comet tavern that night.

(37:38):
The last night on July sixth, she had a couple
drinks with Mia. She was outraged. She said quote, just
after Mia died, my band went on tour, on a
tour that she would have been on. So I had
the sadness of missing her, plus this incredible, absolutely incredible anger.
It was far too much for me to swallow. And

(37:59):
once Agne returned from tour, she and her musician friend
Greta Harley began to hold meetings around town. They called
artist friends, musicians, writers, poets, filmmakers, all mostly women, and
they discussed how street smart Mia had been. Even though
Mia had grown up in an affluent neighborhood, she could

(38:20):
walk both sides of the street as it were, and
as Agnew later stated, quote, we were all like Mia.
We thought that we were street wise. But if it
happened to her, it could happen to us. If Mia
had known how to really throw a punch, would she
be alive? Could she have survived? And that's how Home
Alive was founded. Home Alive was a collective of people

(38:42):
from the artistic community whose self style self defense classes
and make them accessible to the public. During the first
year in nineteen ninety three, seventy five percent of those
participants and Home Alive had annual incomes under ten thousand dollars.
They were artists, sex workers, waitresses. They brought in instructors

(39:05):
and then also trained them, as you know, some new
in people for the program so that they could then
to share and teach. They learned the proper ways to
use pepper spray, pressure points, how to land a punch,
how to escape from being grabbed, martial arts. Home Alive
would be a light in the darkness at this time,
because for nearly a decade, MIA's case went unsolved. Despite

(39:29):
an intensive investigation, police had few leads and no suspects.
I mean, in nineteen ninety eight, after five years of investigation,
Seattle Police Detective Dale Tollman said, quote, we are no
closer to solving this case than we were right after
the murder. Her friends and bandmates worked tirelessly to keep

(39:50):
her memory alive over the years. Beyond the benefit can
you know the benefit shows that they put on. In
two thousand and one, a breakthrough finally came when advances
in DNA technology led to a match Jesus Meschia, a
forty nine year old Cuban immigrant living in Florida. He
had a criminal record full of sexual assaults and was

(40:13):
arrested in two thousand and three for possessing Burglar's tools.
He had a full history of violence against women, including
domestic abuse, burglary, assault, battery. So many of his ex
girlfriends and even his wife had filed domestic violence reports
against him. There was also a report of indecent exposure

(40:34):
on file against him in Seattle within two weeks of
mia Zapota's murder, but no one knew if he had
come into contact with mia Zappot at any point. There
had been no connection unearthed or link unearthed previously anytime
in the previous ten years. In the investigation, detectives had

(40:55):
preserved DNA from the bite wound bite wounds found on
me breast, and they had sent those to the State
Crime Lab, who had in turn been keeping them cold
in hopes that technology would improve and provide a match.
And that's exactly what happened. In two thousand and two,
the DNA was matched Tojesus Meskilla. His DNA had been

(41:18):
entered into the National Data Bank when he was convicted
of possessing those burglars tools that I just mentioned. He
was living in Florida at the time, and when that
sample was run, it matched to the one from Zapata's case,
and therefore, Miskilla was arrested on January tenth, two thousand
and three, and charged with first degree murder. There was

(41:38):
a two week trial and the jury took two days
to reach its verdict. He was convicted of first degree
murder on March twenty six, two thousand and four, and
eventually sentenced to thirty six years in prison. But unfortunately,
sometimes as it happens, Miskilla would not serve out that
full sentence. He died at age sixty six in a

(41:59):
hospital in Peer County, Washington, on January twenty first, twenty
twenty one, due to undisclosed health issues. There are a
couple things too, so the chain of events, so the
appeals the state versus Meskia. Long story short, he was convicted,
the ruling, the conviction was overturned, and then it was reapplied.

(42:22):
So in this court document you can find it on
case law. I'm going to read. There's a section facts, okay,
and so this is basically going to give you a
rundown of the facts from the trial and information that
we know. In July nineteen ninety three, Mia Zapata is
twenty seven years old and the lead singer of a
band called The Gets. Around July four, Zapota returned to

(42:43):
Seattle from a successful West Coast tour with the band.
Zapota spent the evening of July sixth drinking with friends
of the Comet Tavern, a bar that she frequent in
in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. At about one am, she
left the Comet and went across the street to the
apartment of a friend known as Ta. TV and Zapata
sang backup vocals together in another band, and TV's apartment

(43:05):
was upstairs from a studio where various bands practiced. Before
going up to the apartment, Zapota first checked into the
studio to see if her former boyfriend Robert Jenkins was there.
She was intoxicated, angry, and frustrated that she could not
find Jenkins because she wanted to talk to him about
their relationship. An hour later, about two am, Zappata told

(43:26):
TV that she was going home and left the apartment.
At about three thirty am, the Seattle Fire Department responded
to a call reporting the body of a young female
lying on the pavement of a dead ended street at
twenty fourth Avenue South between South Yesler and South Washington streets.
Zapata had no pulse and was not breathing. The paramedics

(43:47):
attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful, and Zuppata was pronounced
dead shortly thereafter. Zapata's sweatshirt was pulled up underneath her
arms and her hood was tied tightly around her face
and nodded under her throat. Her underwear, wallet, and torn
bra were stuffed into the pockets of her genes. The
medical examiner determined that Zappotta was strangled with a ligature

(44:09):
and concluded that the drawstring of her sweatshirt was the
ligature used. Zippota suffered injuries to her internal organs. She
also suffered vaginal and anal injuries consistent with rape. Zippota
had him external abrasions, including abrasions along the sides of
her nipples. Because the abrasions could have been caused by teeth,

(44:30):
the medical examiner took swabs from the area. In nineteen
ninety three, a Washington State Patrol forensic scientist examined the
swabs taken from Zappota's body. No seamen was detected. However,
the presence of saliva was found on the nipple swabs.
In two thousand and one, a Seattle Police detective assigned

(44:51):
to review unsolved cases submitted the swabs to the Washington
State Patrol Crime Laboratory for additional DNA analysis. A forensic
scientists performed DNA work on the swabs using chain reaction
in short tandem repeat methodology. She obtained two DNA typing
profiles and equal concentration on both the right and left

(45:12):
nipple swabs Zapata and an unknown mail. No other DNA
profile was obtained on any other of the other material tested.
In June two thousand and two, the information concerning the
unknown mail profile was entered into the national DNA database.
It did not match any known profiles. Six months later,

(45:34):
in December two thousand and two, the Washington State Patrol
was notified of a match. The DNA profile of Jesusmiskia
matched the profile of the unknown mail. The frequency of
the profile in the United States is one in one
point five trillion. At the time the match was found,

(45:54):
Miskia resided in Florida. He was on probation following a
two thousand and two Florida felony can viction for possession
of burglary tools. As a condition of his probation, he
was required to submit two cheek swab samples. Miskilla lived
in Seattle between nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety four.
He lived with a woman about a mile and a

(46:15):
half from where Zappada's body was found on the date
of the murder. The woman he lived with was out
of town. On January tenth, two thousand and three, Seattle
police detectives arrested Miskilla in Miami. After being advised of
his Miranda rights, he spoke with police. They showed him
a photograph of Zapata, and he denied ever knowing or

(46:35):
having sexual contact with her. When questioned, Zapota's friends and
bandmates all said that they had never seen or heard
of Miskilla. By amended information, the state charged Meskilla with
premeditated first degree murder and alternatively with first degree felony
murder based on first or second degree rape. After a
month long jury trial, the jury convicted Miskia of first

(46:57):
degree felony murder. The trial court of imposed an exceptional
sentence of four hundred and forty months imprisonment based on
the aggravating circumstances. Of deliberate cruelty. He appealed both with
his convictions and the exceptional sentence. And then it goes
on to talk about how Miskia, you know, how the
defense in the original trial sought to present evidence that

(47:19):
Zapata's former boyfriend Jenkins committed the murder and how they
argued that, and it goes on and on and on
and on. But you it's a lot to read. Feel
free again on case law find law dot com. It's
under the appeal after the original conviction was overturned. But
then you know, reapplied Like words cannot express what a

(47:39):
loss the world suffered when MIAs Apoda was murdered. I mean,
someone so incredibly talented, right on the edge of just
massive success, taken so pointlessly. And I mentioned earlier that
they were on the brink of signing with Atlantic Records.

(48:00):
They had met with Atlantic Records, and Tim Summer was
working for Atlantic Records, and he in particular was about
to sign them, and he wrote about his experience with her,
and it is honestly one of the most beautiful things
I've ever read. And so I want to actually share that,
I actually want to share some of that now, he

(48:23):
said it's not the years we've had without her a
lifetime now, it's the years we had with her, the
wobbly end of our adolescence, the half remembered taxi hunting
heart of our pop stinking dayless youth. I refuse to
tell this story through the lens of tragedy or sensationalism.
She is not a story to be streamed. She is
not the ending dwarfing the beginning in the middle. She

(48:46):
was an artist full of sparks, wisdom, the usual mundane
and spectacular damage that the great ones turn into exquisite
noise in poetry, and the kind of voice and presence
you might encounter once or twice in your life if
you're lucky. This story is legend, even without its sorry ending.
And then he goes on to say, so let us

(49:08):
tell it like it is. First to celebrate what we
saw that others did not have the gift of seeing,
and secondly, to be thankful that we have a very
goddamn solid evidence of all of this gorgeous, twisted, humid
and beatific magnificence in living music, living memories, even living film.
MIAs A Potto was the greatest rock singer of her time.

(49:31):
She may have likely been the greatest singer in punk
rock history. The woman who married the seventy eight and
the seventy eight tragedy did not make this true. MIAs
Apoda made this true. And the ferocious, spring loaded shrapnel
frame that was built around her by Andy Kessler, Steve Morarti,
and Matt Dresder made it true. Anyone who swayed beneath

(49:53):
her and gazed up at her while she worked, while
she ploded her soul, while she demanded eye contact, then
insisted on looking only inside, knows how extraordinary she was.
Anyone who held the neck of a rapidly warming beer
and saw this fear sack of elbows and knees, who
seemed to be wrestling with time and art and insecurity,

(50:14):
all expressed in a voice that belonged as much to
Beale Street or Frenchman Street as it did to silly
old Seattle, knows that they were witnessing a singular, generational talent.
Mia Zapata, the vocalist in front person for the Gets,
was not the type of voice one usually associates with
a punk rock band. She had the sizzle, sass, shriek, grace, rasp,

(50:38):
and the fury of a classical blue shouter. What if
Janice Joplin had fronted Fugazi? We must ask. Although there
was a purity and accuracy to her voice, she could
pointed at the stars and scoop cigarette butts out of
the venue floor, all at the same time. It sounded
like a voice on fire. It sounded desperate and angry

(50:59):
and pleading and commanding, all at the same time. What
if Amy Winehouse had fronted Fugazi? We must ask her?
On stage, Persona was utterly devoid of bullshit as well.
MIAs A Pata was a rag doll, a stick figure,
a sock puppet, alternatively bent with sadness and arched with rage.
Sometimes she looked like she was in pain, clawing at

(51:21):
an ulcer, other times like a holy woman on a
soapbox testifying the joy of truth, and still other times
like someone draped in a bedtime t shirt reading from
the inner ramblings and confessions in the margins of her notebooks.
The voice, the presence was extraordinary. There was nothing like
it anywhere in punk. It was like finding the missing

(51:43):
link between Nina Simone and Johnny Rotten. What if Joss
Stone had fronted Fugazi, we must ask miyaz A Pato
was a pure yet twisted soul singer with the heart
of a gospel shouder, the gnashed teeth of a punk
and the bleeding heart of a folky. Her recordings and
the films of her twisting within herself as she rasped

(52:05):
herself inside and out like the most sensitive artist you've
ever met, trying to dig a sliced sprite can out
of the garbage disposal display someone whose place in the
world of music has never been filled, not even close.
Every single person who heard me as a Pota's voice,
that voice that could peel the old green paint off
barroom walls, and some of us at the same time,

(52:28):
was soft throttled, moved and changed by it. He goes
on to talk about gives a little bit of the
bio of how they started at Yellow Springs, mentioned sub pop,
and he says, my name is Tim Summer. It was
my great fortune to have witnessed multiple times what Andy
Mia and Steve could achieve, to have inhaled that extraordinary

(52:50):
mixture of intent and effortlessness. Goddamn fire is what it was.
Fire fueled by Ale Hard inhaled smokes, casually discarded smoke,
and the unarty desperation that only a true artist has.
In nineteen ninety three, I was a Newish A and
R person for Atlantic Records, performing the strange job of

(53:11):
trying to make the world listen to the same music
I loved. I told the label I had found the
missing link between Bonnie Rait and Iggy Pop, a silly
phrase that sold me a short she had more in
common with Sam Cook, Geene Vincent, Ma Rainey and Charlie
Patten or my all time favorite blue singer Amit Ardoin,
and that I had to sign the Gits. They, specifically,

(53:34):
my boss, the legendary Danny Goldberg, said I could, so
I decided The Gifts would be the first band I
signed to Atlantic. In the first days of June nineteen
ninety three, I met with a Gits over better than
average Chinese food in a cream colored room with high ceilings,
located on Sunset Boulevard at the crack of West Hollywood
and Beverly Hills, and told them that I wanted to

(53:55):
sign them. They were excited to accept my offer. Less
than four weeks later, Mia died. We leave it at that,
because this is not about death. Although it is impossible
to tell the story of the Gets without engaging the
hues of tragedy, it is hugely possible to experience their
music with awe and without shadow, and with the abandoned

(54:16):
emotion and joy which it was created. So friends, please
listen to one of the greatest punk rock bands of
all time, fronted by the greatest woman rock vocalist of
the last half century. That is simply one of the
most amazing I Guess memorial articles I have ever read
by anyone in my life. It's on the GETS official website.

(54:38):
If you go to the Gets dot com, it's under
about the Gets. It's written by Tim Summer, and he
is not wrong. The words cannot express what the lass
like of Mia Zapata did for the world of music.
If you're interested in learning more about this, I definitely
suggest you check out the Unsolved Mysteries episode they did
on the website update the ca to say, hey, this

(55:00):
has been solved. But I don't believe they did a
follow up episode on it. But again, they do a
really great job of kind of fleshing it out, showing
locations things like that. There was also a great documentary
from two thousand and five called The Gets. It has
a lot of interviews with people in the scene, including
Joan Jet. Also, some of their shows have been remastered
and are on YouTube, like there's four K footage of

(55:22):
remastered four K footage of some of their shows. You know,
I listen to at least one song by The Gets
almost every single day. They're on every single playlist I own,
And even if you don't like punk music, you can't
deny that she had it and this was just senseless,
freaking tragedy. But that's where we're going to end today, y'all. Again,

(55:47):
I hope all of you are having a fantastic Christmas
and are staying warmer than I probably will be in
a couple of days. The next episode will be coming
out next week, and I honestly have no idea what
it's going to be on quite yet. Only time will tell,
I guess, but I have a little bit of a
vacation after work, so I am definitely going to be
concentrating on the podcast. So if you have any suggestions

(56:09):
anything like that, feel free to drop a comment on Insta.
I read all of them. But that's it for today, guys.
Until next Crime