Mia Zapata ////// 136 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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truecrime garage.com all right Captain that's enough of the business everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer
let's talk some true crime [Music] Mia Zapata 27 year old singer for the band The gets was murdered on July 7th
1993 around 2 A.M she had left uh the Capital Area Capitol Hill area of Seattle she was visiting with a friend
she told her friend that she was going to catch a cab and head home for the night now we have about an 80 minute
time period where we cannot account for her whereabouts she was found just before 3 30 a.m she had been murdered
brutally murdered and the police had few leads in this case and even less evidence to go on so unfortunately this
this case the investigation was not very optimistic from the get-go and it was apparent to everybody involved in this
investigation her Inner Circle and the music community of Seattle that this thing was not going to be solved anytime
soon or without the help of somebody pushing this investigation along well who comes to the rescue captain
well it's her friends and it's her close friends her bandmates the people that she's known since 1986 who started the
band that gets with her in Ohio before moving out to Seattle to try to jump into that Grunge scene and become a part
of something bigger and I don't know if this was spearheaded by Steve Moriarty the drummer for the band did I say that
name I probably said his name wrong and I apologize but it seems like it was spearheaded by him you see him a lot
there was a documentary made about the gets um there actually were also featured in
a little bit in a Thing Called hype it was a documentary about the grunge scene and I think they they featured the gets
a little bit but Steve uh seems like a you know just a stand-up dude right uh can I interject real quick not only a
stand-up dude but like a guy that you want to have as your friend right like he he comes off to me as the type of
dude that if your buddies with him he's gonna do whatever he can for you yeah so
they have this horrible crime there's not much and look a lot of these cases law enforcement is just sometimes just
bumbling idiots you know similar to the captain but in this case I think they're
doing their work and but but again can't blame the ban for not believing them so
what does the band do they go hey look let's rally around this let's get the scene rallying around this investigation
and how can we do this we need a private investigator so what they're going to do
is set up uh benefit shows where they'll play uh they'll have other bands play I
believe uh Nirvana actually played one of these benefit shows I know Pearl Jam played one of the benefit shows so the
whole Community rallies around so they can raise money uh to put forth to give a private investigated team opportunity
to help solve this case and not enough Captain do you hear the phrase music Community right you hear you know music
scene or whatever but music Community it is a community and that's what music is
all about it's about band members coming together to create great music and bringing people in to listen and witness
that great music that you've created now obviously Steve and his fellow band members the gets they don't know how to
solve crimes or investigate crimes and one of their best friends was brutally murdered but what they do know how to do
is they know how to bring people together they need and and they did just that you do what you know when you're
faced with adversity and they brought people together for one cause one cause to raise money to one solve their
friend's crime to bring Justice to her and her family and themselves as well as let's take this this horrible horrible
person did this okay and this person's still walking amongst us and if he did this once he very well could have done
it again let's get him behind bars where he belongs that's the difference you can
make yeah and I have in my notes Here Captain I don't you said a couple of bands you said Nirvana Pearl Jam I have
sound garden as well in my notes but basically the gets brought these bands together to help raise a bunch of money
to hire that private investigator that you spoke of they raised about seventy thousand dollars to hire a private
investigator and they not only hired one but they went out and they interviewed a
bunch of people so they could find the best one for their case they hired Lee Herron and she is a private investigator
and with this seventy thousand dollars they were able to hire her for a three-year time period to work on this
case that's an extensive amount of time now the thing here is she starts getting
involved in this thing and she starts running in the circles that the band would have run because her suspicions
were that maybe somebody the person that did this might have known Mia so she's talking with her friends and she's going
to a lot of bars she's interviewing band members of other bands and she gets a lead okay and this is through one of
Mia's friends and uh it's a roommate of hers actually tells the private investigator that there's this person
that was friends with Mia and friends with the roommate and it sounds like there might have been some kind of
relationship going on between the roommate and this quote-unquote friend but they're during some heated arguments
this friend tells the roommate uh saying things like you know the the [ __ ] is dead the [ __ ] is dead why did I do it I
don't know why I did it um just saying weird strange things when it comes to and your mind immediately
jumps to your murdered friend when you hear somebody saying that uh the private investigator tracks down this person uh
and is able to collect a lot of samples uh she searched the vehicle uh searched his car uh she would eventually turn him
into law enforcement believing that she had a good suspect now law enforcement they use the polygraph test to talk with
this individual now and we we touched upon it a little bit but when you have this situation with very little evidence
the polygraph test might be your number one weapon when you're talking to the suspects because you have to figure out
who had the means to kill her during that 80 minute time period where were they were they involved are they lying
about where they are right now this individual even though he's saying these strange things
um he passes the polygraph so unfortunately this lead doesn't seem to pan out well then you start questioning
why is he saying these strange things you know but this comes from the captain who says
strange things I put it put that on a t for you every week I leave the garage and I go why does he say these strange
things that's what I say every week about myself now the private investigator she's going to get another
lead and this lead is actually generated through a fan of the gits this fan started some type of internet
relationship with a guy that lived in the Seattle area now this guy he starts saying strange things while we're on the
topic right he starts talking about how he is going to do to this girl what he did to Mia so our private investigator
starts following this guy around and what she observes is that this guy has some strange hobby okay this is what you
know every episode we get into some dude that's got a strange hobby this is a stranger I guess it's podcasting uh not
that strange no this is this is horrible um and it makes your mind wander okay so
while she's following this guy this is something she figures out that he has he does on several occasions
he parks at schools oh God and he watches girls soccer teams from his car he stays in his vehicle the whole time
and then after the soccer game or well they called a match I guess or the practice whatever he's watching uh
afterwards he would drive to a porn shop okay so this is definitely strange Behavior the private investigator she
collects a whole bunch of information on this guy and she ends up figuring out that what's his rewind for a second
sorry so he watches girls play soccer yes and then he drives to a porn shop yes that's his hobby well I'm guessing it's
his hobby because the private investigator Lee Herron she said that she observed him do this on more than
one occasion so it's not like it just happened on accident once right okay so um and she's probably only following him
for a limited amount of time who knows how often uh he spends his afternoons this way regardless the private
investigator she collects info on this guy and through this information and after studying this guy for a while she
learns that he did know Mia at some point it's questionable I'm a little unclear as to what their relationship
was if they were just acquaintances or if it was more than that but she definitely points out that they had
known one another well and this case is very difficult too because you know even
if you're a introvert right even if you kind of keep to yourself it's like you know of a lot of people when you're in a
band and a lot of people know of you and so there'd be a lot of people that I've
played um gigs with you know our band open for theirs or theirs open for our for my
band or whatever that that I probably hung out with you know 10 15 times but other than those circles of people I've
never hung out with them ever you might not even know their last name or where they live they're
um so but get this there's a little bit of icing on this bad cake here right I don't think that's icing
um he's he's a cab driver oh uh and she Mia remember said that she would probably get in a cab and head home for
the night the last time that she was seen yeah now when confronted by the private investigator
um he says that he's not in he was not in the area the night that Mia was killed that he was off he was out of
town he was staying with a friend in Olympia okay okay well this is a very good private investigator you don't just
straight up lie to a private investigator of this level because she figured out very quickly you were not
staying with your friend in Olympia that night so he's unable to account for his
whereabouts uh for the night that Mio uh was killed okay so so he just basically
came up with a false Alibi and then The Alibi didn't check out right he he does eventually break down uh to to the
private investigator he admits that he was driving his Cab in the Seattle area that night right
um he explains to her that he has a severe drug problem and it's one it's it's hard for him to account for his
whereabouts a lot of the time um but he says you know I had nothing to do with her death well and possibly the
reason why he was lying in the first place is that he's probably heard rumors that she was catching a cab yeah right
and so then he knows who's driving a cab in that area that night yeah you know there there's a part of me
that feels for him I mean he is a creepo that watches girls soccer and then goes
to porn shops but uh yeah I I guess I feel for him in the sense that he has a serious drug problem that he can't seem
to get a hold of um I don't feel for him because his his movements seem very strange to me and
seemed like maybe something he might want to talk to a professional about that he's got some some things to work
out even past the drug problem yeah he should try talkspace.com there you go um but so this this is a very good
suspect this is a very good suspect in this case yeah I think so but again like I was saying like you you've heard the
story so it's and you are a cab driver so we have that speculation that she got into a cab but on the other side of
things if you are innocent then man you you know the story like I said and so you're gonna go well they're going to
assume it's me you know if I tell them I was in the area and I was working that night they're going to assume it's me
well and he's got a couple of other problems here too because with that severe drug problem who knows if he you
know like we said he's unable to account for his whereabouts maybe he's even unable to account for what he does when
his eyes are open you know um he maybe he blacks out the other thing too he's probably running in certain circles and
doing certain activities meaning purchasing and using drugs where he's often breaking the law well and I think
that's one of the reasons too that the band did such a good job as far as raising money and raising awareness and
keeping this on the Forefront because they were afraid that law enforcement just looked at you know Mia as just you
know here's some grungy girl um you know that possibly was a drug addict as well I mean there was no signs
of uh drugs in her system right because we should be clear about that right but but the idea is like I mean think about
it this way I mean it's you know I grew up you know especially with my parents you go I'm in and I'm in a band and they
just assume that all your buddies in the banner drug addicts right you know um so this this individual uh all the
information that Lee Herron collects on him is turned over to law enforcement now law enforcement agrees with the
private investigator and says that you know what this is a very good suspect and you know we're going to look into
this um there's no they are never able to link him to the murder of Mia Zapata and
like we said before though I mean our biggest weapon here our biggest Ally here is a lie detector and I haven't
been able to find any information if they if they were able to question this suspect right the statements that I saw
um didn't didn't include anything whether he took a polygraph or submitted himself to a polygraph or not one thing
we should think about though too is if somebody is unable to account for their whereabouts or somebody that's blacking
out often you might get a lot of answers that are I don't know right I don't know
I don't know what I did I don't know and they're not lying they're not lying that
so the polygraph may not help you in this situation but the police's statement was basically
um we had nothing to link this individual to the actual murder well again with the private investigators the
same as law enforcement law enforcement was frustrated because every time they got a piece of evidence it kind of went
nowhere when they got a lead it went nowhere and that's the same thing happening now with the private
investigator and the ban would not stop right right and because there was a lot going on
with the band and what they were their efforts that they were trying to pull together at the same time that this
private investigator has Unleashed her investigation and she's following these people around uh some of that is in 1995
the gets collaborated with Joan Jett yeah uh they made an album and they did a tour to benefit the private
investigation further of Mia Zapata's murder uh they they named the band evil Stig
um which I'm a little unclear on this Captain you might know better than me but it obviously spells gets live or
gets live backwards let's live yeah gets live and um Joan Jett did a um she did something she she wrote a song
about a woman being attacked on the streets uh which was kind of you know based off of what she knew about Mia
Zapata's case well I I know that a seven year [ __ ] wrote a song called m-i-a which was I think Loosely based on the
actual uh murder of Mia Zapata and that record I believe was called Viva uh Zapata yes and a lot of people would you
know at these benefit shows would yell Viva Zapata um but we're also another thing that was
super weird about this was MIA wrote a song yeah you know before her death and and
it was talking about her being attacked by a serial killer which I mean now we know like Talking Heads right you know
Psycho Killer uh so you know I and and it's a dark subject but I think there's a lot of
bands that have drawn uh on this on the True Crime topic for for songs well I believe that song was called The Sign of
the crab or something like that yeah and uh you got to keep in mind you know she's in Seattle at the time of the
Green River Killer investigations going on um and that was something that did not
stay out of the news hardly at all um you know so this would have been something that anybody with their ear to
the ground would have been aware of which I mean think about the her band mates though that recorded on that song
and now going through what they've gone through and having to listen to those lyrics and and how uh you know almost
like a fortune teller um Mia was to her own life now we said that the band raised over 70 thousand
dollars to hire this private investigator for a three-year time period um eventually the funds did dry up uh
there were no major breaks in the case during this time but the investigator Lee Herron uh she continued to
investigate on her own time afterward for many years now it was in 1998 um after five years of Investigation the
Seattle Police uh their detectives basically came out and said unfortunately we are no closer to
solving this case than we were right after the murder and so much time has passed in that in this case but the band
like like I said I mean I just championed them Steve and and all the guys in the gets and everybody that
helped them out as well but they they didn't just raise money and awareness for uh this case they also raised money
for like self-defense classes yeah they called the organization it was a self-defense group called homo live and
you know the name obviously coming from wishing Mia would have got home alive that night and how could young women and
girls fend off uh these type of attacks so they would have taught self-defense uh they also taught martial arts and uh
use of pepper spray so they could defend themselves while they're out on the streets and make it home alive well on
the band could have just set on their thumbs and did nothing but they didn't like we said they raised a bunch of
money they got a private investigator involved they they started this group for self-defense classes
but you know it's nine years into this case you know as every year goes past you gotta start thinking like people are
losing hope at this point oh but yeah incredible incredibly I mean this it's gotten colder and colder and colder as
the years have gone by not only did the police investigation go cold the private
investigators run out of leads uh nine years later and we're not looking at any type of way of solving this except for
one thing we remember we talked about the police and the investigators doing their due diligence well they were able
to collect some DNA that tiny little minuscule amount of DNA that they collected and they had the foresight to
save that DNA right rather than to push in the chips and risk it and potentially
destroy the DNA and never solve Mia's case Right But as time elapsed we have new technology yes there's advancements
going on in DNA evidence and what they can do with that and a lot of this comes about by a way of a guy named Carrie
Mullis he wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry in the 90s and he developed something called polymerase Chain
Reaction uh well we're just going to call it PCR so we don't have to keep repeating that
um why don't you tell us what PCR is Captain well you see how I just bowed out gracefully on that one again I am a
captain not a scientist you know this Advanced science stuff gives me a migraine headache it well again there's
a lot of little documentaries and one of the things on this case that I thought was interesting was the Forensic Files
and they kind of break this down a little bit better than probably I will but basically what they are able to do
is it's almost a photocopier for DNA so they're able to take this small sample and duplicate it now by the duplication
we have enough to sample but we also have enough to uh if if the test doesn't go right that we might be able to sample
again or photocopy it again now this the Nobel Peace or Nobel P spreads the Nobel
Prize Was Won in 1993 the same year as her death Okay the reason why they waited so long was because PCR wasn't uh
perfected yet and there was still there was some trials and errors and so with such a small sample they could have
tried the PCR and it could have not worked and then again damage this DNA we'll get right back to the Breakthrough
in this case after this quick beer break [Music] thank you [Music] all right cheers mates so we have a
break in the case yes and just like a lot of the investigators believed early in this case when all the leads dried up
they believed that without any DNA that this case would probably never be solved
when you have to applaud law enforcement for not losing this evidence yes not losing it and not risking it by testing
it too soon until the technology had fully developed thank God Fami Malik was not involved in this case yeah
um so here's the way that this goes down Captain it takes quite a bit of time as
we had said but uh in 2001 they are able to amplify the DNA that they found on Mia Zapata now this was from the saliva
that was collected near the bite marks that were on her chest and it's going to have two strands of DNA so so there's
the DNA but what it's stating is that one strain and is Mia Zapata's strain and the other strand is of a male yes
the the worry that that they face when they went into this that it might have just been Mia's DNA and that they
wouldn't be able to extract anything else what they end up finding is hers along with single Source male DNA they
enter this into the system um and this is in 2001 and it failed to generate any positive results matching
it to a suspect but this uh system has a name right uh yes so this would be the CODIS system that we've talked about
several times on on the show so but this is to break it down simply uh CODIS is where if you commit a felony then they
collect your DNA and it goes into this system well what happens here is that in 2002 there is a man arrested in Florida
on the other side of the United States for burglary and domestic abuse charges uh in 2002 they collect his DNA during
this time uh this man is Jesus mesquia and he is a man that had a history of violence toward women uh including
domestic abuse uh burglary as we have mentioned assault and battery as well now all of his ex-girlfriends and his
wife uh had filed reports against him at some point in their relationships um here's the thing captain now we have
King County investigators are going to have to go to Florida and try to find Jesus mesquia he commits his crime his
DNA is in the system but they have to keep testing they keep have to keep running the test to find a match within
the system so somebody kept doing their job yes and so now the now law enforcement is going down and they're
going to try to capture this monster right and you know what let's give credit where credit is due you said
somebody had to keep running those tests somebody had to keep this DNA evidence and store it uh the person responsible
for that her name is Jody sass um and she was she worked at the Washington State Crime Lab well Jody
sass I like Yoji there you go now Captain you know that these things are never as easy as they appear to be right
you can't just you can't just go marching up to somebody's door knock three times they open up the door greet
you with a smile and you go guess what what sir we have your DNA on this murder victim here's your handcuffs put them on
and let's go to jail forever right it never works that way I wish that it did but the King County investigators have
to go to Florida to try to locate uh Jesus mosquia and they have to they need to apprehend him but they're going to
have to question him first it's not just as simple as arresting him because they
found his DNA they go to his home where he and his wife were living um I don't know if this Jesus guy is
just really lucky you know to get away with murder for this many years um and then he gets lucky again because
they learn from talking to his wife that he left the home just days before they arrived
um and I don't think that it had anything to I don't think they put it on an announcement that they were going
looking for this dude right so he leaves uh the wife has nothing but bad things to say about this guy and she's going to
give them every bit of information that she has so they can apprehend him well yeah because he's probably you know beat
her for years so she provides them with a very good description of his vehicle you know what kind of car he's driving
make a model year all that good stuff probably even the license plate number as well they're going to put out this
information to all their Blue Blood Brothers throughout the State of Florida and they're looking for this guy they're
looking for his vehicle well his vehicle is spotted a few days days later in Miami
and that's when the investigators are going to go to Miami and knock on his door where he's staying they interview
Jesus their sound it sounds to me I I was they didn't videotape the interview I wasn't
able to witness it right but from the way that the investigators described the interview there might have been a bit of
a language barrier between uh the investigators and Jesus no yeah now he was in the country for a long time but
he was an illegal immigrant yes and he was from uh from Cuba so they're talking with him and he's saying you know I
don't know what you're talking about uh I you know I didn't murder anybody I've never murdered anybody
um also claims that he was never in Seattle I believe as well that's exactly right now the investigators do something
pretty interesting here uh and they basically provide Jesus with the photo lineup well it's a photo lineup of
unfortunately a bunch of dead young women murder victims and they're pointing to each one and they're saying
you know do you know her have you ever seen her have you talked to her have you dated her uh all these questions about
every single one of these pictures of these girls and Jesus is saying I don't know any of
them answers no to every question that they have including all the questions that they ask him about the picture of
Mia Zapata and so what the detectives are able to take from his statement is he saying I've never met her I've never
spoken to her I didn't know her well guess what you just they just laid a trap right
there because gotcha because guess what if you didn't know her you've never spoken to her you've never met her then
why is your saliva on her and why was it placed there shortly before she died now
do you think the cops confronted him right then when he said no um I believe he was arrested very
quickly after that statement right but I mean but they didn't like say hey this is how we got you right because if I was
the detective in the room I would have said you done messed up Hey Ron well they're going to continue to build
their case against Jesus and one thing that comes about pretty quickly after they arrest him is they're going to put
his picture on the news and in the newspapers because they're happy that they finally made an arrest and Mia
Zapata's case well there's a woman that comes forward and she had actually filed
a police report weeks before the murder and this police report was because some man had exposed himself to her okay so
she says you know what remember that report that I filed back in 1993 that was the guy that was Free Willy yeah
that was the guy that exposed himself to me well he's got all kinds of problems now Jesus does not only did he leave his
DNA evidence on the murder victim but now the prosecution has a living witness to to testify against this guy saying
that he was in the area uh this is what he was up to he could have done the same
same thing to Tamia but they were also to stay able to establish that he was in the area living just like blocks away
from where her body was found yeah that they were able to establish that he lived about three blocks from where our
bodies found the other interesting thing here and I don't think they were able to
prove it but I always wondered if maybe he worked for a taxi company yeah I think there was some rumor about
that it's a little hard to trace him um to to pinpoint on a day-to-day basis where this guy was he was a Drifter for
most of his adult life one is he illegal yeah and he lived in uh they know that he lived in Florida Arizona and
Washington and it was a bit of a brief stay uh in Washington I believe but he had some kind of small criminal history
in both the State of Florida and Arizona one he had a criminal history I think in
Cuba I think that's the reason why they they basically sent him here yeah and let's not get into that conversation
because that's a whole that's a whole other conversation it's political um but the thing here this have you seen
this guy on TV he's a large man it's kind of scary like he he he's got like a football player type build to him where
I mean like he's tall big shoulders long arms uh and that was the thing thing that her bandmates and the private
investigators said when they saw him on TV and saw that he was arrested they thought you know
really unfortunately Mia didn't stand much of a chance against this guy right um and they believed that the way that
this thing went down is that she when she left her friend's apartment around 2 A.M they think that Jesus would have
spotted her probably within about 15 minutes of leaving there then he followed her for a bit of time uh she's
wearing the headphones most likely wearing the headphones like you had said and she may not have even heard him
creep up behind her and grab her and attack her uh unfortunately you know not only a murder victim but the last hour
of her life must have been hell and this guy is is an is a monster I know we I feel like that word is overused on our
show a little bit but that's all I see when I look at this guy it seems like this case obviously was sexually
motivated that's his motivation here uh you know we also have the fact that he is you know flashing himself I wonder or
two if he was like a Peeping Tom uh but there's no doubt in my mind that he has done this before before Mia he did it
after and I'm sure that there's other cases that this guy is connected to yeah I was really hoping that his you know
once he was arrested and then convicted he was convicted in 2004 um and he you know he convicted a first
degree murder meaning that they they fully agree and are aware that he abducted her and and assaulted her and
then killed her knowing what he was doing the entire time I was hoping that with his picture being in the papers and
being on the news that somebody just like that lady came out from 1993 I was hoping more people would come out and
maybe be able to solve some cold cases because like you said Captain I throw him into the bin of once a monster
always a monster um the unfortunate thing you know I thank God this case was so involved
that's all you can hope for when these horrible things happen when people I shouldn't say when horrible things
happen it makes it sound like it just happens no when people when horrible people go out and do horrible things to
good people that's all you can hope for um but it was a little it bothered me a little bit and I'm not
going to lie to you that he he only received 36 years um for that's for abduction assault and
murder um it seemed a little light I do take I do take some um they weren't able to charge them with
uh the rape as well or does that included in the assault charges uh it may be included in the assault charges
I'm a little unclear on that uh the only thing that I the only thing that I can be somewhat happy about is I have in my
notes here that he was 48 years old at the time of his I don't know if that's at the time of his arrest or his
conviction but regardless he would be in his late 40s maybe 50 years old by the time he was convicted I'm hoping that
with a 36-year uh prison sentence that this guy never sees the light of day again well you know he had to go back to
trial right yes so this is what drove me nuts is you know 36 years doesn't seem like enough you know especially for
somebody's life but so he goes back to trial because they said well that that penalty is too
harsh and not have a new trial but we're gonna you know re-sentence re-sentence you yeah and he waved his rights okay
which made almost zero sense because that's the reason why they're having the re-sentencing trial anyways he raved
waived his rights to have a jury that forced it back onto the judge and guess what the judge did
baller move right here just re-sentence them to 36 years okay very good um I have that he never testified on his
own behalf but he has maintained his innocence in this crime obviously we have proof positive that he is not
innocent of this crime and I think we all could learn something from her bandmates her friends her family the
band that gets we can learn something of don't give up keep talking about the case keep trying to shed some light on
the case and then maybe we can get some justice yeah and once again the gets were made up of Mia Zapata Andrew
Kessler Steve mariardi and Matt Dresner and if you get a chance make sure you check out the work of Mia Zapata and the
band that gets how about a little recommended reading for you Captain yes Carl all right so we have received and
thankful we're very thankful for this we've received a lot of praise for our episodes last week we did The Killing
Fields Trilogy um that took a lot of research to put that baby together and I wanted to
mention that you know give credit where credit's due and a lot of that research came from the Houston Chronicle uh the
newspaper down there as well as Catherine Casey's book called Deliver us so if you're looking to learn more about
the Texas Killing Fields and more about the the cases within that case uh you need to check out Catherine Casey's book
Deliver Us and you can do that by going to our recommended page at truecrime garage.com and you can pick up any of
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Mia Zapata ////// 136

Part 2 of 2

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Some people are born to make it famous. 27 year old Mia Zapata was one of those people. In 1993 her band "The Gits" was making quite the name for themselves. Talent, charisma and showmanship- Mia had a lot of that stuff. Murder is always a shocking and tragic event but some murders shock an entire community. The senseless murder of Mia Zapata shocked a community and the Seattle rock scene. Join us as we discuss the murder of Mia Zapata.

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Brief Summary

Mia Zapata's murder led her bandmates to raise funds for a private investigator, ultimately linking suspect Jesus Mesquia to the crime years later.

Key points

The Murder of Mia Zapata. Mia Zapata, a 27-year-old singer, was brutally murdered in 1993, leaving her friends and the music community devastated. "This case was not going to be solved anytime soon."
The Band's Rally for Justice. The Gits bandmates rallied the music community to raise funds for a private investigator after Mia's murder. "They brought people together for one cause: to bring justice to her family."
A Chilling Suspect Statement. A suspect made a disturbing comment about Mia's death, raising alarms for the investigator. "The [ __ ] is dead. Why did I do it?"
Self-Defense Awareness. The Gits raised money not only for the investigation but also for self-defense classes for women. "How could young women fend off these types of attacks?"
The Fight for Justice. Nine years into the case, hope begins to fade as leads dry up.
DNA Breakthrough. In 2001, DNA evidence from the victim is amplified, leading to a potential suspect.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You do what you know when you're faced with adversity.

Discussing how the band rallied for Mia's investigation.

6:22WatchDec 3, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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