Mia Zapata /// Part 2 /// 136 | Forensic Files

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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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that's all on the store Page at true Crim garage.com all right Captain that's enough the business everybody gather
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime Mia Zapata 27-year-old singer for
the band The GS was murdered on July 7th 1993 around 2:00 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 moriori 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
gits um there actually were also featured in a little bit in a Thing Called hype it was a documentary about
the GR scene and I think they they featured the gets a little bit but Steve uh seems like a you know just a standup
dude right uh can I interject real quick not only a standup 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 you're buddies with
him he's going to 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 bum 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 band 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 Jam played one of
the benefit shows so the whole Community rallies around so they could raise money
uh to put forth to give a private investiga 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 gits 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 friends crime to bring Justice to her
and her family and themselves as well as let's take this this horrible a horrible person did this okay and this
person 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 uh you said narvana Pearl Jam I have sound Gard as well in my notes but
basically the GS brought these bands together to help raise a bunch of money to hire that private investigator that
you spoke of they raised about $70,000 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 Heron and
she is a private investigator and with the $70,000 they were able to hire her for a
threeyear 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 mhm uh 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 inv 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 uh but there 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 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 the vehicle uh searched his car uh she would eventually
turn him into law enforcement uh 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 uh now this individual even though he's saying these
strange things um he passes the polygraph um so unfortunately this lead doesn't seem to pan out well then you
start questioning why he's saying these strange things you know uh but this comes from the captain who says strange
things I I put it put that on a te 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 uh 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 uh so our private investigator uh 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 strange yes it's podcasting uh not that strange no 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 at let's just 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 Heron 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 just acquaintances MH 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 dver 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 M
you were not staying with your friend in Olympia that night um so he's unable to
account for his whereabouts uh for the night that Mia uh was killed okay so so he just basically came up with a false
Alibi mhm 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 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 he was
driving a cab in that area that night you know there there's a part of me that feels for him I mean he is a
creepo that watches girl 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 seem 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 going to go well they're going to assume it's me
you know if I tell him 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 M 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 be we got to be 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 I'm in a ban and they just assume that all your buddies in the ban are drug addicts right you know um so this
this individual uh all the information that Lee Heron 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 not 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 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 some that's blacking out often you might get a lot of answers that are I don't know 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 investigator it's 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 try 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 uh the gits collaborated with Joan
Jet yeah uh they made 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 get live yeah gets live and um Joan Jet 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
Mia which was I think Loosely based on the actual uh murder of Mia Zapata and that record I believe was called
Viva uh zapada yes and a lot of people would you know at these benefit shows would yell Viva
Zapata um but we also what another thing that was super weird about this was MIA
wrote a song uh 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 kissy uh so you know 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 bandmates 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 mhm now we said
that the band raised over $70,000 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 Heron 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 all the guys in the Gs and everybody that helped them
out as well but they they didn't just raise money and awareness for uh this case they also rais money for like
selfdefense classes yeah they called the organization it was a self-defense group
called home alive 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 uh 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 the band could just sat 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 got
to start thinking like people are losing hope at this point oh by yeah incredib incredibly I mean this it's gotten
colder and colder and colder as the years have gone by not only did the police invest invation go cold the
private investigator has run out of leads uh 9 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 elapse 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 way of
a guy named Carrie Mullis uh he wins the Nobel Prize for uh chemistry uh in the 90s and he developed um something called
polymerase Chain Reaction uh we're just going to call it PCR so we don't have to
keep repeat that um why don't you tell us what PCR is Captain you see how I just bow 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 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're 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 um the Nobel Peace or Nobel Peace Prize 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 have
worked and then again damaged this DNA we'll get right back to the Breakthrough in this case after this quick beer
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[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 believe that without any DNA that this case would probably never be solved well 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 tech technology
had fully developed thank God FY Malik was not involved in this case yeah um so here's the way that this goes down
Captain um 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 strand is Mia
aata's Strand and the other strand is of a male yes the the the worry that that they faced 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 it single Source male DNA mhm they enter this into the system
um and this is in 200 one and it failed to generate any positive results matching it to uh a suspect but this uh
system has a name right uh yes so this would be the codus system that we've talked about several times on on the
show so but this to break it down simply uh codus is where if you commit a felony
then they collect your DNA and it goes into this system MH well what happens here is that in 2002 there is a man
arrested in Florida on the other side of the United States uh for burglary and domestic abuse charges uh in 2002 they
collect his DNA during this time uh this man is Jesus mesia 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 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 mosqu he 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 jod sass um and she was she worked at the
Washington State Crime Lab well jod sass I like your G 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 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 uh
King County investigators have to go to Florida to try to locate uh Jesus Mia 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 learned 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 out 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 cuz 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 um they're going to put out this
information to all their Blue Blood Brothers uh 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 later in Miami um
and that's when the investigators are going to go to Miami and knock on his door where he's staying they interview
Jesus uh there sound it sounds to me I I wasn't they didn't videotape the interview I wasn't able to witness it
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 a illegal immigrant yes and he was from uh from Cuba mhm 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 a photo lineup well it's a photo lineup of
unfortunately a bunch of dead young women uh 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 gocha 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 short before she died now 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
aaon 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 in 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 mhm okay
so she says you know what remember that report that I filed back in 1993 that was the guy that was free willly yeah
that was the guy that exposed himself to me well he's got all kinds of problems now Jesus does uh not only did he leave
his DNA evidence on the murder victim um 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 um he could have done the same thing to to Mia uh but
they were also to 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 her body's 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 he was illegal yeah and and he lived
in uh they know that he lived in Florida Arizona and Washington and 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 well he had a criminal history I think in Cuba and 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 another
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 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 believe that the way that this thing went down is that she when she left her friend 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 um 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 um 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 too 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 in a 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 cuz like you said Captain I 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 solved
that's all you can 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 PE 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 able to charge him with u the rape as well or is 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 MH not have a new trial but we're going to you know
resentence you resentence you yeah and he waved his rights okay which made almost zero sense because that's the
reason why they're having the resentencing trial anyways he ra waved his rights to have a jury that force it
back onto the judge and guess what the judge did baller move right here just resentence 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 gits
were made up of Mia Zapata Andrew Kessler Steve muray Ary and Matt Dresner and if you get a chance make sure you
check out the work of Mia Zapata in the band The gets how about a little recommended reading for you Captain yes
col 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 credits do and a lot of that research came from the Houston
Chronicle uh the newspaper down there as well as Katherine Casey's book called Deliver Us uh 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 Katherine 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 the books that we've recommended there or DVDs that we've recommended there simply by
clicking on the Amazon banner and your little Purchase cost you nothing extra helps out the show thanks to everybody
for joining us in the garage this week and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
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Mia Zapata ////// 136

Part 2 of 2

TrueCrimeGarage.com

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 friends to raise funds for a private investigator, resulting in the eventual arrest of Jesus Mesia through DNA evidence.

Key points

The Tragic Murder of Mia Zapata. Mia Zapata, a promising singer, was brutally murdered in 1993, leaving her community in shock.
The Band's Fight for Justice. The Gits rallied their community to raise funds for a private investigator to solve Mia's murder.
A Creepy Suspect Emerges. A cab driver with a drug problem becomes a key suspect in Mia's murder investigation.
The Band's Impact. The band raised money for self-defense classes and awareness for the case.
Breakthrough in DNA Technology. Advancements in DNA technology lead to a breakthrough in Mia's case.
Arrest of Jesus Mesia. Investigators track down Jesus Mesia, a suspect with a violent history.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This case was not going to be solved anytime soon.

Initial outlook on the investigation

4:34WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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