The Mysterious Murder of Mia Zapata

Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits. After gaining praise in the nascent grunge scene, Zapata was murdered in 1993 while on her way home from a music venue. The crime went unsolved for a decade before her killer, Jesus
Mezquia, was tried, convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison. Around 2 a.m. on July 7, 1993, Zapata left the Comet Tavern in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. She stayed at a studio space in the basement of an apartment building located a block away, and briefly visited a friend who lived on the second floor. This was the last time she was seen alive. She may have walked a few blocks west, or north to a friend's apartment, or may have decided to take the long walk south to her home.
She was beaten, raped, and strangled in the Central District of Seattle. It is believed she encountered her attacker shortly after 2:15 a.m. Her body was not initially identified as she had no identification on her when she was found. An episode of the cable television show Forensic Files revealed that she was identified after the medical examiner, who was a fan of the Gits and had been to their concerts, recognized her.
 According to the Forensic Files episode, a man two blocks from the Comet Tavern heard a scream around 3 a.m. A woman discovered her body in the street at around 3:30 a.m., near the intersection of 24th Avenue South and South Washington Street in the Central District. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled, she would have died from the internal injuries suffered from the beating. According to court documents, an autopsy found evidence of a struggle in which Zapata suffered blunt impact to her abdomen and a lacerated liver.
 Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in her hometown of Louisville. The Seattle music community, including its most famous bands – Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden – helped raise $70,000 to hire a private investigator for three years. The funds dried up without any major breaks in the case, but the investigator, Leigh Hearon, continued to investigate on her own time.
In 1998, after five years of investigation, Seattle police Detective Dale Tallman said: "We're no closer to solving the case than we were right after the murder." In 2003, Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia, who had come from Cuba in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift, was arrested in connection with Zapata's murder. DNA evidence was used to tie him to the murder and charges were brought against him.
A DNA profile was extracted from saliva found on Zapata's body and kept in cold storage until the STR technology was developed for full extraction. An original entry in 2001 failed to generate a positive result, but Mezquia's DNA entered the national CODIS database after he was arrested in Florida for burglary and domestic abuse in 2002.
He had a history of violence toward women including domestic abuse, burglary, assault, and battery. All of his ex-girlfriends and his wife had filed reports against him. There was also a report of indecent exposure on file against him in Seattle within two weeks of Zapata's murder.
 However, there was no known prior link between Mezquia and Zapata. Mezquia never testified in his own defense, and still maintains his innocence. The theory is that he saw her leave the bar and followed her a short distance before he attacked. Her headset covered her ears so she would have been unaware of any danger until he grabbed her and dragged her to his car where he assaulted her in the back seat. Mezquia was convicted in 2004 and initially sentenced to 37 years, which he appealed. He was then sentenced to 36 years. Mezquia has been in prison since January 2003

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