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Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was an American musician who was the lead vocalist and lyricist for the punk rock band The Gits. After gaining praise in the emerging grunge scene, Zapata was raped and murdered in Seattle in 1993 while walking home from the Comet Tavern at the age of 27. The crime went unsolved for a decade before her killer, Jesus Mezquia, was arrested in 2003. The following year, Mezquia was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 36 years in prison.
In 1984, Zapata enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as a liberal arts student. In September 1986, she and three friends formed the punk rock band The Gits. In 1989, the band relocated to Seattle. Zapata found a job at a local bar and the four band members moved into an abandoned house they called "The Rathouse". The band released a series of well-received singles on local independent record labels from 1990 to 1991. As the Gits were making a name for themselves in the local music scene, they often played shows with their friends' band 7 Year Bitch. In 1992, the band released its debut album Frenching the Bully. Their reputation progressively increased within the grunge scene in Seattle, before the band began work on their second and final album , released posthumously in 1994.
Zapata came from an affluent family but often lived without material comforts. As her father described it: "Mia lived in two different worlds. She lived on two different sides of the street—the straight side on one, with parochial schools, an affluent family, and tennis clubs. But when she crossed the street, material things didn't mean anything to her."Mary F. Pols, "Holding On to Mia's Magic—Singer's Killing Leaves Grief in the 2 Worlds She Lived In", Seattle Times, August 26, 1993. Zapata's music often led to a rejection of financial comfort, but regardless of status, Valerie Agnew describes her as "commanding respect and interest immediately".The Gits: The Band The Music The Legacy. Dir. Kerry O'Kane. Perf. The Gits. 2008. DVD.
Zapata was well connected to her community. Peter Sheehy recalls: "Mia was the hub of several social circles; a magnetic personality who drew all sorts of people together who otherwise might never have met."Tracy Johnson, "Singer's Killer Gets 37 Years; Mia Zapata's Friends Fill Courtroom for Sentencing of Jesus Mezquia", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 1, 2004. On his way to her wake in Seattle, Zapata's father became lost and recalls many people carrying yellow roses: the admission ticket to her service.Richard Zapata. The Gits: The Band The Music The Legacy. Dir. Kerry O'Kane. Perf. The Gits. 2008. DVD. Judge Sharon Armstrong, the judge during her killer's trial, highlighted Zapata as an "extraordinarily vibrant" woman, who was "obviously talented"; she was "struck by how closely Zapata had connected to so many people".
In 1990 the Gits went on a successful international tour without the support of a record label. In 1992, their first independent album, Frenching the Bully, was released. The album had hits such as "Another Shot of Whiskey", "Second Skin", and "Here's to Your Fuck", receiving positive reviews. The band had planned a large U.S. and European tour as well a series of local shows and was being courted by various labels. Before the band could finish and release their second album, Enter: The Conquering Chicken, Zapata was murdered.
After Zapata's death, the band continued to make music and found success in their second album with singles such as "Seaweed" and "Precious Blood".
The Seattle Police Department initially focused their investigation on Zapata's circle of friends, believing that her murderer must have been someone she knew. Frustrated by the lack of progress in solving the case, the surviving members of the Gits, the Seattle music community, including some of its most famous bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, helped raise $70,000 generated from benefit concerts and record sales, as well as their own money. They hired private investigator Leigh Hearon to supplement the police department's investigation. The funds dried up without any major breaks in the case, but Hearon continued to investigate on her own time. In 1996, the case gained national attention on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and was later highlighted on several television programs, including A&E's American Justice, Cold Case Files, City Confidential, CBS's 48 Hours, FOX's America's Most Wanted, and TruTV's Forensic Files. 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."
Mezquia did not testify in his own defense and maintained his innocence. The prosecution theory was that he saw Zapata leave the bar and followed her a short distance before he attacked her. Her headphones 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. On March 25, 2004, a jury convicted Mezquia of Zapata's murder and he was sentenced to 36 years in prison, the maximum allowed in the case under Washington state law.Johnson, Tracy (2004) " Singer's Killer Gets 37 Years: Mia Zapata's Friends Fill Courtroom for Sentencing of Jesus Mezquia", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 1, 2004 In August 2005, the state Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, but reversed his sentence because the judge had exceeded the normal sentencing range without the jury's specific approval. Mezquia's case was sent back to the trial court for resentencing. However, after Mezquia waived his right to have a jury decide on his sentence, the trial court judge again imposed the same sentence of 36 years. Mezquia died in a hospital in Pierce County, Washington on January 21, 2021, at the age of 66.
Following her murder, a number of women from the Seattle music scene began to meet and discuss the prevalence of violence against women within the community, and the lack of available resources such as self-defense classes, which were considered impractical and unaffordable. These informal meetings sparked heated arguments in the living rooms of those involved, as the group had trouble deciding on how to organize and agree on the best methods of training to teach, so they chose to bring in teachers to help direct the course of their learning. This led to the creation of the non-profit group Home Alive, which subsequently organized benefit concerts and released albums with the participation of many bands, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States of America. Joan Jett also recorded an album with the surviving members of the Gits called Evil Stig ("Gits Live" backwards).
7 Year Bitch, who were close friends with the band, released their second studio album ¡Viva Zapata! in May 1994 on C/Z Records, as a tribute to Zapata. The album cover depicts Zapata wearing bullet sashes, and some of the songs such as "M.I.A." and "Rock A Bye", directly address her murder. Jett and Kathleen Hanna wrote a song called "Go Home" that was later released on Jett's 1994 album, Pure and Simple. A music video for "Go Home" was also released, which depicts a woman who is being stalked and attacked but is then able to defend herself against the assailant.
In May 2005, The Gits Movie, a documentary about Zapata's life, the Gits, and the Seattle music scene, premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. Another version of the film was screened two years later at the 2007 SXSW (South By Southwest) Film Festival. The final cut was theatrically released in over 20 cities in North America on July 7, 2008, the 15th anniversary of Zapata's death. The following day, the film was released on DVD along with a Best of the Gits CD. In February 2013, a play called These Streets, inspired by the stories of and featuring music by Zapata and other female musicians in Seattle, debuted at the ACT Theatre in Seattle.
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