uTopianTurtleTop

FOUND GUILTY

In July 1993 a local Seattle singer named Mia Zapata was found raped and murdered in a vacant lot. Her band the Gits was finishing up their second album. I never met her but we had friends in common; I knew all the guys in her band; I was a fan and had the honor of playing on the same bill as the Gits once. Once when I had been going through a bad time, I had listened to their unreleased demo tape over and over again. Her death -- it's hard to talk about. Devastated a lot of people, people who loved her deeply and had pitched their lives together with her.

A little over a year ago they arrested a suspect. He'd been busted in Florida for something, and a national DNA database made the match from traces he'd left on Mia's remains. He'd only been in Seattle a short time. The only proof that he'd even been here was that another woman had filed a complaint about him some time close to Mia's death -- she'd been walking down the street; he was driving slow leering at her; she called in the license plate and it was his car.

Tears came to my eyes when I got the e-mail today saying he'd been found guilty. A small relief of mystery solved; a hope of future horrors prevented. No washing away of the bitterness. God bless the woman who called the cops. May the convict never see the outside of a fence again.

RIP Mia.