Most people remember "grunge" and some remember it started in the Seattle area. This is the crime story involving an up-and-coming grunge band and its lead singer, who was killed one night while walking home in the middle of the night.
Mia Zapata was her name as "The Gits" were her group. She was out celebrating a few things just before the group was going to go out on their first big tour. She got drunk, but her home was about a mile away and the "eclectic" (City Confidential's nicer describe than "hippie section") neighborhood seemed safe enough for her....but obviously it wasn't. She was raped, savagely beaten and then strangled to death. Her body was found by a neighborhood prostitute.
The real story behind this killing was the persistence of her friends, a private investigator and the police. It took persistence because this became a "cold case," a case that went nowhere for 10 years because of a lack of a witness, motive or evidence. Thank goodness for the invention of DNA testing which began to make huge inroads in crime cases by the mid 1990s. Cold Case cops did another autopsy on the victim, got some saliva from an unknown source from bite marks on her breasts and several years later when technology advanced, they found a match! A huge, scary-looking thug by the name of Jesus Mezquia, a Cuban refugee from the "boat days," was the killer. City Confidential then tells us what happened in the trial (hint: mostly justice).
Most of this episode is a tribute to the rock singer and Seattle's music scene of that period, which produced some well-known groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Now Seattle's more famous for Starbucks and computer tech. All the members of The Gits are interviewed numerous times, as are many of Mia's friends and her father.
We get a nice look at this beautiful city which, unfortunately, gets rained on a good portion of each year.
Mia Zapata was her name as "The Gits" were her group. She was out celebrating a few things just before the group was going to go out on their first big tour. She got drunk, but her home was about a mile away and the "eclectic" (City Confidential's nicer describe than "hippie section") neighborhood seemed safe enough for her....but obviously it wasn't. She was raped, savagely beaten and then strangled to death. Her body was found by a neighborhood prostitute.
The real story behind this killing was the persistence of her friends, a private investigator and the police. It took persistence because this became a "cold case," a case that went nowhere for 10 years because of a lack of a witness, motive or evidence. Thank goodness for the invention of DNA testing which began to make huge inroads in crime cases by the mid 1990s. Cold Case cops did another autopsy on the victim, got some saliva from an unknown source from bite marks on her breasts and several years later when technology advanced, they found a match! A huge, scary-looking thug by the name of Jesus Mezquia, a Cuban refugee from the "boat days," was the killer. City Confidential then tells us what happened in the trial (hint: mostly justice).
Most of this episode is a tribute to the rock singer and Seattle's music scene of that period, which produced some well-known groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Now Seattle's more famous for Starbucks and computer tech. All the members of The Gits are interviewed numerous times, as are many of Mia's friends and her father.
We get a nice look at this beautiful city which, unfortunately, gets rained on a good portion of each year.
