A man believed to be responsible for the 1993 killing of
Mia Zapata, singer of early '90s Seattle punks the
Gits, may pay for his crime after nearly a decade. Jesus C. Mezquia, 48, was arrested late Friday in the Miami area and charged with first degree murder, according to a Miami-Dade County police spokesperson. DNA tests linked Mezquia, a resident of Marathon, Florida, to the crime scene and prompted his arrest. Zapata's body was found raped and beaten on July 7, 1993, near the capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The drawstrings of her Gits sweatshirt were used to strangle her to death. Zapata was 27 yeats old.
Seattle police submitted evidence to crime labs for genteic testing last year, but it yielded no matches. Only after information on Mezquia, a convicted felon, was entered into the National DNA Index System in December was a parallel drawn. Subsequent evidence also placed Mezquia in the Seattle area at the time of the killing.
--- Joe D'angelo, 2003-01-13, from
http://www.czrecords.com/mia/mtv/MTV_com.htm
--- Mezquia would be found guilty in March 2004