00:00:06
NARRATOR: For years,
no one in Seattle knew who killed this rock singer. The evidence sat
waiting in a freezer
00:00:13
until a computer identified
a suspect 3,000 miles away. [theme music] In the early 1990s
Seattle, Washington
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was home to a revolution
in rock music. Some people called it grunge. Others called it sub pop.
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It was hard, it was edgy, and
it drew thousands of people to the area. -Musicians were moving here
from all over the world to play.
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And there were fans
moving here just to watch, just to see live music. Because you could
go to a small club
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and see pretty much
what people thought would be the next big thing. -Back in the early 1990s, there
were a million emerging bands.
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And they all had the same
kind of grunge sound. NARRATOR: Ground zero
for this rock revolution
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was a part of downtown
Seattle known as Capitol Hill. Rents were cheap,
drugs were plentiful,
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and crime was rising. Early one morning,
around 3:20 AM, a pedestrian found
a woman's body
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on the deserted city street. -And they tried to
resuscitate her. She was still warm.
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It appeared that she had expired
literally just a few minutes before. NARRATOR: The victim was a young
woman with no identification.
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She'd been strangled with a
cord from a sweatshirt bearing the name of a local
rock band, The Gits.
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The body's location
made it look like there was a possible religious
link to the crime.
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-On either side of her, or
either side of the street are religious buildings. One is a Catholic
church and the other
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is a Catholic services
community area. -She was laying on her back,
her feet were close together,
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and her hands were
out to her side, a sign kind of in a crucifix. NARRATOR: At the
victim's autopsy,
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something unexpected happened. The medical examiner
recognized here. -He liked to go to the clubs
and listen to independent music.
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He knew who Mia Zapata was. [music - the gits] NARRATOR: 27-year-old Mia
Zapata was the lead singer
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and songwriter of The Gits,
one of the most popular bands to emerge from the
Seattle music scene.
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-The local rock music
community is saddened tonight by the death of a Seattle
band's lead singer.
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-The young woman was
murdered and police are searching for her killer. The motive is unknown.
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[music - the gits] -We had been on tour
on the west coast. We were to be home for
three or four days before we
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were to leave on the road again. We had a US tour,
a European tour, and another US tour
planned consecutively.
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NARRATOR: Investigators
tried to reconstruct Mia's activities
before her murder.
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According to friends, she
spent most of the night at a local bar. -Mia was at The
Comet Tavern having
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some drinks with friends. I believe she was there
till about midnight. NARRATOR: From there she
visited the apartment
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of a friend who lived nearby. She left there on
foot around 2:00 AM. -Mia really liked to
walk and Seattle's
00:03:58
a great area to walk around in. And so I think that's why
she chose not to take a cab.
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NARRATOR: Her body was
discovered about an hour and a half later on a deserted
stretch of road, less than half
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a mile from a
friend's apartment. -So we know that in
that 80 minute gap she had been accosted,
attacked, kidnapped, brutalized.
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So her killer was quite
busy in those 80 minutes. We had a very clear and
limited timeline here.
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-I don't believe that Mia
intentionally went in, or voluntarily went
into anybody's car.
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And the reason is that
all of her friends were adamant on the
fact that's something
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that she simply would not do. NARRATOR: Unfortunately,
the killer left very little
forensic evidence.
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-I thought it could
be some ex-boyfriend. It could be a random creep. I could be a woman.
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It could be a gang. It could be anybody. NARRATOR: The death of up and
coming rock star Mia Zapata was
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big news in Seattle, Washington. -I think a lot of people are
really deeply hurt by her loss,
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by losing her. And um, I just think
everyone really wants to find out who did it.
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And even though that
won't bring her back, at least that will give
somebody a sense of justice.
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NARRATOR: Friends put up
posters all over town asking for information
about the murder.
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Police were deluged with tips. -And right now, police have
absolutely no suspects?
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-At this point they say no. And in fact, they said drugs
don't appear to be involved.
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She was not into drugs
or anything like that. It's still very much
a mystery tonight.
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-I think at that time since
there were so few answers, a lot of people were just,
you know, speculating.
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Who could have done this? Was it someone she knew? Was it a complete stranger? NARRATOR: The case
had serious problems.
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There were no witnesses. And since the body
was dumped, there was no evidence at the scene.
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-When you broke down all the
forensic evidence, or more accurately the lack
of evidence, this
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became a frustrating crime. NARRATOR: At Mia
Zapata's autopsy, the medical examiner
found she had been beaten,
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strangled, and
sexually assaulted. -The ME said that the blows
to her abdomen, and a kicking,
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and a kneeing, she would have
died eventually on the scene had he not strangled her.
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It was brutal. NARRATOR: The medical
examiner noticed a bite mark on Mia's breast.
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He swabbed the area and sent
it to the forensic lab hoping the killer left his saliva,
a possible source of DNA.
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-DNA is being sloughed
off from the cells from your cheeks inside your
mouth, and also your gums.
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And within those cells
is the nucleated cells that have the DNA present. NARRATOR: To determine if
the material on the bite mark
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was saliva, the
swabs were tested for the presence of amylase. This is an enzyme in saliva
that breaks down food.
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A solution extracted
from the swab was placed in a
perforated Petri dish containing a starch-based gel.
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Essentially a food source. To simulate the
conditions for digestion, the dish was placed
in an incubator
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and set at body
temperature for 24 hours. When the dish was removed
there were large white spots,
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proof there was
saliva on Mia's body. -Our positive result
is a colorless area. So an area that's not blue.
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And this is due to the fact
that the amylase is binding and breaking up the
starch molecules.
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NARRATOR: At the
time, the sample was too small for DNA testing. So it sat in a storage freezer.
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In their search for
suspects, investigators began with Mia's ex
boyfriend, Robert.
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Apparently, they had broken
up shortly before the murder. -Some people have said that
she was a little bit upset
00:08:03
about a recent breakup
with her boyfriend. There was some
talk that she might try to find him that night.
00:08:10
But Mia's boyfriend said, if
she stopped by his apartment he knew nothing about it.
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He claimed he was
out with his friends, an alibi that checked out. -Robert, her boyfriend,
cooperated fully.
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He always appeared when asked. He took a lie detector test. -He had an airtight alibi.
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Very, very good,
no creases in it. So he was eliminated
immediately. NARRATOR: Investigators
couldn't find anyone
00:08:37
who had a motive
to kill Mia Zapata. And her circle of friends and
acquaintances was fairly broad.
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-Mia had a far ranging
group of friends. A lot of these friends
had criminal histories.
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A lot of these people had
violence in their past. A lot of people were
somewhat obsessed with Mia.
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-These people aren't the groups
you're going to find at the PTA meetings or a the
Rotary Club meetings.
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NARRATOR: Unfortunately, none of
this yielded any new suspects. -And it got to the
point where there
00:09:05
was nobody left to look at. And at that point, that's
when you get concerned. NARRATOR: Frustrated because
the case hasn't been solved,
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Steve Moriarty, The Gits'
drummer and a friend of Mia's since college, joined
with band members
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to take a more active
role in the investigation. -We decided to hire our
own private investigator.
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And we didn't have money, but
we were going to find the money. And we were going to
make sure that this,
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this got solved immediately. NARRATOR: Moriarty and the
band hired Leigh Hearon.
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Her first step was to
re-interview virtually everyone the police
had talked to. -There were no eye witnesses.
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And believe me, I tried. I mean, I went out
a couple of nights with another investigator and
talked with every prostitute
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on the street to see if
anybody knew anything. I talked with all the
neighbors in the area.
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People saw a car drive away, but
they didn't see anybody in it around that time.
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NARRATOR: Eventually,
Leigh Hearon came to the same
conclusions as the police. -I think that most people
thought that this was
00:10:09
going to be an
unsolved case forever. And I know that I thought that
the only way it's going to be
00:10:14
solved is either someone talks
or they get some DNA evidence. NARRATOR: The case
went cold again,
00:10:23
this time for nine years. Until this man won
the Nobel Prize and changed forensic
science forever.
00:10:36
Just two months
before her murder, Mia Zapata wrote a song
about her own death at the hands of a stranger.
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-We were in the
studio, and I was there when she was writing the lyrics. And she said, I want to write
a song about a serial killer.
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I'm like, why do
you want to do that? She goes, because it's
happening so much. NARRATOR: The song was
entitled, "Sign of the Crab."
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[MUSIC PLAYING - THE GITS - SIGN
OF THE CRAB] NARRATOR: The words were eerily
similar to how Mia was killed.
00:11:17
-And it just seemed
that that summer there was a lot of horrible,
horrible crimes happening.
00:11:22
And it affected Mia, and
it affected her writing. And it ended up being prophetic
in that it happened to her.
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NARRATOR: For nine long years,
Mia's murder went unsolved. Frustrations mounted.
00:11:38
-I never thought that it
would go unsolved for so long. And so as the days, and the
months, and the years went by,
00:11:45
I knew that lots of
other people were losing faith that
it would get solved. NARRATOR: Mia's murder
happened in 1993.
00:11:53
And something else
happened that year too. Kary Mullis won the
Nobel Prize in chemistry
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for inventing a technique known
as Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. This made it possible
to perform DNA
00:12:10
testing on very small samples. -Well, with PCR what you have
is this chemical photocopier.
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So we were able to amplify
that small piece of DNA up into large enough pieces
that we can actually detect.
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NARRATOR: The potential genetic
sample in the Zapata case was so small that analysts,
fearing the sample could still
00:12:32
be destroyed, waited until
the PCR process was so refined that microscopic amounts
could be used for testing.
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In 2001, the swab from Mia's
autopsy-- the swab that might contain the
killer's DNA-- was
00:12:50
finally tested with
PCR technology. The process amplified, or
increased, the sample size,
00:12:58
making it large
enough for testing. And it worked. -What I did develop
was a mixed profile
00:13:07
that contained Mia
Zapata's DNA along with, at the time, an
unknown male profile.
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The male DNA profile
was isolated, then entered into CODIS,
the nationwide computerized
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database that is
designed to store the DNA profiles of everyone
in the United States
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who has committed a felony. Unfortunately,
there was no match. -So the good news is,
there's the genetic profile.
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You're on pins and needles. Who does it match? No one. NARRATOR: Was it
possible the killer
00:13:44
had never committed
another crime? Was he dead? Had he left the country? -It was amazing to me that
there was so little evidence.
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I mean, clearly there was just
nothing there except for one, one piece of saliva that
was found on Mia's breast.
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And that was it. NARRATOR: The case
went cold again. And this time, there
was little hope
00:14:10
that it would ever be solved. But the CODIS computer program
kept running night and day.
00:14:18
And 12 months later, the
CODIS system reported a match. The DNA was from Jesus
Mezquia, a Cuban exile
00:14:30
living in Florida. And he was no stranger
to violent crime. -Who is this man? We found out that he's in the
United States courtesy of Fidel
00:14:42
Castro from the Mariel Boatlift. We know that he was kicked out
of Cuba because he was a felon.
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-We had a criminal history
in Florida and Arizona, nothing in Washington. And that bothered us
because we figured,
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well if he was here, why
wasn't he messing up here? NARRATOR: Seattle investigators
decided to question Mezquia,
00:15:03
who was out of jail
and on probation. His last known address
was in Marathon, Florida.
00:15:11
Police there told their
counterparts in Seattle they wouldn't let Mezquia
out of their sight.
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-U.S. Marshals from Seattle
contacted the people in Florida, can you
check this guy out?
00:15:22
They said, we'll bird dog him. NARRATOR: But when Seattle
investigators got to Florida,
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Jesus Mezquia was gone. -We get to Marathon and there
ain't no-- Jesus isn't around.
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You've got to be kidding me. NARRATOR: For 10 years,
Mia Zapata's murder went unsolved until a DNA database
identified 48-year-old Jesus
00:15:50
Mezquia as the perpetrator. When Seattle police went
to Florida to question him,
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he was gone. -When we do get to his home
in Marathon, he's not there. He's inexplicably gone.
00:16:06
Your paranoia once
again takes over, and you think,
oh, he's on to us. He's going to escape.
00:16:13
NARRATOR: But a few days
later Mezquia returned home. He said he had been
working a temporary job
00:16:19
on a fishing boat in Miami. Seattle investigators asked
him if he was willing to answer
00:16:24
a few questions and he complied. He had no idea they
were setting a trap. -So he's being cooperative.
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And we put five
pictures of people that we'd worked on on murders. And we had Mia
Zapata's picture there.
00:16:38
Now, you've seen Mia's picture. Mia's not your
average librarian. She stands out.
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NARRATOR: Mezquia said
he didn't recognize any of the women in
the photo lineup.
00:16:48
-I said, what if
I told you, you've killed one of these ladies. He says, no, no kill.
00:16:54
And he jumps up,
he puts his hands out there, look, no shake. I said, OK, you're
a human polygraph.
00:17:00
Sit down now. NARRATOR: If Mezquia
said he knew Mia Zapata or spent time with
her, then there
00:17:07
might be a plausible
explanation for why his saliva was on her body. But when he said no,
he sealed his fate.
00:17:19
-He denied ever knowing
her, ever seeing her, ever having anything to do with her.
00:17:23
And his saliva is on her breast. I think the man's got a problem. NARRATOR: A fresh
sample of Mezquia's DNA
00:17:31
was compared to the sample
from Mia Zapata's autopsy. Again, there was a match. -And that was the smoking gun
that we were able to solve
00:17:42
this case with, was that saliva. Had he not done this,
we'd have nothing. NARRATOR: A decade after Mia
Zapata's death, the killer
00:17:51
was finally charged. -It really hasn't sunk in yet. So I'm still in a sort of
state of shock about it.
00:17:58
I just hope that this is real. NARRATOR: Investigators
learned that Jesus Mezquia once
00:18:05
lived in Seattle,
just three blocks from where he left Mia's body. When Mezquia was arrested
from Mia's murder,
00:18:13
one Seattle resident
called police to say she recognized his
picture in the newspaper
00:18:18
as a man who had once
exposed himself to her. -I mean, the defense was
screwed at that point.
00:18:24
We've now got somebody who can
testify-- a live person who can testify-- to what
a sick puppy he is.
00:18:31
NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe
Jesus Mezquia was out cruising the streets of
Seattle when he saw
00:18:38
Mia Zapata walking home
shortly after 2:00 AM. According to friends,
Mia had been drinking.
00:18:47
Since she was wearing a Walkman
headset listening to music, she most likely never heard
Mezquia's car approach.
00:18:54
[car slowing to stop] Prosecutors think
he abducted her. [woman screams] Then took her to a
deserted location.
00:19:07
The DNA evidence proved
he left his saliva on her body, then
strangled her to death.
00:19:16
He dumped her body
on a deserted street just blocks from where he lived. Investigators don't
think the location
00:19:25
had any real significance. -And he just opened a car
door, grabbed her hands, drug
00:19:32
her out, laid her there,
and that's how she landed. Just happen chance. NARRATOR: In 2004, 11 years
after Mia Zapata's murder,
00:19:42
Jesus Mezquia was tried and
convicted of her murder. He was sentenced to
36 years in prison.
00:19:51
There was justice, thanks
to an alert medical examiner who preserved forensic
samples even though they
00:19:58
couldn't be tested at the time. -Thank god that the medical
examiner saved the one piece
00:20:04
of DNA evidence that
existed in this case. NARRATOR: It took
more than a decade,
00:20:10
but that tiny piece of
evidence and DNA technology finally caught up to a killer.
00:20:18
-This case did come
down to a single swab. And that forward thinking
by the medical examiner
00:20:25
paid off more than we
could ever have imagined. -I'm fascinated by
DNA science now.
00:20:34
And it's also
fascinating and amazing that this medical examiner had
the foresight to collect DNA
00:20:42
on a sample that wouldn't be
viable for another 10 years. -Those swabs, I mean, were
better than a smoking gun.
00:20:51
You know, I mean, I
don't care-- I'll take, I'll take DNA over smoking
gun and eyewitness any time.
00:20:56
And it was the whole case. It was the entire case as far
as being solved was that swab.
00:21:04
[music playing - theme music]