Mia Zapata - Murder

Murder

At around 2:00 a.m. on July 7, 1993, Zapata left the Comet Tavern in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. She stayed at a studio space in the basement of an apartment building located a block away, and briefly visited a friend who lived on the second floor. This was the last time she was seen alive. She may have walked a few blocks west, north to a friend's apartment, or may have decided to take the long walk south to her home.

She was beaten, raped and strangled in the Central District of Seattle. It is believed she encountered her attacker shortly after 2:15 am. Since an employee at the Comet remembered her wearing her headset as she left, it is believed she was listening to music from her walkman and thus was unaware of the attacker approaching.

According to the cable television show Unsolved Mysteries, a man two blocks from the Comet Tavern heard a scream around 3:00 a.m. A woman discovered her body in the street at around 3:30 a.m. near the intersection of 24th Avenue South and South Washington Street in the Central District. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled she would have died from the internal injuries suffered from the beating.

Mia Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in her hometown of Louisville.