From the Mar 25 – Mar 31, 2004 issue

News

Her Day in Court

Ten Years After Mia Zapata's Murder, the Prosecution Rests Its Case

by Amy Jenniges

Friends and family of Mia Zapata, former frontwoman for the punk rock band the Gits, packed Judge Sharon Armstrong's courtroom on March 22. Several of the folks sitting quietly on the benches--some dabbing their eyes and occasionally sniffling-- were women in their late 30s, around the age Zapata would be if she hadn't been killed on July 7, 1993. They wore black Gits sweatshirts--like Zapata had on when she died--with the drawstrings removed in homage. Zapata had been strangled with the cord of her sweatshirt.

The man accused of raping and killing her--Jesus Mezquia, a 49-year-old Florida man originally from Cuba--sat silently at the defense table, his huge hands folded in his lap, and his broad shoulders slouched. He wore headphones carrying a Spanish translation of the court proceedings, as the prosecution and defense wrapped up the long trial.

Zapata isn't the only woman Mezquia had allegedly assaulted during his short Seattle tenure, in 1993 and part of 1994, before moving back to Florida. On top of his convictions in Florida and California--battery and assault in 1986, battery of a spouse in 1989, and aggravated battery of a pregnant woman in the late '90s, for punching his girlfriend in the face--Mezquia is named, but has never been charged, in two Seattle incidents.

One of those incidents is widely known: A Capitol Hill woman was walking from her 15th Avenue apartment to Cornish College of the Arts, at the end of Broadway, when a man masturbating in his car pulled up alongside her and allegedly tried to lure her into the car. She got the license plate number, and called police, who linked the car to Mezquia. (The cops found and questioned him, but he wasn't arrested, according to court documents.)

A second incident hasn't been publicized. In January of 1994, just six months after Zapata's murder, a woman was assaulted near the Paramount Theatre on Pine Street at about 4:00 in the morning. She got away from the man by running around the block, but when she returned, the man was still near the Paramount, masturbating. The woman called prosecutors a week ago and related her story--she'd remembered the man's eyes, thought they resembled Mezquia's, and finally came forward at the urging of her mother.

Zapata's situation--though her last 80 minutes are still a mystery--was eerily similar. She'd spent the evening around Pine Street, just up the hill from the Paramount, hanging out and drinking with friends at the Comet Tavern and Piecora's Pizza, both celebrating the Gits' recent touring success and lamenting a breakup with her boyfriend. She stopped by a friend's Pine Street apartment after midnight, and left there at 2:00 a.m., the middle of the night. Just over an hour later, her body was found lying on a Central District street, her sweatshirt cord tied around her neck. There was motor oil on her pants, and grass in her pockets--she may have been killed in a car, or in a field, and left on the street. She may have been assaulted near her friend's apartment, closer to her home a mile away, or anywhere in between--no one is certain.

Despite the similarities in the two additional incidents allegedly involving Mezquia, they weren't brought up in court. The judge ruled the earlier incident near Cornish--which happened during the day, and on the opposite end of Capitol Hill from the Comet Tavern--wasn't similar enough to be admissible. The late-breaking second incident, near the Paramount, could have come up on the last day in court as a rebuttal, if the defense submitted evidence supporting its theory that a Capitol Hill cab driver killed Zapata. The defense apparently abandoned that plan, and the judge ordered the jury to disregard the cab driver's name, which had been mentioned during opening statements. The prosecutors were unable to bring up their new victim.

That left a case hinging mostly on DNA found in saliva on Zapata's breasts--the DNA profile initially led Seattle detectives to Mezquia, who'd been required in Florida to submit a DNA sample to a national database. Mezquia's defense team tried to create reasonable doubt by arguing that the DNA could have landed on Zapata at any time--before she died, perhaps they bumped into each other in a crowded Capitol Hill club. Or, the defense offered, maybe the medics who tried to save her life accidentally contaminated her body with the DNA; they were trying to resuscitate her, not preserve a crime scene, and evidence preservation standards in 1993 were less rigid than they are now. Plus, the defense argued, people leave a DNA trail everywhere they go--just because a trace of Mezquia was allegedly on Zapata's body when she was found doesn't mean he killed her.

The defense's argument could have raised reasonable doubt, but the prosecutors did a smart job refuting the defense's theories. Senior Deputy Prosecutor Steve Fogg, in his closing argument on March 22, told the jury the DNA profile found on Zapata was unique to 1 in 1.5 trillion people, and it led police to Mezquia's doorstep. The defense didn't offer evidence or testimony to explain exactly how DNA may have accidentally landed on Zapata. Did he have contact with the medics? Was he at a club where Zapata was that night? "If there was an innocent explanation for how the DNA got there, the police would have heard it," Fogg said. Mezquia told the detectives who arrested him in January 2003 that he'd never seen Zapata--so consensual contact that could have transferred his DNA was essentially ruled out.

And it wasn't as if the DNA was on Zapata's hand, or another nearly-innocent spot. Instead, it was found in an abrasion on her breast that the medical examiner swabbed because he believed it to be a bite mark or teeth abrasion left at the time of the rape and murder. Moreover, Mezquia's DNA was the only type found on Zapata's body besides her own. If there was a different killer, Fogg's co-counsel, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw says, then "he did a remarkable job of not superimposing his DNA" anywhere on Zapata's body.

Fogg, in his closing argument, after reiterating the state's case against Mezquia, appealed to the jury's emotions. "We have allowed the evidence to speak for [Zapata]," he told the seven women and eight men (there were three alternates). "Soon it will be your turn to speak."

As we went to press on Tuesday, the jury was still deliberating. Check www.thestranger.com for updates.

amy@thestranger.com