It doesn’t happen often, thankfully. In fact, in history, there are few musicians who have ever been murdered by fans, family, or otherwise. But it has happened at least a handful of times. Below are the stories of five artists who were senselessly killed before their prime. From an indie rocker and a blues artist to a heavy metal musician and soul singer, these are five musicians who were murdered.
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1. Marvin Gaye
The inimitable soul singer who gave the world “What’s Going On” died while involved in a physical altercation between him and his parents. Early in the afternoon on April Fool’s Day 1984, Gaye got into a fight with his father, Marvin Gaye Sr., who then shot Jr. twice. One of the shots was fatal and he died not long after, just shy of his 45th birthday.
The singer’s father was at first charged with first-degree murder but then that was reduced to voluntary manslaughter once it was discovered that Sr. had a brain tumor at the base of his neck. In 1998, he died in a nursing home.
2. Mia Zapata
The Chicago-born indie rock artist, Mia Zapata, moved to Seattle from Ohio in 1989, just as the grunge movement was about to explode. Zapata and her band, The Gits, were earning recognition in the city not long after—not as a grunge band, but more as a punk group. They were not part of the riot grrrl movement, but not entirely separate from it, either. While her band hadn’t yet broken through nationally, some A&R reps have said they were atop their list.
Sadly, at 27 years old, Zapata was murdered one night in Seattle in 1993. For years, the crime went unsolved until DNA evidence proved later, thanks to better technology, that her killer was Jesus Mezquia, who was arrested in 2003 in Florida. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
3. Dimebag Darrell
Pantera lead guitar player was shot by a crazed fan on December 8, 2004. At the time he was onstage playing a show in Columbus, Ohio. That fan, Nathan Gale, also shot and killed the band’s head of security, along with another fan in attendance and a venue employee. Others were injured, too, before police were able to arrive and kill Gale on sight.
4. Lee Morgan
The jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan was killed at a gig on February 19, 1972. It happened in the wee hours of the night at a place called Slugs’ Saloon in the East Village in New York City. Morgan was performing there, but there was an altercation between sets between him and his wife, Helen Moore. Moore shot him that night and left the scene. Morgan didn’t die immediately, though. But due to a blizzard in the city that night, an ambulance was slow to arrive and Morgan bled to death. He was just 33 years old.
5. Sam Cooke
We saved perhaps the most sordid for last. The story of Cooke’s death remains disputed today. Police responded to calls at an L.A. motel where Cooke was found dead. The motel’s manager Bertha Franklin said she shot Cooke in self-defense. The shot went to his chest and pierced his heart. Conflicting reports from the scene, and from Cooke’s friends and family, create a lack of clarity around how he died and why, exactly.
Some say it was a robbery, others say he was acting wildly and threateningly in the motel. Singer Etta James saw his body before the funeral and she said he looked more beat up than police reports indicated. She suspected foul play. And Cooke’s friend, boxer Muhammad Ali, said of the events, if Cooke was a member of the Beatles or Frank Sinatra, the FBI would have looked into it better. Either way, the world lost one of the best that day on December 11, 1964. He was just 33 years old.
Photo by Rob Verhorst/Redferns
