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She Didn’t Make It Home Alive
The Life and Death of Singer Mia Zapata
Sometimes, true crime stories hit close to home. I not only lived in the same city as the victim in this week’s story, but I knew singer Mia Zapata.
Although I did not know Mia well, her tragic death had a huge impact on me and her too-short life continues to resonate for myself and many other women of her generation.
Mia’s rape and murder became a coalescing feminist movement, a raucous caterwaul for justice and autonomy that fueled many other artists.
If you had ever met Mia, you would never have suspected that she would be a victim of anything. Stoic in person, but powerful and expressive upon any stage where she stood, Mia Katherine Zapata was poised at the brink of a potentially rewarding career as a blues/rock singer when she was robbed of her life, and we of her immense talents.
Mia was born August 25, 1965 in Chicago. Her parents, Richard and Donna, were both Midwesterners. By virtue of her father’s heritage (her paternal grandfather was Mexican — but no relation to the famous revolutionary, Emiliano ‘Viva’ Zapata) — Mia was Latina.
