Mia Zapata was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. grew up listening to Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles and Hank Williams. She was also a gifted poet and artist.
In 1984, Zapata enrolled at Antioch College located in Yellow Springs, Ohio as a liberal arts student.
In the fall of 1986, she formed a rock band called The Gits with three classmates at Antioch College in Ohio. In 1989, they relocated to Seattle, where grunge rock and street punk was burgeoning.
The Gits quickly gained popularity in the Seattle music scene of the early 1990s, and major record labels took notice. But just as The Gits were poised to explode onto the national music scene, tragedy struck.
On July 7, 1993, Mia was raped and murdered while walking home. Her murder remained unsolved for a decade, prompting numerous conspiracy theories, including that she was killed by a rival band, stalked by a rabid fan, or that a Satanic cult was involved.
Finally, using old DNA evidence, a Cuban drifter was convicted in 2004 of Mia's murder and is serving a 37-year sentence.

Source: Wikipedia.org