Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the Seattle punk rock band The Gits. Highly influential in the Seattle, Washington music scene, she was considered a dynamic live performer and a uniquely gifted lyricist and painter. Zapata is claimed as a major influence by fellow Seattleites 7 Year Bitch, singers Cinder Block of punk bands Tilt and Retching Red, Andrea Zollo of indie-rock band Pretty Girls Make Graves and Brody Dalle of The Distillers.

On the morning of July 7, 1993, Zapata decided to walk home from a friend's house shortly after 1 am, following a night of drinking at local watering hole, the Comet Tavern. The friend offered to put her up for the night or even to call a taxi but she decided to walk the 1.5 miles to her apartment. It was a fatal decision, as she was brutally raped and murdered. It is believed she encountered her murderer shortly after 1:15 am. According to Unsolved Mysteries, a couple watching a late show from about two blocks from where she was found heard what sounded like screams around 2 am. A prostitute found her beaten and mutilated body posed in a Christ-like fashion around 3:30 am, under a streetlight in a vacant lot nearly halfway between her home and the friend's house that she had left. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled she would have died from the internal injuries suffered during the beating.

Mia Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

In the aftermath of her murder, friends created a self-defense group called "Home Alive," which exists to this day. "Home Alive" has organized benefit concerts and CDs with the participation of many of Seattle's music elite, such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States of America. Joan Jett also recorded an album with the surviving members of The Gits called "Evil Stig" ("Gits Live" backwards).

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.