I had previously covered the time Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were accused of being responsible
for encouraging fans of theirs to take their own lives. Each of the cases resulted in the parents
of the deceased bringing lawsuits against the musicians. Those stories happened in the 80’s,
when heavy metal and hard rock were under constant scrutiny for negatively influencing
AMerica’s Youth. A similar case with a different twist happened to the metal band Slayer in 2001
That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.
3 california teens 15 year olds Jacob Delashmutt (Delashmitt) Joseph Fiorella
and 16 year old Royce Casey who were avid slayer fans
and were in their own band named Hatred. The trio of teens were social outcasts and had
rough upbringings dabbling in drugs and alcohol and were big fans of the occult. They believed
according to news reports that they would need to commit and i quote ‘a sacrifice to the devil’
to get their band to hit the big time and improve their skills as musicians.
Sadly, the young men would carry through with their plan. Their plan would be carried out on
a July evening in 1995. The trio would phone a 15 year old girl named Elyse Pahler (Elise Pawler),
who was the eldest of four kids, whose father was a Contractor and
mother was a tennis instructor. According to entertainment weekly,
Delashmutt had met Pahler in a drug treatment program and had previously
gone to school together before Delashmutt was kicked out of school. On that July evening the
trio llured the blonde teen with a promise of pot to a wooded area overlooking the ocean.
After meeting up with the teens and chatting for a bit they would viciously attack and kill her.
Pahler’s parents would report their daughter as missing, but no body would be found.
Unbeknownst to the authorities and the parents at the time their daughter’s body was lying
a quarter of a mile from their home. It was months after the murder, Royce Casey had found
God and become a Christian, renouncing his past beliefs, but also feeling guilt over
what he had done.. Casey by this point had been estranged from his bandmates and was worried he
or other women would be the target of his former friends as they had previously hinted that Elise
wouldn’t be the only one offered as a sacrifice. Casey would confess his crimes to a clergymen and
eventually to the police and led them to the location of Pawler’s body. Soon afterwards the
other two youths would be arrested and confessed to their part of the crime. It was now March of
1996. It would come out later on that this wasn’t the first time the boys had tried to
kill Elise, but the previous attempt Elise thought the boys were joking around and never reported it.
Casey would tell the police that they carried out the act as a satanic sacrifice and were
inspired by the band Slayer whose song Alter Of Sacrifice features the lyrics
”High priest awaiting dagger in hand/Spilling the pure virgin blood.”
The three youths would be sentanced 25 years to life.
Pahler’s parents would file a lawsuit against Slayer, their label American Recordings and the
parents of the teens,They claim that the band and the company violated a Californian business code
which prohibits the marketing and distribution to minors of “harmful” and “obscene” material.
The lawsuit had to wait nearly four years until it went to civil court.
The lawsuit contended that songs like ‘Postmortem’ and ‘Dead Skin Mask’ gave
the perpetrators of their daughter’s murder a step by step guide of murder and other crimes.
Fiorella reportedly told police that Slayer music "started to influence the way I looked at things."
But his bandmate Delashmutt told a different story telling the Washington Post and i quote
"The music is destructive,""That's not why Elyse was murdered. She was
murdered because Joe [Fiorella] was obsessed with her, and obsessed with killing her."
The band and their label would claim protection under the first amendment and a judge would
agreed throwing out the case, despite the fact that judge thought the lyrics were repulsive.
The movie Jennifer’s body would draw inspiration from the murder case.
As recently as 2021 Casey was granted parole but a petition to have California Governor Gavin Newsom
overturn the decision succeeded. Then as recently as June of this year a judge would reverse the
governor's decision to deny Casey parole with Casey’s lawyer putting out a statement that read
“Very barbaric and callous, heinous and deplorable,” y. “Like I said,
we follow the law, but we also follow the heart and we realized the severity of the crime,
that is number one. Number two, is that Royce Casey is a rehabilitated man.”
As for the family they would put out a statement appearing more at peace with what happened “The
family is prepared for Royce to be paroled. They know it is going to happen at some point.
For the most part, the family is at peace with the decision,” Hutkin said. “Royce has
been generally an honor inmate. He’s really tried to reform his life and make better of
himself. Generally, there is no unanimity, but the family has accepted it.” Pahler’s family however
added that they strongly opposed paroling the other two men involved in the crime.