Euronymous's Desecration of Dead's Body

Euronymous's desecration of Dead's body transformed the aftermath of a suicide into part of Mayhem's public mythology. After finding his bandmate, Euronymous photographed him, retained skull fragments that became necklaces, and helped circulate a story that made the death seem like a sacrifice for Black Metal. Accounts in the book separate that constructed narrative from what witnesses said about Dead's reasons, and show how the handling of his remains served the band's increasingly deliberate, sinister image.

Discovery and Photographs

According to a recollection of the discovery, the apartment door was locked and there was only one key. Euronymous entered through a window; the only open one led into Dead's room. After finding him, Euronymous left to buy a camera at the nearest store, returned to take photographs, and then contacted the police. The sequence matters: the camera came before the call, making photography an immediate choice rather than an image assembled later from memory.

Euronymous subsequently wrote to a correspondent that he intended to use the pictures on a future Mayhem album. The account describes the photographs not as private documentation but as potential band material, bringing the death into the same sphere as Mayhem's releases and public presentation. The images themselves did not survive. After Euronymous was killed, his father found them in his apartment and threw them away. Their destruction closed off the possibility of their later circulation, though the story of their intended use remained part of the band's history.

Remains as Keepsakes and Props

Several accounts describe Euronymous collecting pieces of Dead's skull and giving them to people who could make necklaces. One witness said he had seen the necklaces; Hellhammer also remembered finding skull fragments and said that he and Euronymous wore them as memorial objects. The fragments therefore had more than one reported destination: some were distributed to others, while the recollection of Hellhammer describes necklaces worn by the two bandmates. In either telling, parts of Dead's body became objects carried beyond the room where he died and associated with Mayhem's inner circle.

Hellhammer also recalled Euronymous taking brain matter, cooking it in a stew, and eating it so he could claim to be a cannibal. The act is presented as a performance of identity as well as a violation of ordinary boundaries: the stated point was the claim Euronymous could make about himself. Hellhammer further remembered a fleeting proposal to preserve another part of Dead for display, which Euronymous abandoned because the police might ask about it. In that recollection, even the limit on the spectacle was practical—the prospect of police scrutiny—not a retreat from turning the death into a macabre statement.

Rumor, Denial, and the Band's Image

Rumors circulated that Euronymous had killed Dead. A witness rejected that account and recalled Euronymous saying that Dead had taken his own life, while also accepting that people might believe otherwise because the uncertainty would generate more rumors about Mayhem. The same witness said Euronymous withheld details about what he had done with the remains, leaving others to imagine the extent of his actions. Ambiguity was useful: a rumor did not have to be confirmed to enlarge the band's mystique.

Hellhammer offered a sharper explanation for the story Euronymous promoted. He said the claim that Dead died because of the music scene was false, and that Euronymous wanted it to be believed because it could make him money and make him appear more evil. Euronymous's own account cast the death as a consequence of the decline of an older Black Metal and Death Metal scene, presenting Dead as devoted to its former style and the band as declaring war on its perceived successors. That political-sounding explanation turned an individual death into a public cause. The book sets it against accounts that describe Dead's suicide as his own choice and note that people around him had expected he might take his life; the supposed sacrifice for the scene was therefore a narrative Euronymous attached to the death, not an established motive.

From Private Death to Scene Myth

This transformation fitted the broader role of image in Norwegian Black Metal. The book describes the genre as shaped by belief and outlook as well as music, with its direction strongly influenced by prominent personalities. Mayhem's infamy, in particular, had grown through rumors from its earliest period. Euronymous's treatment of Dead's remains intensified that pattern: photographs, necklaces, claims of cannibalism, and strategic silence made the aftermath serve as evidence of the band's cultivated extremity.

The difference between Dead's reported reality and Euronymous's account exposes the cost of that image-making. People who knew Dead disputed the idea that he had died for the scene; one account notes that he was found in a white T-shirt marked I ❤ Transylvania, rather than in the uniform of black clothing Euronymous later associated with his cause. The contrast does not explain Dead's inner life, but it makes visible how Euronymous recast him: the dead bandmate became a symbol in a conflict over authenticity, while the concrete person was increasingly obscured by the story built around his death.