1994 Eugene Dari Mart murders

The 1994 Eugene Dari Mart murders combined a convenience-store robbery with a fatal attack, and later became the focus of a dispute over whether heavy metal music had influenced the perpetrators. Four teenagers took part; one employee was killed, another survived, and a later civil case brought the alleged musical influence into public view without establishing it as the cause of the crime.

The robbery and attacks

A few minutes before midnight on April 10, 1994, Michael Hayward, Johl Brock, Jason Brumwell, and Daniel Paul Rabago arrived at a Dari Mart in Eugene, Oregon. They began a robbery at the cash register, using a 1.7-pound metal bar as a weapon. Rabago and Brumwell stood guard while Hayward went to the rear cooler room, where an employee was restocking drinks. The employee was killed in the attack. Before the group left, another woman working behind the front counter was also assaulted; she survived.

The investigation and criminal case

The group was caught a few months later after detectives connected a roll of lottery tickets stolen from the store on the night of the crime with tickets later cashed using a culprit’s name. The book reports that investigators had ample evidence to convict the teenagers. Hayward received the death penalty from the jury; the evidence cited here does not specify the sentences or individual outcomes for the other three.

Claims about music

Civil lawsuits followed. The surviving store clerk and the dead employee’s family argued that music by Deicide and Cannibal Corpse had heavily influenced the perpetrators’ behavior. During a police interrogation, Rabago was recorded linking the crime to Glen Benton of Deicide and Chris Barnes, then the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse. The teenagers had also allegedly listened to Deicide in a church parking lot shortly before the robbery and attacks. These claims placed music at the center of the civil dispute, but they remain allegations about influence rather than proof that the music caused the crime.

Settlements and significance

The suits were directed mainly at the bands’ record labels, Roadrunner Records and Metal Blade Records. Material seized from the teenagers’ homes—including CDs, T-shirts, band photographs, and literature described as Satanic—was entered into evidence. The cases settled out of court for substantial sums, with the labels expressly not admitting guilt. The episode thus brought together a confirmed criminal case and a contested cultural explanation: evidence about the robbery and its perpetrators stood alongside arguments about the meaning and influence of the music they listened to.