At least in the metal community, it’s well known that not everyone is violent and worships Satan. A lot of it is an act, but we can’t expect the rest of the world to understand that. We’re mostly teddy bears. But not everyone. Yesterday, Raphael Greaves aka the Grave Desecrator, the bassist of Ohio-based Satanicon was found dead along with his girlfriend Angela Tierney in an apparent murder-suicide. As of now, police suspect that Greaves killed his his girlfriend (mother of his child) and then took his own life. And with good reason too. Tierney had called police the night before, claiming Greaves was drunk and was attacking her:
“Hello, my boyfriend just [expletive] threw me up against the wall by my (inaudible). He’s coming at me right now.” She added: “I didn’t do anything. Drunk and goes ballistic, as always. Every [expletive] weekend I have to deal with this.” The line went dead shortly after.
Tierney and Greaves were found dead early Sunday morning, Tierney outside a home down the street from theirs, and Greaves inside their residence. Greaves was a avid Satanist, often posting online about it- sometimes posing with weapons.
Greaves’ bandmate, Joe Aufricht commented, saying it was the alcohol that drove him to kill Angela and himself, not Satanism. We wrote about a similar case last year where the guitarist of Goatlord killed his neighbor and her eight year old son before killing himself. While we can argue about what this means for metal and what people think of it- the real tragedy last year is that a boy just lost his parents, and in this case, an innocent woman is dead. While some in the media may point to the fact that he was in a satanic black metal band as the reason it happened, at least the Sandusky Register is following the story up with interviews from people claiming that it was Greaves’ alcohol consumption, not what deity he worshiped.
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