Music Banter - View Single Post

The Batlord · 11-16-2018, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

Why isn't this as massive for 80s metal nerds as Hellhammer and Bathory? I mean they were Mayhem before Mayhem. One of the band members killed his stepfather or stepmother with an ax cause he thought they were a robot. One of the rawest, noisiest, most garbage metal albums ever.

If this isn't the sickest story in metal then it's top 5.

Quote:

The crime occurred in an apartment building on South 281st in Federal Way, Washington on April 7, 1986. In the days and weeks prior to that fateful day, N.M.E. guitarist Kurt Struebing had been acting strange. He cut off his long hair, a very un-metal thing to do in the 1980s, and drank an entire container of carpet cleaning fluid to “clean himself out”. He began suffering from paranoia and delusions, thinking that people around him were robots and following him, going so far as to hit one of his friends in the chin with a bat. We don’t know precisely what transpired that evening and into the early morning hours in the apartment Struebing shared with his 53-year-old mother Darlee Struebing (♠), though friends later indicated the pair had a great relationship and that she was very supportive of her son. However, Kurt called 911 shortly after midnight and told the operator that he had killed his mother, describing it as a “God job”. The police arrived at the apartment building and encountered a naked Kurt Struebing outside waiting for them. When they made contact with him, Struebing is reported to have said, “I killed my mother and then I killed myself.”

The scene inside the apartment was gruesome. Darlee had been stabbed in the chest with scissors and struck about the head with a hatchet. (♣) She had also been raped. Kurt was sent to a psychiatric hospital (Western State) for evaluation and a few days after the murder tried to kill himself. He told the doctors that he thought he and his mother were robots sent to earth by aliens to somehow prepare the planet for the arrival of other forces. His assault on her was an attempt to prove that she was indeed a robot. She was not.

It was clear to everyone involved, including the prosecutor, that Kurt Struebing was mentally ill. Ultimately he pled guilty to second degree murder and sentenced to 12 years in the mental health unit at the penitentiary in Monroe, Washington, which is only maybe 10 miles from Life in the Vinyl Lane World Headquarters. He served eight, and was released in 1994.

By all accounts things went well for Struebing after his release. N.M.E. re-formed and Kurt organized various benefit shows when those in the local metal community who needed help. He got married, had a son, and worked at a printing company.

And then on March 9, 2005, he drove his car off a bridge.

N.M.E. – “Unholy Death” (1986) | Life in the Vinyl Lane