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STEVE MORIARTY So we were looking, looking, looking, and then later that night, someone got up the courage to call the morgue, and they found that she was there. She was wearing her Gits hoodie when they found her.

MATT DRESDNER Obviously my viewpoint is a bit myopic, but it all ended on that day. Innocence was lost. With Stefanie’s death and Kurt’s death and Andrew’s death, they had done it to themselves. Mia was taken from us. But like Stefanie, she was a real magnet for people to come together around. I don’t know if the scene ever recovered from losing Mia. There was so much attention given to “Who the fuck did this?” and it took us 11 years to figure it out—and no one was beyond suspicion.

BEN LONDON The nature of the crime—the fact that she was brutally raped and murdered—and the fact that historically with these kinds of crimes it’s usually somebody that the victim knows that does them, put everybody, not really in our core group but in the larger group—the second, third circles of our group—under suspicion. Her boyfriend at the time was considered a suspect by the police.

DANIEL HOUSE A lot of people were looking at each other and wondering if that was the person who killed Mia. Suddenly, everything was tainted.

STEVE MORIARTY There was a huge amount of rage at the police for not disclosing that she had been raped. If they released all the information about what happened and it was public knowledge, then it would ruin their line of questioning for suspects. Because the cops hadn’t said that this person had raped her, people in the community thought that made them more vulnerable to it. That and the fact that the cops seemed really bumbling, and dismissive and judgmental at first because Mia was a rocker, she had dreads, she was wearing cut-off jeans, and she had been drinking.

DANIEL HOUSE The Gits kept a lot of the details from us. In the same way that they were always mistrustful and paranoid, they knew more details about the case than they were sharing with the label. It took a long time before I found out that Mia had also been raped.

SELENE VIGIL-WILK There were so many different reactions to it. From being totally fed up with the police not being able to find the murderer to friends saying, “Oh, my God, I got hauled into the police. I got taken down and questioned.” It was just crazy. Nothing was the same anymore. Not that things were ever particularly safe, but it wasn’t dangerous. And now you’re gonna walk out of the Comet and get frickin’ strangled and left for dead in a frickin’ field?

ELIZABETH DAVIS-SIMPSON We developed way more of a hardcore attitude, about not just being feminist through the words we were saying and the way we were acting, but really adapting this fierceness in our own personal lives. Mia was a fierce, street-smart person, so if someone tough like Mia can have that happen to her, it really made all of us feel vulnerable.

I actually got a gun. I had a Lorcin .22, though you probably would have to have someone stand in place and not move for you to do any damage with this little, tiny gun.

STEVE MORIARTY People were buying guns and weapons and carrying them around. They wanted to find the guy and kill him. People were raging.

VALERIE AGNEW One of the things that came out of that tragedy was Home Alive, this collective that I cofounded with eight other women. It was a nonprofit to raise awareness about violence against women, but primarily to offer training for people so there was a tangible thing you could do: street-fighting skills, how to deescalate conflicts, weapons training.

Home Alive got its most significant support from Eddie Vedder. He basically set us up with Epic Records. They agreed to release a benefit compilation that raised over $200,000 for the organization and gave us a lot of press. He was always very humble about it, and at some point we stopped thanking him all the time, but he really did make an enormous impact. We were able to teach a lot of ass-kicking with that money!

ELIZABETH DAVIS-SIMPSON I was blown