![]() ![]() Nathan Gale, according to people in Marysville, was troubled, but not prone to violence. From twenty feet away, Niggemeyer fired once, killing Gale. Holding his gun to the unidentified man’s head, Gale began moving toward the rear of the club. He walked past a stack of amplifiers and saw Gale, who had taken a male hostage. I kept saying, ‘Dimebag, come on, come on, please, stay with me.'” Abbott was near death by the time paramedics arrived.įrom the backstage area, Officer James Niggemeyer appeared, carrying a twelve-gauge Remington shotgun. “‘He needs help.’ I did chest compressions for fifteen to twenty minutes. “I said, ‘Fuck this, I’m a nurse,'” said Reece. ![]() While most fans fled, one concertgoer, Mindy Reece, a registered nurse from Columbus, rushed forward. The bullet went through my shirt, and I didn’t even feel it.”ĭarrell Abbott lay on the stage, bleeding from his head. “He was like, ‘Get out of here, get away.’ As I went to grab him, he shot at me. “I asked him, ‘Dude, what the fuck are you doing?'” Burnett said. One bullet grazed the arm of a Volume Dealer roadie, Travis Burnett, a burly former soldier who dropped his beer and ran toward the stage to try and disarm the shooter. Abbott’s guitar began to emit feedback in a high-pitched shriek.Ī security guard tackled Gale, who continued to shoot into the crowd. The music stopped drummer Vinnie Abbott, Darrell’s brother, stood up behind his kit. “People were pumping their fists, thinking it was a hoax.” Cautela kept pouring drinks. “I thought they were playing a big gimmick,” said Ryan Melchiore, who was working security. Others figured the speakers had popped or somebody had fired a cap gun. “He gets really into it, so he was blindsided.”Ĭautela, who was tending bar, thought firecrackers had gone off. “Dime was doing his thing,” said Aaron Benner, a fan who was standing nearby. He just looked determined.” Gale shot Abbott – who was headbanging, his hair in his face – at least once in the forehead. “I saw him open his mouth to yell something, but I don’t know what it was. “With the feedback, I didn’t hear what he said,” Dameron said. Joe Dameron, bass player for Volume Dealer, thought Gale shouted something about Pantera, but he wasn’t sure. Onstage, Gale drew a Beretta 9mm handgun and headed straight for Abbott. He was walking like he was going into battle.” “The dude was way determined,” said Billy Payne, the singer for Volume Dealer, who saw Gale enter the club. It was about ninety seconds into the first song of the set, Damageplan’s new single, “New Found Power.” Witnesses thought Gale, whose head was shaved, wanted to stage-dive. Walking swiftly past pool tables, a bar and the sound booth, he reached the left side of the stage. Instead, as Damageplan took the stage, Gale jumped a six-foot-high fence and rushed into the club through a side door. ![]() “One of my guys who helps to set up the bands eventually told him to leave.” “He was just a crazy fan trying to talk to members of the band,” Cautela said. “I’m gonna wait for Damageplan.”Ĭlub manager Rick Cautela pegged Gale as a harmless hanger-on – one without a ticket. “You can at least go inside and stay warm.” “I don’t want to see no shitty local bands,” he said. “Hey, man, why aren’t you watching the show?” a fan asked him. He wore thick glasses and a Columbus Blue Jackets hockey jersey over a hooded sweat shirt. A construction worker from Marysville, Ohio, a blue-collar suburb twenty-five miles northwest of Columbus, Gale stood six feet three and weighed more than 250 pounds. In the chilly darkness, Gale had been hanging out in the club’s parking lot while the music pounded inside. One of the Nineties’ most uncompromising metal acts, Pantera were also one of the most successful: During its 18-year career, the band sold more than 7 million records, according to SoundScan 1994’s Far Beyond Driven entered the charts at Number One and sold 1.4 million copies. Halk, 29.Ībbott, 38, was known as an expressive guitarist who brought the fluid dynamics of Eddie Van Halen’s technique to Pantera’s much harder power-groove thrash. The other victims were 23-year-old fan Nathan Bray, Damageplan crew member Jeff “Mayhem” Thompson, 40, and club employee Erin A. The deaths came on the twenty-fourth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. A stocky former Marine, Gale was reportedly upset that Pantera had broken up – last year – and may have blamed Abbott for the band’s acrimonious split. The shooter, Nathan Gale, 25, was killed by a Columbus police officer minutes after the violence erupted. The tragedy took place on the evening of December 8th at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. This story is from the Decemissue of Rolling Stone.Ī young fan obsessed with heavy metal shot and killed former Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and three other people during a show by Damageplan, Abbott’s latest band. ![]()
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