5 Heavy Metal Musicians Behind Shocking True Crime Cases
The chilling true stories of heavy metal artists convicted for murder
Serial killers have long fascinated pop culture, but what happens when the artists themselves become the monsters?
Dive into the chilling true stories of five heavy metal legends who traded fame for infamy—and committed some of the most gruesome murders in music history.
Brian Warner, AKA Marilyn Manson, applied the leitmotiv beauty and the beast when he devised his homonymous band Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in 1989.
The band members created their stage names by combining sex symbols like Marylin Monroe, Olivia Newton-John, Daisy Duke, and Zsa Zsa Gábor with the most gruesome serial killers: Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Richard Speck, and John Wayne Gacy.
Hence, they gained their fictional Beauty & the Beast personas: Marilyn Manson, Olivia Newton Bundy, Daisy Berkowitz, Zsa Zsa Speck, and Madonna Wayne Gacy.
However, real people can be more gruesome than fictional characters. Hereafter, you will find five musicians turned murderers.
Varg Vikernes
Neither a Satanic nor a Satanist, Varg refused any of the labels. His fame began with some of the most gruesome aspects of metal history. Between 1992 and 1993, Varg was allegedly responsible for the arson of four Christian churches in Norway. Varg, to this day, insists that he never took part in any arsons:
They presented one witness in each case who claimed I had burned this or that church, and that was it. “Guilty”. Just like that. This process was repeated four times, and I was found guilty of kindling four churches, three of them having burned to the ground. There was not a single piece of physical evidence in any of these cases. I was convicted solely because of the testimony of one single person in each case. From Murderpedia.
Then in 1994, he murdered Øystein Aarseth, AKA Euronymous, Mayem’s guitarist. Vikernes stabbed Aarseth to death; the autopsy mentions twenty-three cut wounds — two to the head, five to the neck, and sixteen to the back. He was sentenced to twenty-one years in prison (the maximum sentence in Norway), served sixteen, and was released on parole in May 2009, after serving 15 years.
Background to the murder
In late January 1993, Vikernes's conflict with Euronymous vented from a trivial marketing project. Vikernes had requested an interview hoping to market the black metal scene and Aarseth’s record store, Helvete.
However, Vikernes's statements during the interview led to a police investigation, and Varg spent a week in jail. The project backfired, and Aarseth had to close up shop due to all the negative attention.
Afterward, on 10 August 1993, Vikernes and Snorre Ruch visited Aarseth’s apartment in Oslo. There the confrontation escalated, and Vikernes fatally stabbed Aarseth. The visitors fled the scene, and Aarseth’s body was found outside the apartment.
Unclear motivations
The motive for the murder is entirely unclear. The entry on Varg Vikernes in the Encyclopedia of White Power mentions that the murder has been “variously described as a power struggle between rival leaders of a satanic circle, a conflict over a girl’s affection, or a dispute over a record contract.” Vikernes himself contends “that Aarseth planned to kill him and that he was striking first in self-defense.”
Vikernes smiled when his verdict was read, and this image made the headlines making him one the most famous musicians on this hideous list.
The movie Lords of Chaos, directed by Jonas Åkerlund, and released in 2018, depicts the feud between Varg and Euronymous and suggests the latter mocked Varg for being a copycat arsonist. In the film, Euronymous says to Vikernes: “I’ve been talking about it for years. I’m glad you got inspired.”
Afterward, Varg argued that Euronymous planned to kill him:
Epilogue to a murder
As stated on the official Varg Vikernes website: “Despite his incarceration, Vikernes managed to stay musically active. After several years inside, he gained access to a synthesizer and tape recorder and created two Dark Ambient albums, “Dauði Baldrs” and “Hliðskjálf” (1997 and 1999, respectively).”
According to the official Vikernes website: “He remains unrepentant of his crime, and his time in prison has done nothing to dim his musical vision. However, it resulted in his split from the Black Metal community.”
— “I am no friend of the modern so-called “Black Metal” culture. It is a tasteless, lowbrow parody of Norwegian Black Metal circa 1991/92, and if it was up to me it would meet its dishonorable end as soon as possible. However, rather than abandon my own music, only because others have soiled its name by claiming to have something in common with it, I will stick to it.”
Kurt Struebing
In 1986, the 20-year-old Struebing was a member of NME. He had a severe drug problem and a tendency for violent hallucinations while under the effect.
The murder
One day he took a dose high enough to make him believe that he was a robot (or this was what he alleged in defense). These maniac deviant thoughts made him go berserker and attack his adoptive mother with a hatchet and a pair of scissors on April 7, 1986.
Afterward, he called 911 to report that he had killed his mother, Darlee Struebing, 53, in her Federal Way home. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder that year. As written by Christine Clarridge and Beth Kaimanourt:
“Documents indicated that prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed Struebing was mentally ill, although they differed on whether he was criminally insane at the time of the murder. Both had agreed to recommend an eight-year-sentence, but the judge instead handed down a 12-year prison term to be served in the mentally ill offenders’ unit of the Monroe Reformatory.” He was released in 1994.
Struebing’s fatal accident
Kurt Struebing died in a car accident in 2005. Struebing, who was 39 at the time. “Witnesses at the scene saw Struebing’s Volkswagen Jetta passing several westbound cars waiting at the warning gates of the pivoting bridge that spans the Duwamish River connecting Harbor Island to West Seattle. The car crashed through a wooden arm and a metal barricade before plummeting about 100 feet to the ground, police said. Struebing died at the scene.”
According to his friends, Struebing had lived two different lives; after serving his time in prison, he became a leading figure in heavy-metal music, a trusted friend, and a doting father who disliked talking about the past.
Bård Guldvik “Faust” Eithun
Faust played the drums for the Norwegian band Emperor. He was convicted for stabbing Magne Andreassen on 21 August 1992.
Some classified it as a homophobic hate crime, taking into account Andreassen's sexual orientation. Other media speculated that the murder was related to black metal, satanism, or fascism — Eithun utterly refused these allegations.
Murder scene
The murder occurred near a park in Lillehammer, Norway. Andreassen, unarmed, approached Eithun and suggested they take a walk together. Eithun agreed and followed Andreassen to the Olympic Park.
Andreassen's body was discovered the following day with 37 stab wounds and a massive head injury resulting from being repeatedly kicked.
The sentence
Faust was sentenced to fourteen years in prison but was released in 2003 after serving nine years and four months.
Hendrik Möbus
Founding member of the Absurd, Möbus was sentenced for the kidnapping and murder of Sandro Beyer in 1993. The 15-year-old teenager was strangled to death with an electrical cord and buried at a nearby construction site.
Collective murder
Möbus was 17 years old when he murdered Beyer with the help of other band members. Later on, in an exchange of letters with American journalist Michael Moynihan, Möbus described Beyer as a “people’s parasite.”
German press presented the case as a “Satanic murder” given the ideological beliefs of the group. However, authorities traced the murder to a personal feud between colleagues. Beyer knew too much about the group’s activities; hence they decided to silence the classmate by killing him.
Möbus was sentenced to eight years in juvenile court for a collectively planned murder, deprivation of liberty, and coercion.
The musician had several issues with the law related to his neo-Nazi beliefs, as he was the founder of the Deutsche Heidnische Front (the German Heathens’ Front was a far-right Neo-Nazi group). Thus, a significant part of his musical inspiration came from themes related to Germanic revivalism and anti-Semitism.
Jon Andreas Nödtveidt
Nödtveidt was the lead guitarist and vocalist of the Swedish death metal/black metal band Dissection, which he founded in 1989. His band has always dealt with themes related to death and suicide.
Back in 1997, he was tried and convicted for being an accessory to the death of Josef Ben Meddour, in what was considered an anti-homosexuality hate crime.
He was released from prison in 2004. Afterward, on 13 August 2006, he was found dead, apparently by a single shot to the head, his body inside a circle of candles.
Allegedly, by his side was an open copy of a Satanic grimoire, reputed to be the Liber Azerate, one of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order's publishings, by which Nödtveidt was influenced. Regarding his views on suicide, Nödtveidt said:
The Satanist decides of his own life and death and prefers to go out with a smile on his lips when he has reached his peak in life, when he has accomplished everything, and aim to transcend this earthly existence. But it is completely un-satanic to end one’s own life because one is sad or miserable. The Satanist dies strong, not by age, disease or depression, and he chooses death before dishonor! Death is the orgasm of life! So live life accordingly, as intense as possible!
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and entertainment purposes only; it depicts facts and real events and, hence shouldn’t be considered, in any way, related to my beliefs or personal opinion.
Compared to other music genres five seems to be a high number of heavy metal musicians involved in murder. I don't know their music, but murder is revolting.