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Friday, September 29, 1989
By Candy Cooper San Francisco Examiner
Sparks, Nevada - After James Vance demolished his face with a
sawed-off shotgun at a church playground, he rode his bicycle around
town shocking people with his grotesque disfigurement.
Plastic surgeons had been able to restore his ability to eat and
breathe, but were not able to restore his smooth, youthful face.
James' physical deformity stunned the town, but not as much as the
message he later delivered: Heavy metal music drove him and his
closest friend to strike a suicide pact, one that only James
survived.
"I
believe that alcohol and heavy metal music, such as Judas Priest,
led us or even 'mesmerized' us into believing that the answer to
'life was death,'" James wrote to his best friend's mother in 1986,
quoting some of the album's lyrics.
James, depressed and addicted to pain medications after the
shooting, died last year in the psychiatric unit of the Washoe
Medical Center from drugs and complications from his numerous
surgeries.
His
message, though, remains alive. Reno Judge Jerry Whitehead decided
last month that the First Amendment's freedom of speech guarantees
can't protect CBS Records and Judas Priest from a lawsuit filed
against them by the two boys' families. A jury should hear the case,
the judge said.
The
historic case revolves around the idea of subliminal messages - the
projection of light or sound so quickly, or faintly that they are
perceived below the level of conscious awareness. Those messages,
Judge Whitehead ruled, are not protected by the First Amendment.
Expert witnesses for the families, including a man who has found
subliminal messages in everything from Ritz crackers to $5 bills,
have studied the music literally backwards and forward.
They
contend that the words "do it, do it' -- subliminally embedded in
the Judas Priest album Stained Class -- and other messages
that can be consciously heard only when the record is played
backward, precipitated the suicide pact.
CBS
and the rock group deny the claim, citing instead the boys' own
desperate lives. "I don't think music causes you to commit suicide"
says attorney Suellen Fulstone, representing CBS Records an Judas
Priest. "If the circumstances of life make your outlook so hopeless,
it has nothing to do with what you hear see or read."
Phyllis and Emmit Vance don't believe that, even though their son
had a long, troubled history, according to court records.
James
Vance had fled from his home 13 times in the two years before the
shooting. An only child, he had no contact with his biological
father and frequently tangled with his adoptive father, Emmit Vance,
a recovering alcoholic.
James' mother also conceded that she had hit her son too often when
he was young. James, in turn, assaulted his mother several times and
choked her when he was 8. He once pointed a loaded gun at her head
and threatened to shoot her, she said.
James' grade school once suggested that he and his mother receive
psychiatric counselling because the boy was pulling his hair out and
tying belts tightly around his head.
Another school psychologist later said there was a good chance that
James would "respond violently to stressful situations" as he grew
older, according to court records.
Admitted to a drug and alcohol addiction center the year of the
shooting, James said he used LSD, speed, cocaine, heroin, PCP,
barbiturates and marijuana.
Despite these problems, the Vances think music destroyed their son.
Emmit, a forklift operator for General Motors, read books about the
negative effects of rock music. Phyllis keeps busy with jigsaw
puzzles, sewing and church work.
"He
would quote lyrics just as if they were Scriptures," says Phyllis
Vance, who several times threw her son's music away because the
young man was moody and violent when he listened to heavy metal.
Two
days before Christmas in 1985, 20-year-old James and 18-year-old
Raymond Belknap spent hours listening to heavy-metal music in
Raymond's room. They drank a twelve-pack of beer and smoked
marijuana. They made a suicide pact, then went on a rampage, tearing
at the room's walls and smashing belongings.
"The
only things not broken in the room were the turntable and the
albums," says Phyllis Vance.
Near
dusk, the two went to the playground of a local church with
Raymond's sawed-off 12-guage shotgun. Raymond Belknap, seated on a
merry-go-round, placed the end of the shotgun under his chin and
pulled the trigger, killing himself. A few minutes later, James
pointed the same gun at his chin and fired. Somehow, the blast
missed his brain and he lived.
Four
months later, Raymond Belknap's mother went to attorneys with James
Vance's letter connecting the death pact to heavy metal music. Reno
attorneys Ken McKenna and Tim Post began to examine the music,
lyrics and album cover for suicidal messages. They say they found
references to blood, killing and the implications of suicide in the
lyrics, but no explicit directives to take one's life. Those they
claim to have found in the music and album cover's subliminal
messages.
Mr.
McKenna and his experts say they have detected words like "kill" and
the image of male genitals in the album cover, which is a head with
a projectile moving through it. The attorney says a musical engineer
played the album backward and discovered the phrases "Sing my evil
spirit" and "(expletive) the Lord."
"Once
you see and hear the subliminals, they're unmistakable," Mr. McKenna
says.
Ms.
Fulstone, the rock group's attorney, says there are no subliminal
messages in the music. The so-called subliminals are nothing more
than "a combination of incidental noises," she says. Even if
subliminals are present they do not cause suicide, Ms. Fulstone
says.
"People write about, sing about serious subjects." she says, "I
don't think anyone would accuse Shakespeare, Picasso or writers and
artists of various kinds with the intent to harm anyone. I just
don't think art causes anti-social activity."
The
reasons for the shootings may be more easily found in the lives of
the two hopeless young men already deeply marked by broken families,
family violence and failure.
Raymond Belknap's life, like James Vance's, was hard. He had three
stepfathers and was beaten by the third, according to the court
records. He was on probation for stealing money and under
investigation for animal torture after shooting at neighbour's
animals with a dart gun.
Both
young men had dropped out of high school, drifted from job to job
and had been fascinated with guns.
"They
were two young men with nowhere to go, no strong relationships, no
futures." says Ms. Fulstone.
Whatever the roots of their suicide pact, the effects of a trial
could be far-reaching for both sides. Ms. Fulstone believes the case
already has had a "chilling effect" on free expression and could
only get worse.
Worried parents have begun to phone attorney McKenna's office with
horror stories of heavy metal and violence.
Emmit
Vance is waiting to retire so the couple can tour the country
talking about the ill effects of music. "(President) Bush is always
talking about drugs," Emmit Vance says. "People don't realize what
an effect music has, too."
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
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