Murder of Elyse Pahler

Royce Casey was denied parole by governor Gavin Newsom in July 2021, Joseph Fiorella has a parole hearing tentatively scheduled for July 2023 after voluntarily waiving his right to a hearing for one year and Jacob Delashmutt has a parole hearing which is scheduled for December 2024.

15-year-old Elyse Pahler's body was discovered near her home in Arroyo Grande, California, in March 1996. She had been raped and murdered there eight months earlier by acquaintances Jacob Delashmutt, Joseph Fiorella, and Royce Casey. The perpetrators apparently returned to her corpse and had sex with it on several occasions. The body was located after Casey confessed to the crime following a conversion to Christianity. All three eventually pleaded no contest to her murder and are now imprisoned and serving life imprisonment.

David and Lisanne Pahler claimed that the Slayer songs "Postmortem" and "Dead Skin Mask" (from the albums Reign in Blood and Seasons in the Abyss, respectively) gave the three killers detailed instructions to "stalk, rape, torture, murder and commit acts of necrophilia" on their daughter. The lawsuit was originally filed in 1996 but delayed until 2000 when the killers' trial was concluded. The initial case was originally thrown out, the judge stating, "There's not a legal position that could be taken that would make Slayer responsible for the girl's death. Where do you draw the line? You might as well start looking through the library at every book on the shelf."

Elyse Marie Pahler (April 24, 1980 – July 22, 1995) was an American murder victim whose parents attempted to sue the thrash metal band Slayer, claiming that the band's music contributed to their daughter's death. Pahler was murdered in the summer of 1995.