SLAYER DEATH LAWSUIT REJECTED

A lawsuit claiming death metal band SLAYER's lyrics incited a trio of teenage boys to kill a 15-year-old girl in a Satanic sacrifice has been dismissed by a CALIFORNIAN court.

However at yesterday's (January 23) hearing the family of the girl, Elyse Pahler, were given leave to submit an amended suit within 60 days.

As reported earlier yesterday on NME.COM, the Pahler family had issued the case against Slayer, and their record company, American Recordings, an imprint of Sony, saying they bore some responsibility for the girl's death. They claimed that the band and the company violated a Californian business code which prohibits the marketing and distribution to minors of "harmful" and "obscene" material.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, defending attorney Scott Harrington said, "There's not a legal position that could be taken that would make the band responsible."

"Where do you draw the line?'' he asked. "You might as well start looking through the library at every book on the shelf."

However, Allen Hutkin, representing the family, countered, saying, "We're confident that we can modify the complaint so that the case could go forward."

The body of Pahler was found close to her home near San Luis Obispo, California in March 1996. She had been lured to her death there eight months earlier by Jacob Delashmutt, Joseph Fiorella and Royce Casey. They choked and stabbed her to death, returning later to have sex with her corpse.

The three were avid Slayer fans who believed they needed to commit a "sacrifice to the devil" in order to give their then band Hatred, the "craziness" to "go professional".

The three plead guilty and are currently serving 25 years to life.

In a recent jailhouse interview, one of the three, Jacob Delashmutt, told The Washington Post:

"The music is destructive. But that's not why Elyse was murdered. She was murdered because Joe (Fiorella) was obsessed with her, and obsessed with killing her."

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