THE BEAST

“Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath.”
When Metallica screamed those words on their 1983 debut album Kill 'Em All, they couldn’t have imagined the horrifying way they'd be repeated just a year later—at the scene of a cold-blooded murder.

In one of the most disturbing intersections of heavy metal and real-life violence, an 18-year-old Texan named Troy Kunkle used a lyric from Metallica’s No Remorse as the twisted soundtrack to a fatal shooting that would shock the nation and land him on death row.

It all went down on August 11, 1984. Kunkle and a group of friends, high and drunk, were cruising around Corpus Christi when they spotted a man walking alone. That man was Stephen Horton, 31, just trying to get home. The group offered him a ride—but it was a trap. Moments later, Horton was dead from a gunshot to the head, his body dumped in a field like garbage.

And as the witness would later testify, it wasn’t just the gunshot that haunted them—it was the killer singing.
"Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath..."

Yes, a lyric from Metallica’s No Remorse—sung out loud as the trigger was pulled.

The band, then in the early stages of their meteoric rise, found out while rolling into Corpus Christi on tour. "We woke up with a call from our manager,” drummer Lars Ulrich recalled. “Some kid apparently took some acid or other fucked-up drugs and went on a killing rampage... quoting one of our lyrics when he shot someone at point blank range."

Suddenly, Metallica were at the center of a moral firestorm—accused of being the musical fuel behind a senseless murder.

Kunkle was sentenced to death and spent over two decades on death row. In a 2004 interview, he called the killing a “juvenile mistake made with juvenile peer pressure.” But the state of Texas wasn’t swayed. In 2005, Kunkle was executed by lethal injection. His final words? A far cry from metal lyrics: “I love you and I will see all of you in heaven.”

But this wasn't the only time Metallica’s music was linked to tragedy. According to Ulrich, the band also caught heat over Fade to Black—a ballad about suicidal thoughts. “We got flak because some kids left notes with our lyrics, or asked for the song to be played at their funerals,” he said.

Yet in stark contrast, Ulrich noted that thousands of fans also wrote to say that Fade to Black saved their lives.

So, what’s the real story here? A band unfairly blamed for society’s ills—or proof that dark art can be dangerously misunderstood? Either way, it’s a chilling reminder that music—like murder—can leave a lyric echoing forever.