Dark Days: A Memoir

by D. Randall Blythe

  I am not a scientist. I am not a physics expert, able to illustrate through mathematical formulas the effects of impact, inertia, and gravity on a body in motion. But I have been a skateboarder for over thirty years, and I have fallen many, many times after hitting an unseen rock or crack in the pavement beneath my wheels as I sped along. I have busted my ass at high velocities and from great heights as I attempted to fly off the edge of various elevated concrete surfaces while trying what is known as an acid drop, or attempting to clear the coping of a half pipe ramp. Although physically feasible under these circumstances, given the heights I have fallen and my already advanced speed, I have been lucky enough to have never done a flip in midair during these disasters—I have just landed with a painful and sometimes bone-breaking thud below, like an anorexic sack of potatoes thrown from the back of a tiny wooden truck with urethane wheels. I am also a front man who has jumped, tripped, and just plain fallen off of stages of various heights (occasionally knocking myself completely unconscious), many times over the twenty plus years as a musician. The only time I have ever done a flip in midair during these departures from the stage was when I intentionally tried to do so, running and compressing my legs before take off in order to build the momentum and spring necessary to execute such an acrobatic maneuver. I know what falling and flipping from an elevated position (and its sometimes unfortunate consequences) is like on a very visceral level. I had never experienced anything that matched the description given in the oddly altered 2012 testimonies.

  The forced acrobatics described in these second testimonies were physical impossibilities cooked up by boys with obviously less-than-stellar critical-thinking skills. They were trying to make me appear as a vicious and cold-blooded man who would make haste to attack someone without mercy from behind. So we provided the testimonies to the biomechanics expert weeks before the trial ever started, and after a series of several experiments which recreated the fall in various ways (some of these experiments, gruesomely enough, involved the use of fresh human cadavers to measure the force of impact on a human skull), the expert confirmed what I, a person who had somersaulted off of many, many stages myself, had known all along—in order for the deceased to fly and flip through the air over the front row of fans from a height of just four feet, he would have had to have jumped. And despite the prosecuting attorney’s objection, the judge allowed the biomechanics expert to present his precisely illustrated scientific findings in the courtroom that day.

  After the biomechanics expert had presented his results, he and the prosecuting attorney had a brief but heated exchange. The visibly angered prosecutor loudly claimed that the expert’s findings were not valid, that he had not taken into account the various circumstances surrounding the fall at the show, and that he had discounted other testimonies describing the fall in different ways. The biomechanics expert coldly replied in a contemptuous voice that he had recreated the fall exactly as had been described several different ways, and as there were no magical circumstances capable of suspending the laws of physics, that his conclusions were correct. His test results were not subjective, dependent on the highly unknown variables of human perception and bias (as is the case with psychological tests), but were rooted in irrefutable scientific fact. They went back and forth for a bit, the irritated expert making the prosecutor look a bit foolish with his bull-headed insistence on dismissing the laws of physical reality. The judge seemed to agree with each of them on different points, but in the end allowed the expert’s testimony to stand. Then the judge read aloud various letters of character reference we had translated into Czech, which were to be entered into the court record. (These letters had already been reviewed by the judges, but according to Czech law, any and everything pertaining to the trial in document form had to be audibly read into the court record.) Amongst the letters the judge read was the one written by Vinnie Paul detailing the murder of his brother onstage, and as I heard Vinnie and Dimebag’s names pronounced in the judge’s Czech accent, the urge to cry returned. But once again, the tears would not fall—it was as if all the sadness I had known over the years was trapped inside me and unable to escape. My tears were locked up as I had been in prison, waiting for release at the end of this strange nightmare I was living in. The judge finished reading the letters, then adjourned the court for an hour-and-a-half lunch break, announcing that he would deliver a verdict when we reconvened.

  My legal team and I walked to a nearby Southeast Asian restaurant we had eaten lunch at every day of the trial. The chef, an attractive British woman of Malaysian descent, came out to wish me luck at the end of our meal. She and her staff had been very kind to us throughout the trial, making sure our large table was served quickly in the limited time available to us. I thanked her for the family-style meals, which had been truly delicious. I was happy to have eaten a good lunch before facing judgment, for I didn’t know if my next meal would be in Pankrác.

  In the courtroom, the prosecutor stood and presented his final argument, saying that after taking into consideration the various charitable works I had provided documentation of, he saw some decency in me, and as such would not ask the judge for the maximum penalty. It was his generous recommendation that I be given instead a mere five years of hard time (there was no time off for good behavior allowed in a charge as serious as mine). He said that even a kindergartener would know better than to do what I had done, therefore there had to have been some intent on my part to harm the deceased young man. The prosecutor’s closing statement was brief, taking up perhaps ten minutes.

  In contrast, my defense attorney, Tomas Grivna, spoke for around forty-five minutes. He systematically tore apart the evidence laid against me, discrediting testimony after testimony. It was fairly brutal, and the judge later told him he had perhaps done “too good of a job.”

  Then Daniel’s uncle, the family’s legal representative, stood and spoke for the first and only time during the entire trial. He told the judge that the family would not be substantiating the monetary claim previously laid against me, as no amount of money would ever bring their child back. He said that after hearing all of the evidence presented, that they had come to the conclusion that the blame for Daniel’s death did not lay solely on my shoulders, and blamed the promoter and security for not fulfilling their contractual obligations. But he also said that he wished me to know how seriously the family had been affected by Daniel’s death. Daniel had died on his father’s birthday. He would never be able to celebrate the day he had been born again. Daniel’s mother had been unable to return to work, remaining so torn by grief she had been forced to seek psychiatric help. Their child’s death had destroyed their family, and he wanted to make sure I understood that.

  I understood it all too well. My daughter’s death had destroyed my own.

  Then I stood and spoke for the last time in that courtroom. I expressed my sorrow over Daniel’s death. I said that if ultimately I was found guilty of the charge against me, I would do my time without complaint, like a man. I maintained my innocence, saying that if I had thought I was guilty, then I would have pleaded so. And I said that after hearing all of the evidence, the only explanation for this whole horrible ordeal I could come up with was that there had been a tragic accident.

  That was the truth.

  The judge then delivered the verdict. He read a bunch of legal stuff, which my small friend translated almost simultaneously. I did not hear the words “guilty” or “not guilty” come from her mouth. Instead at some point she said “and the charge has been removed.” I did not understand what this meant, and asked her to clarify as the judge droned on. “It means you are not guilty,” she said. “What about a lesser crime? Are they charging me with a lesser crime?” I asked. “No. I think you are through,” she said. I was still unsure what was going on until Jeff leaned over and whispered, “Total exoneration.” I looked across the courtroom to Don Argott, who had been allowed to film the delivery of the verdict along with members of the press. I saw him silently mou
th the words What is going on? What happened? I slightly raised my thumb upward in reply. I saw my family sitting in the gallery, tears on my mother’s face. I kept my expression as neutral as I possibly could, for I had decided long before this day that no matter what verdict was handed down, I would do my best to show no emotion. I would not smile, nor would I cry. I would remain stoic, and face my judgment like a man of character and dignity.

  I do not know how I appeared to others as they watched me face judgment, for I neither smiled nor cried. I did not feel like doing either. I suppose some of the strange emotions sweeping through me could be characterized as feelings of relief, but there was no joy in my heart. That heart contained far too much sadness, swirling like a thick fog through the slowly dawning realization that I was a free man, for me to feel any happiness. A great coat of sorrow had been painted over my entire being, and I did not know what I was feeling, other than shell-shocked. I have never known anything like it before or since, and hope never to again.

  After the judge had finished speaking, the prosecutor immediately stood, announced that he would appeal the verdict, and then court was adjourned. I had asked my attorney to speak to the judge earlier and ensure that Daniel’s family would be allowed to leave out a back door and avoid the press, and I walked out of the main courtroom door slowly. I took my time leaving, as I wanted to keep the press distracted for a bit as an extra-precautionary measure for the family. They had been through more than enough, and did not need to deal with flashing cameras and reporters shouting questions. As I walked into the blinding camera lights, strolling silently through a forest of microphones thrust towards my face, I took a small camera of my own fitted with a fisheye lens and proceeded to shoot pictures of all the TV and newspaper people who had filmed so much of me. I had decided to do this days before, as I thought I might capture a unique image. I also hoped to make some of them uncomfortable, as I found them unforgivably rude and intrusive, not just to myself, but to Daniel’s family as well. My idea worked on both counts—the photos have a nightmarish and claustrophobic quality to them, and as I shot them, I noticed several of these press men looking nervously away. They were visibly uneasy having the tables turned on them. They did not want me to photograph them. You don’t like that, now do you? I thought, Too bad. I snapped a few photos, told the shouting reporters that I had no comments for them, then Jeff and I walked out of that courtroom building, never to return.

  The court had found me not guilty of manslaughter, and as such, not criminally liable for Daniel’s death. I was declared innocent because of the extenuating circumstances that evening—my nearsightedness, the repeated appearances of Milan (who looked similar enough to Daniel that some witnesses with perfectly fine vision had confused the two), and the absence of any sort of effective security or a properly placed barricade. In fact, the judge maintained that there had been negligence across the board from the people putting on and working the show with regard to security issues that evening. However, the judge also said that the court had proven that I had thrown Daniel from the stage, and as such I held the moral responsibility for his death. I felt that this rather wishy-washy judgment was a cop-out on the part of the court, a weak attempt to pacify the prosecuting attorney. Either I was guilty or not guilty, right?

  However, I do agree 100 percent that I do hold the moral responsibility for his death. I must claim it, and live with it the rest of my life. I must hold myself accountable for my actions, for I believe that had Daniel never seen my face that night, he would still be alive today.

  But not because of anything the court said—the court didn’t prove a damn thing. The investigation into my crime was pathetic, and the evidence arrayed against me was a joke. Everything said against me was based on hearsay, mostly from three boys who couldn’t get their stories straight if their lives depended on it. The prosecutor was literally asleep at times. The trial was a total fiasco.

  The court proved nothing.

  But what the court said happened is not what’s important to me. What the judges and attorneys believed is not important. What anyone else on this planet (with the exception of Daniel’s family) believes about the situation is ultimately not important to me at all. I do not care what anyone else believes happened, nor what opinion they may have about me and my actions. Why?

  Because I can look myself in the eye in the mirror every day and honestly say to myself: You did the right thing in a really tough spot. You did not break or run away. You are a man of your word. No one, no one, can ever take that from me, just like the court could not have taken it from me even if they had sent me to prison. The comfort provided by the irrefutable certainty of one’s internal rectitude is a luxury afforded only to those who prove themselves able of acting with honor in the face of great adversity; for one must be tested to find out what one is really made of. It is never available to the ever-growing multitude of yapping dogs in our soft and castrated society who constantly criticize what they could never muster the courage to be.

  No, what others think happened is not important at all. It is what I believe happened that is important.

  So, what do I believe?

  I believe that at the end of the show that evening, Daniel used the barricade as a ladder and climbed onto the stage.

  I do not know exactly why he climbed onto the stage. Perhaps he had misheard my words, and thought I was inviting him up—heavy metal concerts are loud, raucous, and at times confusing affairs. I speak in a Southern drawl into a microphone that amplifies my voice and sometimes distorts it, depending on the acoustics of a venue, the loudness of the PA, and the position of the person listening. English was not Daniel’s native language. He easily could have misunderstood me. Maybe he thought I wanted him on stage.

  Or maybe he was just an excited teenager, happy to be so close to his favorite band, and merely wanted to get closer. I do not think Daniel had any intent to harm me at all; from what I have been told of him, he was a gentle and kind boy. He was just nineteen years old. At age nineteen I was a freshman in college, living away from home for the first time. I was, to put it mildly, a wildly irresponsible young man. I made many, many mistakes during my nineteenth year on earth; several of which could have resulted in my death. I cannot be mad at Daniel for climbing on that stage, even if he knew he shouldn’t have. He was just a boy, and boys make mistakes.

  Whatever his reasoning, I believe Daniel did climb on the stage that night. I believe I turned, saw him, stepped forward, and pushed him in his chest. I believe that he fell backward from the stage as the result of my push, that no one caught him, and that he struck his head on the concrete floor.

  I believed he died a month later from that injury.

  I believe that I accidentally killed him.

  And accident or not, I believe that I hold the moral responsibility for the death of another human being, a young nineteen-year-old fan of my band from the Czech Republic named Daniel. Accident or not, I believe that I made a critical error in judgment that cost another human being his life.

  But my error did not lie in removing unwanted people from the stage that night—the situation was dangerous, out of control, and I addressed it the best I could under the circumstances. I absolutely have the right to protect my person, and after I was released on bail, I talked to many, many musicians who told me that after hearing about my arrest, they had thanked their lucky stars it wasn’t them in prison. All of them had done the exact same thing I had been accused of: pushed an uninvited person off of their stage. Many said they had done far worse. Sooner or later, what happened in Prague was going to happen somewhere to someone, and more than likely it was going to be someone I knew, given the nature of the crowds most of my friends play to. It was only a matter of time—I just happened to be the one who caught the bullet.

  And whether an audience member likes it or not, they have absolutely no right whatsoever to come onto a stage uninvited. The price of a ticket entitles them to watch the show—that’s it. If they do elect
to disregard that obvious fact, they should be prepared to deal with the consequences of endangering the musicians, other audience members, and themselves. Musicians on stage concentrating on doing their jobs cannot be expected to play bouncer, or stop to evaluate each person that comes uninvited onto the stage to ascertain if they are a potential threat—that is what security is for. Security is supposed to prevent people from coming onstage. Security is supposed to deal with people who do manage to get on stage. I was unfortunate enough to not have a real barricade or any security placed properly to do what they were supposed to do that evening, and my crew was stuck behind a mountain of equipment crammed onto a tiny stage. However, in an extremely unreasonable situation, I acted in an entirely reasonable manner to protect myself and my bandmates. I acted without malice. I did not beat anyone up. I didn’t throw a single punch. If placed in the same completely out of control situation again though, I will not be so reasonable.