The Satanic Torture-Murder of Elyse Pahler

The young girl murdered in a “sacrifice to the devil” whose parents tried suing thrash metal band Slayer for their “contribution” to their daughter’s death.

The lives of David and Lisanne Pahler changed on the 24th of April in 1980 when their daughter Elyse was born in Arroyo Grande, California. They raised her following their same religious views in Christianity, and it seems like the family had a strong connection with their beliefs. Elyse didn’t have anything reported about her childhood until she started at Arroyo Grande High School.

She had barely started the school year when, on July 22nd 1995, her parents reported fifteen-year-old Elyse missing, and for eight months, nobody could find a trace of where Elyse had gone. Her case was completely cold.

The whole case was blown open when seventeen-year-old Royce Casey contacted the police and confessed to murdering Elyse Pahler with two other teenagers after a supposed conversion to Christianity. He led the police to the partially mummified remains of Elyse in a south eucalyptus grove around a quarter of a mile from her home.

The other two teens involved were sixteen-year-old Jacob Delashmutt and fifteen-year-old Joseph Fiorella. All three were arrested and charged with murder, gang involvement, rape, torture and conspiracy.

According to Casey, the entire plot was concocted by Fiorella and Delashmutt. They all claimed that the murder was committed as a “sacrifice to the devil” to give their newly formed metal band the “craziness” to make it big. They picked Elyse, a blonde and blue-eyed virgin, because they saw those characteristics and thought that would make her the “ultimate sin against God.”

Again, all of this is according to Casey’s confession to the police, so it is likely that it’s slightly tainted in favour of making him seem slightly better.

After selecting Elyse, the trio spent weeks stalking her, seemingly trying to find the best way to lure her away from the school. They would settle on luring Elyse to the eucalyptus grove on the Nipomo Mesa under the promise of drugs. There, they supposedly smoked marijuana before Delashmutt attacked Elyse from behind; he wrapped a belt around her neck and began strangling Elyse.

While Delashmutt strangled her, Fiorella began stabbing Elyse in the neck with a hunting knife the trio brought with the intention of murdering Elyse with it. Delashmutt and Casey took turns stabbing her until she was left with twelve non-fatal stab wounds.

As Elyse bled out, the three attackers beat and kicked her body, ignoring her as she prayed to God for help and called out to her mother. Slowly, with her murderers watching, Elyse bled to death from her twelve stab wounds.

Disgustingly her torture didn’t end with her death as police determined through the position of her body that one of the attackers raped Elyse’s dead body. Fiorella’s mother also told the police that her son told her Delashmutt and Casey committed the act of necrophilia. In contrast, one of Delashmutt’s friends told the police that Delashmutt boasted about returning to Elyse’s body to perform acts of necrophilia again.

Casey pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of twenty-one years. It’s likely he got the lighter sentence because he confessed to the police.

Delashmutt also pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of twenty-six years.

Fiorella reached a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of life with a minimum of twenty-six years.

In 2021, Casey was up for parole. Some members of the Pahler family, including Elyse’s father, attended the meeting and stated that they didn’t oppose his release. It’s said that Casey had expressed remorse over the murder and had been the one to lead the police to her body eight months after he partook in her murder.

While serving his prison sentence, Casey reportedly had model behaviour and participated in a number of different rehabilitation programs. He got his GED and was working towards his Bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. These are all educational things that Elyse never got the chance to get or even be near.

Casey was denied parole by Gavin Newsom in July 2021, but the superior court judge overturned the decision the following June and granted him parole.

Fiorella is still imprisoned at the High Desert State Prison, and Delashmutt is at the Correctional Training Facility in California.

In the direct aftermath of Elyse’s murder, her parents filed a lawsuit against the thrash metal band Slayer. They alleged that their songs Postmortem and Dead Skin Mask gave the three killers detailed instructions to “stalk, rape, torture, murder and commit acts of necrophilia” against Elyse. The lawsuit was filed in 1996 but was delayed until after the murderer’s trials had all ended in 2000. It was thrown out with the judge stating, “There’s not 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.”

That didn’t deter the Pahler parents, who filed a second lawsuit, this time claiming Slayer “knowingly distributed harmful material to minors.” The case was once again dismissed.

Jacob Delashmutt spoke in an interview on the topic and whether Slayer’s music had been involved with the murder. He claimed that “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.”

That is all for the disgusting murder of Elyse Pahler, a young girl described as having a wonderful soul. Thank you for reading.