True Crime All The Time - Nathan Miles Gale

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Nathan Gale was a man who became obsessed with the heavy metal rock band Pantera. Obsessed may even be an understatement in this scenario, as friends said that he listened to his first Pantera CD every day for two years straight. But a change developed in Gale that led him to murder four people at a rock concert. One of the victims was Darrel Lance Abbott, known as Dimebag Darrell, who had once been the guitarist of Pantera.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murders committed by Nathan Gale. Some around him noticed the change in his behavior, and some even wondered if Gale was suffering from some type of mental illness. He took the breakup of Pantera very hard, and it seems as though he took it personally. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 320 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, give you, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing good. How about yourself? I'm doing very well. Good. It's like 60 degrees here today.

Yeah, it's a little warm up for early February, man. We've had a really mild winter. Yeah. And I'm not going to complain about it at all. I did that polar plunge today too. I thought, what are people complaining about? right 60 degrees this is like what i don't understand i don't get it it's not cold at all yeah i was a little taken aback when you showed up uh in the nude because most people were wearing at least

something to cover their um their bits bits and pieces i was trying to figure out how to say that but you decided not to so i just wanted to make sure everybody understood how cold it was not so kudos to you yeah hey let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Nancy Digman. Hey, Nancy. Aaron Pasavento. Hey, Pasovento. Holly Anderson. Hey, Holly. Tess Hurd. I heard about you heard. Kirk Lewis. What's going on? Kirk. Just Kathleen. Hey, Kathleen. Amy. What's happening, Amy? Tammy. Tammy. Tammy. Amber Groukowski and Alyssa freeword. Well, thanks, Amber and Alyssa. Together jumped out at our highest level. That's awesome. Andy Godwin. Hey, Andy. Madison Theraldson. What's up? Therlinson. What's up? Therl.

Sam Gaffey. Hey, Sam. Terry Pringle. Hey, Pringle. Amond Cusick. They appreciate that, Amond. Madison Postma. Hey, Postma.

Christine Churchill. Hey, Christine. Landito. Ah, Landito. Yeah. And last but not least, Ryan Bessie. Here's Ryan. So we appreciate all that new support.

And then if we go back into the vault. How far are we going back? I say we go back as far as we possibly can. This week, we selected Megan Valier. What's going on, Megan? So appreciate all that support, the new, the continued. We had a great PayPal donation from Deanna Johnson. Oh, thank you, Deanna.

So Gibbs, right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved, it's our 300th episode. Yeah. And we decided to go with Jack the Ripper. Awesome. Big infamous unsolved case. Obviously, it's going to take more than one episode. So this is part one. But it's out now.

make sure you check it out. I had fun over in England when I was there though. Yeah, doing the research over there. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We have an intriguing story about an obsessed fan of a popular heavy metal band and the band's breakup that may have led him to kill. The murders take place during a concert at a nightclub in the northern outskirts of Columbus, Ohio.

So pretty close to us. It really is. We're an hour, hour and a half from Columbus. Yeah, short drive. Depending on which side. Yeah, I'm like an hour away. You are. Yeah.

On December 8th, 2004, a man stormed the center stage of the show. And some audience members later said they thought that this man, which is obviously going to turn out to be Nathan Gale, was rushing onto the stage as part of the show. Like part of the act. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, a lot of those bands, they put on a very intricate show. There's tired techniques.

There's, you know, costume changes. There's all kinds of stuff going on. Cinematic? Is that a right word? I don't, I doubt it. But let's go with it. Okay. Whether it is or not has never stopped you before.

And it never will. And it never will. But this small event turned deadly with the murder of four people, including a member of the band. So let's dive in and see how a one-time fan took this thing to an obsession. So I mentioned it. We're talking about Nathan Gale, a man who was described by many as an outcast and a loner. What we've heard that before. Yeah, we have.

Now, we've also heard the opposite. You know, family guy, great coworker, great neighbor, church deacon. I mean, that's one of the things that kind of. jumps out of me, you know, as you go through the number of true crime cases that we have, it's easy to see that there is no one recipe or, not recipe, but description of an individual who turns out to be a killer. There just isn't. We got a mix of personalities throughout these years. Yeah, there's no box. Exactly. You know, there's people and people can decide or get into a situation where they can do some,

some horrible things. But Gail definitely had a void in his life, which I think a lot of people who are in that position do, right, if you don't have a lot of friends. Right. You don't have a lot of contact. Okay, so there's a void there.

He filled that void with an obsession of a band called Pantera. Now, I don't know if you have heard of them or member them. Simmetary Gate. Is that a song? Yeah, you know it. No,

I don't. I literally knew nothing about Pantera, had to look them up because it's just not a genre that, that I listened to. Right. Little on the heavier side. Oh, heavy metal.

So that was never my thing. Like a 90s band. But I know they were pretty popular. They were formed in Arlington, Texas back in 1981. So Nathan Gale, people called him Nate. he shared a love of rock music with the friends that he did have and they liked to attend concerts

together he was a very big guy you know all the descriptions of him were at least six three and well over 250 pounds you know 260 270 they kind of were all over the all over the play right but he also wore very large and thick glasses that people described as almost looking more like goggles. They were so thick. Yeah. My dad had glasses like that, you know, they look like the old bottom of pop bottles. Oh, like Coke bottle glasses. Is that the term for that? They're so thick. Yeah. Gail played offensive line for a semi-pro football team called the Lima Thunder. Really, back in the day, Lima Thunder. Yeah. So we know where Lima is. It's up north from us. The Associated press reported that his coach said Nate would often psych himself up by listening to

Pantera in his headphones before football games. I remember when you used to play basketball, you used to put your Walkman headphones on. And what was he? You were listening to like Patrick Swayze, Gone with the Wind or something. Did you say Gone with the Wind? Yeah. Isn't that a song that he did? I don't know.

she's like the wind. Oh, she's like the wind. Yeah, from dirty dancing. Yeah. Which is a great song. Of course,

you listen to it right before every game. For Patrick Swayze. You're like, the basketball is going to be like gone in the wind or like the wind or whatever. Gone with the wind. So he's getting psyched up. Yeah. Basically,

what we're saying is he listened to Pantera all the time. Sure. Yeah. I mentioned obsession. That word gets used a lot in the reporting. Anthony Bundy, who lived on the same block as Gail, told the AP, he seemed like a normal guy. You would meet any other day.

He was a keep to yourself type of person. He was really quiet. However, this innocent guy had a change of character. Former friends of Gale, Dave Johnson, and Jeremy Bray said that at one point, they became frightened by Gail's behavior and they began distancing themselves from him. You ever have a friend like that? Yeah.

We just start kind of like, you know what? I don't know if I want to hang out with this guy anymore. Well, people change. Yeah. You know, over the years, if you think back to, you know, grade school, to middle school, to high school, my friends changed. Of course, yeah.

And some for the good, some for the bad. They have different influences in their life. Yep. Yeah. I think that's true for everyone. Johnson told reporters he used to be Pantera's number one fan and has liked them for as long as I've known him. After a while, something happened. He just kind of snapped.

He went from being a cool guy to being a guy you didn't want to be around. So, you know, these are interesting quotes by people who knew him. And I think this is where you have to start asking that big question. Okay. Yeah. Something happened to him. What was it? What started to go wrong in his life where he went from a cool guy to a guy who people

didn't want to be around? It had to be something, right? Well, yeah, because he went from being this super cool guy to nobody wants to be around. It's a drastic change. So what's driving that change? Yeah. Bray recalled that Gail once showed up at his house with some songs that he said he had written. But when he looked at them or he heard them,

he quickly realized the words appeared to be copied from Pantera. And Bray said that Gail told him he planned to sue Pantera over the lyrics and for stealing his identity. So this is around the time, right, that they're saying that he started changing. They started distancing themselves. And you could think, okay, that's a joke. Yeah. And most people probably would. Here's a band.

How would they steal your lyrics? they don't know you. Right. How are they going to come across your lyrics? But it wasn't a joke to Gail. He was serious. He was very serious. He legitimately became enraged around this idea.

Autumn Bender, an employee at Bears Den tattoo parlor, across from Gail's apartment, said she would sometimes have to ask him to leave because he would sit there and stare at clients. He made a lot of people feel uncomfortable. That would be uncomfortable. You know, if you're at a place to get some type of service, either tattoo, haircut, whatever. And you got this big guy staring at you. I think after a while you're going to be like, okay, you know, this is making me uneasy.

Yeah, but to me it's all important, right? What his friend said, now you have somebody who was not his friend, but knew him somewhat, worked across the street from where he lived. you start to see this pattern of people who, you know, were becoming kind of put off. Yeah. By this guy's behavior. And Gail sort of became known for his bizarre behavior. So he became that guy.

Yeah. KRT reported that Gail was often seen petting an imaginary dog and staring at walls talking to himself. So there's definitely a lot of strange stuff. Sure. going on with this guy. Something obviously was not right with, you know, how he was acting. It mentioned it.

There were a lot of people who seemed to be on edge. They didn't really understand what he was doing or what was going on. People started to try to stay away from him. And I think you have to ask that question. What was the state of this guy's mental health at this time? Because the first thing I think of when I hear that someone is pedding. an imaginary dog, staring at a wall, you know, talking to themselves. I think mental health issue. Yeah. Sounds like there might be something going on. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's where my thought

process goes. And I think, obviously, we're going to talk about it more because we know he's going to do something horrible. Right. So it seems as though Gail was having trouble with people in town, right? His friends, other people he came across. A lot of people, though, talked about the fact that he was very close to his mother, Mary Clark. And there has been a bunch of people online kind of making the assumption that she was really

the only person that either knew how to talk to him or maybe understood what was going on with him. So I mentioned that Gail accused the band Pantera of stealing his lyrics. And this really kind of, signaled the, the spiral, the downward spiral of his behavior in 2003. The band broke up after a falling out between the lead singer, Phil Anselmo, and the pair of brothers, Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell. It's not uncommon. Bands break up. People don't

get along. They have, you know, conflicting ideas, whatever it is. Now, the two brothers went on to form the band damage plan. And there are a bunch of different stories and ideas about what really caused the band to fall apart. I'm sure fans all have their own kind of idea of what happened, but it really doesn't matter. The bottom line is there was a rip between the members that caused the band to split up. But this is what seems to have added fuel to the fire of Nathan Gale. obsession because he's a super fan, right? Very passionate fan. And apparently he took the group's breakup in 2003 as an insult.

Like, how dare you do this to me? How dare you break up without consulting me first? Yeah. According to KRT, a former friend of Gail's Mark Brake said when they broke up, I think he felt some kind of personal connection. like he felt left out or betrayed. So, you know, the one thing I would say is there are a lot of people who have very strong connections with certain bands.

You know, I know you've been following one direction around the world to all of their concerts. Right. Yeah. And things like that. You used to do that with the backstreet boys, 98 degrees. Well, look. Any boy band that kind of hit the scene.

I'm just trying to, you know, give back. because when I had my band, Rex West and the Westies, you know, I had a heck of a following. And I just like, you know, it was important to have that following. I mean, we broke up because, you know what? The Westies want to go Easties. And I'm like, I don't do that. Yeah, you don't do that. So.

But a lot of people, you know, have a very strong connection to a band or a singer. But this is way beyond that. Oh, yeah. You know, this is not just following them from city to city and trying to see as many shows as you can. that's pretty normal. A lot of people do that. This is, you know, I'm, I'm feeling betrayed because you broke up. We were part of the same group. Like, I'm, I'm part of the band almost. You stole my lyrics. So it definitely seems as though whatever Gail was going through was, was multiplied, magnified by the news of his favorite band breaking up. We've talked about some strange behavior described by

people that knew him. I'm convinced, Gibbs, there was something off related to his mental health. He was experiencing some type of mental illness. Yeah. And mixing some possible mental health issues with the end of something that he might have thought was the only thing important to him. Could it have made him feel like, you know,

almost like into the world type feeling. Maybe. I just, I can't think of any time I was super upset over any band that was breaking up. You know, I just, I just really, I was never upset about anything like that.

You know, even you, you didn't really get upset when the spice girls broke up. I know you loved them, but no, no, not to that degree. But in all seriousness,

you and I, when those things happened, if they did happen, were not experiencing. No. any type of mental health issues. Correct. That part, you know, we have to be serious about.

Absolutely. Because that makes a different, right? Yeah. So some of this stuff we'll never know about for reasons that we'll discuss later. But I'm kind of planting the seeds for, you know, us trying to figure out why this guy did what he did. So let's fast forward to December 8th, 2004 in the band damage plan was set to play at a small concert. in Columbus, Ohio. The setting was a small family-owned nightclub called the Al Rosa Villa that had hosted metal bands

for over 30 years. Chris Norris, storywriter of The Revenge of Crazy Nate, wrote extensively about the details of what happened that night. So it was a Wednesday, and there were a number of performances. I think damage plan was, you know, one of the big draws. This was the new. grew formed from the ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag, Darrell Abbott, and his brother and drummer, Vinnie Paul. Nathan Gale had been in the parking lot of that building for hours. And apparently

the security guards of the building had asked him to move his car multiple times. He was trying to park near the tour bus by the rear entrance of the building. And security eventually got him away from there. But he started to just kind of pace around the area. And it was said later on that people noticed him. And they even said that not only patrons, but staff members felt super uneasy about this guy. Well, I get it. That would definitely make me uneasy too. You know, it would have my focus. Damage plans security chief Jeffrey Thompson had denied access to Gale a few times. right he's trying to hang around the tour bus and he's asking people if dime or his brother or on the bus so what's he doing he's up to something yeah but what is it but what is it is he a fan who

just wants to ask for an autograph or is he someone intent on you know wanting to to harm one of these two people either way he wants to know where these guys are at and you know he's just kind of walking around, pacing around the building. He eventually walked over to damage plans sound man, Aaron Burns, and asked him if either of the brothers were on the bus. So all of this is going to raise concerns for the security guards. Of course, yeah. That are there. They've had to ask him to move his car. They have to keep him away from this bus. He keeps asking different people where these guys are at. I mean, this is like me at CrimeCon trying to, you know, keep everyone away from you so that you don't get mobbed and trampled. Not an easy task.

It's not. It's not at all. Barnes eventually told Gail that the two had already gone inside. So now he knows where they're at. He's obviously looking for them. He immediately started walking very quickly towards the club. He went towards a high wooden fence that was blocking the patio of the building. He jumped over the fence and that's how he entered the club.

Mitch Carpenter, one of the parking lot security guards, saw Gale and also started running towards the building. Nathan Gale heard cheers as damage plan had just taken the stage and apparently he took off into a sprint. And it was just after the opening cord. by Damage Plans drummer Vinnie Paul that Nathan Gale jumped onto the stage. He dodged a couple of band members and he grabbed Daryl Abbott and shot him at least five times in the head. This was according to witnesses and later police.

In less than five minutes, Gail killed Aaron Hulk, a club employee, a fan named Nathan Bray, Abbott and bodyguard Jeff Thompson. Two other band members, Chris Paluska and John Brooks were hospitalized. Oh, I can imagine is how wild and shocking this scene had to be for people inside the club. Yeah, and I said it early in the episode, right? Initially, a lot of people thought that maybe this was part of the show, right? This guy was going to jump on stage and then something was going to happen. Well, that quickly goes out the window.

when he pulls out a gun and starts firing shooting people. A nearby police officer, James Nygmeyer responded to the scene. And this is where things get graphic. Gail had a hostage when the officer showed up once the hostage managed to move out of the way. Police officer James Nigmire quickly responded and shot Gail once in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun. And the way that basically this was described in the research was that Gail's head was literally blown off by this shotgun blast. Yeah. Well, that's the weapon he had at the time. And he did his job. Yeah, he did his job. Obviously, nobody wants to have to do that. What I don't know is what he had

loaded in this shotgun, you know, it could have been like a projectile. Right. Like a shell. I can't imagine it was like buckshot or anything like that because that would have spread and hit other people. And so I can't think of the term right off top of my head. But you said he did his job. That's a tough job.

You know, you show up and you have to make a split decision about what to do. Now, I don't think it's a hard decision when someone has killed, shot and killed multiple people that if they have a gun, they have a hostage and you have the chance, you're going to have to kill them. But that's not an easy thing to do. No. Or an easy thing to live with. Absolutely. It has to be difficult, you know, to make that decision. But by making that decision, he saved lives.

Yeah, he definitely did. I mean, there were people there that later told him that he did the right thing and that he saved life. Nigmeier told the Columbus dispatch, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and severe anxiety disorder. He had to leave the police force three years after the incident and said he's never recovered from the emotional pain of the horror of that incident. So some really awful stuff, right, to talk about. to hear about and to think that this guy had to kind of deal with after the fact. So, you know, this is a little bit of a different episode for us. There is no trial because Nathan Gale was shot and killed at the scene.

But the Franklin County grand jury determined Officer Nygmeyer shooting of Gale was justified. later on the fraternal order of police presented him with the officer of the year war and i understand both of those things i mean nobody wants to hear about police shooting someone right but this is a person who killed multiple people was probably not finished for lack of a better word right there's no telling how many more people he could have killed if this officer had not you know, stepped up and stopped him. I don't know how it could be anything other than justify. So now I think we've, we've got to take a step back. So we're doing this in a little bit of a different order than we normally do. We talked a little bit about what might have led to

Nathan Gale's downfall, but I think we have to take an even deeper dot into some of those things. A lot of times in the episodes that we do, there's something dark that happens. That happens. that people point to and say, you know, is this a cause? Is this one of the reasons why so-and-so later did what they did? Many times it's you and I talking about things that happened during people's childhoods, bad things, horrible things. According to the Associated Press, Nathan Gale went to a trade school for an electric program. He jumped around from different jobs.

he was a mechanic, a pavement cleaner, landscaper. He had some minor run-ins with the police over the years, but really nothing serious. He did join the Marines, but was eventually discharged. Now, those reasons weren't made public, but some of his friends told various outlets that they heard he suffered from mental illness.

So I do think it's potentially a very large piece of, the puzzle in this case. And we mentioned Gail accusing the band of stealing his identity and his lyrics. His old friend Mark Brake told the Associated Press that after what happened, I wish I could have said something to somebody saying this guy could be dangerous, that this guy is just not right. All of us were Pantera fans, but he took it past being a fan. He took it to an obsession.

So I think you have that a lot of times from friends, family members. You know, they witness certain things from people. But what does it mean to them? And what do they do about it? Okay. They said he's acting strange. They think he's not right. What do you do?

And if you don't do anything and something later on bad happens, just like this guy, you feel horrible. Sure. Do you feel any accountability? A responsible in some way, right? This guy didn't pull the trigger. But could he have done something? Yes.

But would everybody in that situation? And I would say probably not. I would agree with you. It's easy to look back in hindsight, but you can't do that. No, because you now have more context, right? You know that this guy did something horrible. So does it change? what you saw back then or what it means to you.

Police investigators have said that Gail's motive for the killings may never be known, but some witnesses have stated that he shouted something about the breakup of Pantara right before he started shooting. And there were a lot of theories put forth about what Gail's motives were. A lot of them centered around Pantara's breakup. Investigators kind of seem to. have ruled that out as a motive. But I struggle with that because it does seem to be a factor. At the very least, he seemed to have been deeply affected by the band breaking up. I believe it had an impact

on why he did what he did. And a lot of people have theorized that he targeted Abbott and Paul because he blamed them for the breakup of the band. And, you know, we kind of, talked about it, but it was almost as if this guy saw himself as a part of the band in some way, right? So does his world come crashing down when the band is no longer the band? Well, yeah, probably because it was his whole world. Ryan Hughes lived in Marysville, Ohio. He had known Nathan Gale for years. And, you know, in talking with outlets, I think he gave one of the best descriptions. descriptions of Gale.

He said, have you ever read of mice and men? Lenny, that's what Nate was like. Really? That's what he said. Yeah. And anybody who has read the book, seen the movie, you get that reference. Ryan said he'd come running up to you and you weren't sure if he was going to hug you or snap your neck.

Again, big dude, 6-3, 250, 260, played football. So, I mean, I think it gives you a good picture, right? This guy, Nathan Gale and what others thought of him. It seems as though he was seen as sweet and gentle at times, but also definitely weird and creepy at others. A forensic psychologist, Dr. J. Reed-Malloy, told the Associated Press, mass murders are typically overdetermined. In other words, there are a lot of factors.

go into it. It was drugs or he was crazy. It's a way for them to get distance from it. So what I take from that is that the doctor is saying, it's probably more than just the breakup of this guy's favorite band, right? That alone most likely did not make him go on this shooting rampage. And I would probably agree with that because I think you also have to factor in some of the other things we talked about.

Mental health issues, you know, what else could there have been? See Mark Brinkley of the Marine Corps Times and Chad Williamson of the Marysville Journal Tribune did a lot of reporting on this story. Nathan Miles Gale was born in Lansing, Illinois. On September 11th, 1979, he was the last of three boys born into his family. his father had left his mother by the time they moved to Ohio around the time that he was in the fifth grade his school administrators noticed some mental health issues early on and gail was placed into special ed classes based on him having a learning disability the staff mentioned

that he acted out a little but eventually he was put back into you know kind of regular mainstream classes at the beginning of high school. But he started missing a lot of days. And he got into trouble for that. Eventually, he went through trade school and he became an electrician. It was said that during his time off of work, he hung out with his friends in Marysville. One of those friends, Ryan Hughes, we've talked about, was quoted as saying, we were all pretty crazy back then just partying, drinking a lot, doing drugs. One night, Gail said he wanted to try cocaine. This was relayed by Ryan Hughes. So apparently he kind of went on a Coke bench. And then after that, he spent days and days writing lyrics and coming up with song. And this kind of coincided with

Nathan Gale finding and starting to listen to Panther. I guess Hughes was the person who gave Gale his first copy of a Pantera album. Got a hooked on it. And he said he listened to it for two years every day, all day long. That's an obsession. Yes. And I don't throw that word around lightly obsession. But I think the more facts that come out, this is not, you know, this is your favorite album of the month.

This is listening to the same album, tape, record, CD, whatever it was at the time. Yeah. All day, every day for two years straight. I just think that's a major problem. I get it. You like it. But that's a lot. It is.

But the other thing Hughes has said, you know, was written up by these guys that I mentioned, was that Gail began complaining about his inability to hear his own thought. Well, yeah, he's pumping this music into his head day in, day out. You're not really leaving a lot of room for your thoughts, your own thoughts. And this kind of dovetails into, you know, these lyrics that he wrote and presented as his own, but were actually Pantera's. It's almost as if he thought they were his. Hughes told the reporters, I just think he listened to it so much that he didn't even know

they weren't his lyrics. He really thought he'd written them. Gail and his friends had seen Pantara live. They played in Dayton, Ohio, which is where we are. Yeah, right here. Gail at some point got separated from his group of friends. And then he turned up the next day, telling everyone that he had become friends with the band members.

Now, who hasn't had a friend tell a story the next day after, you know, a night out, that cannot be corroborated. I've had a lot of friends tell me some, some pretty wild stories. And you can call BS on them, but there's no way to say yea or nay. Yeah, I think you tried to do that with some of my stories. But then you're like, you know what?

It's so bizarre. It might just be true. Exactly. So I want to go back for a minute and kind of touch again on, you know, these friends starting to see a change in his behavior, describing it as, strange, odd. A lot of his friends, you know, who obviously would be interviewed later, said that they thought for them it was impossible to know whether or not his strange

behavior meant he was sick, you know, or mentally ill, or whether he was just messing around. You know, and that's why I kind of go back to my statement or really my question. what do you do in that situation? Who do you talk to? Who do you tell that you think there might be a problem? Or do you tell anyone because you're not sure if there's a problem or not? Yeah. You know, we see that in a lot of cases.

We do. Now, obviously, because of the cases we talk about, something bad happens. And so later on, there is someone who says probably to themselves, I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that. but can you really blame some of these individuals, I think it's pretty hard to. I think so too. But eventually, you know, these guys, they all grew up. They moved away.

They got on with their lives. It seems as though Gail found that harder to do, right? He had a difficult time figuring out where to go next, what to do next. But I think the bottom line is there is a lot of information from his childhood friend. that all kind of seemed to add up to the same story. This was a guy who had a lot of personal issues, possible mental health issues. There's multiple mentions of him having a mental illness. We talked about it.

Right. The discharge from the Marines. A sociologist named Donna Gaines wrote a book called Teenage Wasteland. She studied the culture of alienated teenage metal fans. She described the role that music, play for troubled kids and also mentioned for someone like Gail in his level of obsession that the event of the Pantera band breaking up had a similar psychological impact to a parent abandoning a young child. That's a big impact. That's a huge impact. Now, I'm surprised that it would rise to

the same level, but that's what she wrote. She said Gail created an obsessive identity with the celebrities in the band making him feel like he belonged. So when you're kind of looking for a motive, right, to explain why Gail did what he did, we can never know for sure. I already talked about that, right? He was killed. But what makes the most sense? He did have a troubled childhood.

He was isolated. He was lonely. He really connected with people over the love for kind of this rock band Pantera. Yeah, he was definitely obsessed with him. He was. And I think a lot of people have pointed out that that obsession created kind of his identity where he thought of himself as part of the band. Well, so much he even claimed Pantera's lyrics for his own.

Yeah, said they had stolen them from him. And then you have, you know, his friends growing up, moving on, does he feel abandoned? Does he feel betrayed by his friends? leaving him. You're feeling both of that. And then you have the breakup of the band. I think a lot of people have postulated that maybe he felt as though he really had no one else left in his life.

His friends are gone. His band is gone. And I say his band because I think he felt like that. Oh, absolutely. He did. What does he think he's left with? What does he think he's left with? Well, I think he was at a point where he felt as though he needed to blame someone.

So he put the blame on that Abbott brothers, Vinnie Paul and Dynbach Daryl. I think most people, I'm not going to say everyone, but most people feel as though that had something to do with what he did that night. That basically this guy lost his identity and this obsession with the band turned into murder. So we've talked a lot about Nathan Gale, what may have caused him to murder for people at a concert. I definitely want to talk about the victims. Daryl Lance Abbott, also known as Dimebag Daryl, was the guitarist of Pantera. I mentioned it, right?

They formed in 1981. His brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott, was on the drums. Daryl was on lead guitar. And Terry Glaze played rhythm guitar. The band had two more members, lead vocalist, Donnie Hart, and bassist Tommy Bradford. And in the research, it said Pantera was one of the nation's most popular heavy metal groups in the 1990s.

You know, these brothers started playing music together when they were in their early teens. Young. Impressive. It was said that Dimebag Daryl was kind of a prodigy, a rock and roll prodigy. But after 20 years together and nearly a dozen albums, Pantera broke up. Now, they initially went on hiatus. in 2001. But I guess they just couldn't get over the conflict and ended up breaking up in 2003.

There were some stories about excessive drug use. And again, there was a lot of fans coming forward with what they believe caused the band to break up. But it doesn't really matter what the real reason is dime bag, Darrell and Vinnie Paul left to form this band damage plan. And that ultimately led them to perform at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, where Abbott was murdered by Nathan Gale. One of the things that I saw during the research of this case is that Pantera is actually still touring. I mean, obviously, they've got some different people.

Right. But a lot of people think it's very disrespectful. I saw some of that online for them to perform under the. same name after, um, you know, dinebag Daryl's death. I always get sucked in to that, right? Looking at forums. It's interesting to me to see, you know, kind of what people have to say about, not, not to murder so much. That is too, but this is just on the ban. I think a lot of people have made it seem as though, okay, they moved on fast, right? After his death. One of the things that Daryl, Abbott's death did was it definitely changed the dynamic of concerts.

Well, it limited the act of people coming up on stage. Yeah, a lot of musicians talked about that who were interviewed saying basically that it was musicians and musicians only. There was no fans, right, coming up on stage. And you really don't see that today at all because you don't know what those people's intentions are. Yeah, I think if you get up on station day, you're going to feel somebody coming at your full force knocking you down.

And there are videos of that. People trying to rush the stage and security guards tackling them before they can get to, you know, a performer. I think you got to have security because if you think about a like a big concert or any concert, really, but a big concert, I mean, how many people are packed in there? Yeah. Who's to say that there's not somebody in there that wants to do you harm? And if they're able to make their way to the stage, okay, what can they do?

So I mentioned no trial for Nathan Gale, right, because he was killed at the scene. But about one year after the shooting, Abbott's family filed a lawsuit against the Columbus, Ohio club where he was killed. MTV reported that according to lawyer Gerald Leesberg, the lawsuit against the nightclub was brought up from the fact that there was inadequate security provided at the music venue, given the nature and size of the crowd and previous incidents at the club involving criminal activity. The lawyer cited police and media reports about previous incidents at the metal club regarding criminal activity, fighting, even firing of weapons. Wow.

Okay, that's a little scary. So obviously this wasn't the first case of something going wrong at this club. And we talked about this early on and Leesberg mentioned it. Right. How the security staff performed horribly, considering the fact that they were aware of Gail's suspicious behavior. Well, the whole time that we did this research, I was thinking exactly that same thing. It was mentioned many times about how suspicious he looked and things he was doing. And I'm thinking, why not have him removed from the premises? Why even have him around? Why even let him linger? Yeah, I mean, you know, I get where you're going with that.

I also could make the argument that what had he really done? As far as I know, he didn't break into a bus. He was kind of loitering around. I don't think he had assaulted anybody. He hadn't done anything technically criminal. Yeah. But all of this becomes magnified after the fact. Oh, sure.

If the incident never occurs, it's nothing. Yeah. Nobody ever thinks about it or talks about it, but because he did what he did. Yeah. And because he was also known to security of the band too. I think that's part of a problem. Leesberg went on to say that security guards watched him scale the security fence, gain access to the club.

And for reasons to be determined, he was allowed to go through the crowd and begin firing a weapon. So yeah, I said he, you know, in the beginning he hadn't done anything criminal. But at some point he did. Yeah. He jumped the fence. He entered illegally, I guess if you, you know, for lack of a better term. So the lawyers kind of saying, okay, at least at that point, you definitely should

have done something. He added all of this with the knowledge of security that this individual was behaving strangely and they did nothing to stop it. And this part of the case was extremely pivotal. Leesberg said, the suit, sights, and incident only eight months prior in the Cincinnati area, right? Not far from Columbus, not far from us, in which the security at a venue damage plan were playing at, identified Gail as a suspicious person, and he was subdued.

He was actually dragged off the stage during one of their shows on April 8, 2004, after he caused nearly $2,000 in damage to stage lights and other equipment during a struggle with police. So when you learn this information, multiple times, this guy caused an issue at a damage plan concert before the shooting incident. So when you said security was aware of him, they had to have been. And you have to ask yourself, why didn't they do more at that time? time. Now, I think there might be a difference between the venue security and the band's security. That's a good

point. Venue security, I don't know if they would have been aware of him or not. They might have seen him acting strangely. But no doubt, the band security, there's no way they couldn't have been aware of this guy based on what he had done in the recent past. A bunch of eyewitnesses said that Gail was acting strange before the show. We talked about that. Apparently there was a metal detector at the front door, but he didn't go through the front door, right? He jumped over the fence near the back entrance where there was no metal detector.

Leesberg also said that one of the security guards said that he didn't want to mess with Gail because he was, quote, a big dude. Then you shouldn't be a security guard. Yeah. You know, if you can't handle the big dude, get on your walkie-talkie and find some people that can yeah like patrick suezie yeah stay cool until you don't need to stay cool oh it's be nice yeah until it's time to not be nice yeah walk them outside take care of business but i i get that you are being paid to do a job yeah secure

the facility or you know whatever you want to call it but this guy was a really big guy we talked about right. 6.3, 250, 260. I've even seen 270. Yeah. I think what it shows, and I think Leesberg kind of pointed this out, was that the security staff was clearly unequipped to do their job because one of them said, I don't want to mess with this guy because he's a big dude. The owner of the club, Eric Ketella reportedly admitted his security force wasn't prepared to stop a man bent on killing. But he also said, my security guards aren't supposed to to stop a bullet. They only get paid $10 to $12 an hour. They aren't paid to take a bullet. Now, that may be true. If I'm working a job making $10 to $12 an hour, I'm not expecting to take a

bullet. I'm going to be honest with you. No, no. I'm going to help people find the exits, make sure they get in and out. But that's about it at that point. If that's all I'm making. But obviously Leesberg's going to make the argument that, well, that just means you don't take security seriously. Right. You're calling people security that really aren't security. They really are not. Or what's our definition of security here? It was later ruled that because of Ohio laws governing civil damages, the lawsuit sought more than $25,000 in damages.

But ultimately, I think it ended up being much higher due to. to compensatory damages awarded to the Abbott family for economic losses and pain and suffering. I never actually saw the amount. But I think you see that a lot. Right. There's a number of different types of damages. And one of them is usually much higher than the other. Right. I also saw in the reporting where the club closed and shut down in honor of the anniversary of the murders in 2021. So, you know, definitely a different case for us. I did find it interesting, though. As, you know, I was going through the research, you said you did as well.

As we wrap up the case, I think it's very clear to me that Nathan Gale was suffering from some type of mental illness. I don't know what the diagnosis would be because I'm not a mental health expert, and I don't believe that he ever, you know, got the proper type of diagnosis. He obviously never got any type of treatment. You'd have to think that things would have turned out different, I think, had either he sought out treatment on his own or somebody around him would have done whatever was necessary to get him treatment. And I don't even know what that would have been. Right. I don't know. I don't know I think he needed some help.

Yes. But to what degree we can't say. Right. But when you tell me that someone's petting an imaginary pet, an animal, that they're staring at walls and kind of muttering to themselves, okay, I start to think something is wrong. They need to get some help. You add on top of that this obsession with Pantera.

and obsession might even be an understatement. I'm thinking it kind of is an understatement. I was trying to think of a stronger word, but I'm not even sure what it is. And, you know, him telling his friends that Pantera was stealing his lyrics, trying to steal his identity. I just think it all adds up to there being,

at least in my mind, very little doubt that he was suffering from some type of serious mental illness and he needed help. Yeah. He did. Now, what he did was horrible. Absolutely. There's no way around that. And to me, it's always tough when you have a case like this where, you know, somebody does

something horrible, murders for people, hurts to other people at least. Then you have this issue of mental health. And I think you have to talk about them both, the horrible act. Yeah. The victims, of course. who tragically lost their lives or were hurt, the families and what they went through, but also the killer and that person's state of mind. Yeah.

I think it's important to talk about. It does not excuse it, but it's an important part of the conversation. You can't leave it out. But that's it for our episode on Nathan Miles Gale. We've got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yes, hear them. Hey guys, this is Sophia from Long Island, New York.

I just came across your podcast last week, and I am hooked. I love what you guys do. I think you guys are great together. Can't wait to catch up on all your episodes. But keep up the good work. I just wanted to give you guys a shout out and keep up the good work, and I can't wait to hear my voice on your podcast. I will talk to you guys soon.

Take care. Bye. I love me some Long Island. Well, you just heard it. You just heard your voice. And I love that accent. Yeah. You like that?

Yeah, I do. It's a very cool accent. And I guarantee that she's probably saying right now what accent? Because that's what most people say. Well, exactly. I don't have an accent. People think I have an accent. I don't either.

But people say we do. Right. And we think other people have an accent. Hi, guys. This is Molly from Massachusetts. And I just wanted to tell you that I was chuckling about the, woman who left the message, the listener, who was disappointed about the lack of with the calculation on one of the recent episodes.

And I was laughing because I shared her sentiment. I was like, oh, please tell me that that's not going away because it really is nice. And it's part of what we know to be true about our true crime all the time community. So, yes, I agree with her. We love your work. Please make sure you don't miss that again, Mike. I mean, come on. We have standards around here.

And we expect a lot. And in turn, we work hard while we listen to your hard work. Thank you so much. Take care, guys. Happy New Year. Bye-bye. And she really nailed it, though. She did.

And it reminded me of you. Like, after we're done recording, how you berate me and say, we have standards here. We do. We have standards. Uh, Givie's Mr. Nice guy. until the mic goes off. That's right. I'm always like, hey, the mic's still hot?

You're like, no, I'm like, then I have to look and making sure the button's really off. I'm like, all right, buddy. Let me tell you what you did wrong here. And then he berates me for 30 minutes. That's right. Hey, y'all. I'm a huge fan.

My name is Victoria. I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Good job saying Biloxi, right, on the Samuel Little episode. But anyway, I wanted to ask because I'm okay at picking up the fact that some of your humor is a little bit dry and subtle, but I'm actually autistic. So sometimes, you know, I can't really tell if somebody's not being outwardly funny

or kind of saying stuff with a certain tone if they're joking or telling the truth. So here's my question. All right. I forget what episode it was, but I heard Mike say something like they wouldn't give him the information from one of his phones at a cell phone store because he'd looked up too many violent or, you know, kind of graphic things for the show. Was that a joke or was that true? Like I said, some of your jokes are very dry and I do enjoy that. But on this one, I just, I really couldn't tell. Were you serious or tell them the truth? So I hope this ends up on an episode.

Let me know. Either way, huge fan. Appreciate you guys. Bye. All right. Well, it did end up. on an episode. I will say that was absolutely not true. And, but I understand what she is saying because I do think that our humor is more dry than, than what most people, we're not chuckling all the time after everything we say or, you know, some of the stuff, we're not even saying it to be funny. Some of them are inside jokes between you and I. Right. And so, I don't even know that I'm funny. No. And I'm still not sure that you are. But I guess that's just the way our humor is. So I could understand why some of that might be hard to decipher. I got a question for her. For sure.

She's on the Mississippi River down there, you know? So when you say, this is the best of whatever it is on this side of the Mississippi River, which side is she standing on? Because she could go either way, right? No, she has to be on one side of the other. When she says it, She's not living in the middle of the Mississippi. Maybe she paddles over to the other side and says, this is the best of this side of the Mississippi River. The best barbecue. So I don't know. What do you do in that case?

I don't know. It's a dilemma. I always assumed it was based on which side of the river you're on. I don't know. I'm just saying. Yeah, she's living in a houseboat in the middle of the Mississippi. And when you say the east side of the Mississippi River, are you facing north, facing south?

Let's still be the east side, though, wouldn't. It wouldn't matter. So anyway, yeah, okay. All right. Yeah. I think we ended there. Yeah, we do. Because we had no mailbag.

No, we did not. So that is it, buddy, for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and give you. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. All right, man. Good episode. Yeah. I enjoyed it.

What were you talking about if you're on the east side of the Mississippi River, which way are you facing? What does that even mean? You know, are you facing? east west north south you're facing whichever way you're facing at the well that's true at the time but you're still on the east side of the the mississippi i didn't have my compass out i had to get my compass out then i know what happened to that hardy boy's compass that i gave you yeah that's another whole story there that was it slipped and fell on it that was a oh did you have to go to the hospital

well it's the time that i went to that nudist camp uh-huh so you did have to go yeah they had to extract it it was all good after that shit gibbs i left the Make sure you delete all that payment. Don't leave that in.