UPDATE: The person who committed the act, Reece Eber, has offered an apology.
This past December marked the 10th anniversary of the tragic murder of Dimebag Darrell, who was shot dead on-stage by a gunman while performing live with Damageplan in Columbus, Ohio. Now the former Pantera guitarist is in the news again for another tragic reason: an Indiana metal band called Nuclear Hellfrost allegedly desecrated Dimebag’s grave while on tour in Texas.
An Instagram user named crustyplague posted an image of Dimebag’s grave with a homophobic remark scrawled across it, and in his/her post claimed the band spat on it and stole a pair of boots placed at the memorial stone. Metal Injection traced the account to Nuclear Hellfrost, which after the news broke denied any wrongdoing. Google cache confirms the user as affiliated with Nuclear Hellfrost, though now the band is claiming he is a former member looking to smear his former bandmates.
Regardless, the living members of Pantera are not amused.
“We are absolutely disgusted by this!” wrote the Pantera Facebook page, which posted the image, viewable below. “We ask that all of you please show Dime & his grave the respect he deserves. This conduct will not be tolerated and the authorities have been notified.”
Meanwhile, Nuclear Hellfrost have denied any wrongdoing, claiming that a former member, which they have not publicly named, is trying to make the band look bad.
They write on Facebook:
The posts about us and to us are a complete surprise to us. Anything having to do with grave desecration was entirely a hoax put on by our former lead singer completely disconnected from the other members of the band. If you see Dimebag’s grave you can see there is nothing carved into his grave, the only thing that exists is a photo of a piece of paper posted by the former member. We are strongly against any sort of homophobia, racism, or outright disrespect for a human being. We have nothing but the utmost respect for Dimebag and this is a misguided political publicity stunt that we were dragged into by a former member with an awful sense of humor. Nuclear Hellfrost as a band would like to apologize on this former member’s behalf to not only Dimebag’s fans, but most importantly his family. Again, the members of Nuclear Hellfrost had absolutely ZERO actual involvement in any of the alleged actions described by our former singer. Again, nothing but respect to Dimebag as a human being and condolences to his family. These are fabricated and contrived allegations on the internet that never happened in real life.
More to come, certainly…