Two infamous murderers have been released after serving 30 years in prison for their 15-year-old classmate, who they killed as part of a “Satanic ritual”
It was a warm July evening when Elyse, a bright, athletic teenager, took a phone call on her family’s landline. Her parents have said they didn’t hear their daughter say much during the call, but right afterwards, she told them she was heading to bed.
However, she secretly left the house, going to meet the three boys, planning to smoke weed with them at a eucalyptus grove nearby. She had no idea the horrors she would endure.
After serving 30 years in prison for her heinous killing, two of the men involved have been released on parole, but their co-conspirator remains behind bars. The three were in a death metal band called Hatred together, and one of the gruesome trio has admitted that their terrifying actions were heavily influenced by the band Slayer, whose songs feature references to Satanic sacrifices and necrophilia.
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Royce Casey and Jacob Delashmutt were teenagers when they enacted a horrifying “Satanic ritual” alongside Joseph Fiorella on their fellow classmate, 15-year-old Elyse Pahler.
That evening in 1995, she walked with Delashmutt, who had phoned her, and the other two boys to the grove that was only a quarter of a mile from her home. They smoked a little weed, and Delashmutt pretended he needed to empty his bladder, removing his belt in preparation for the attack – which the boys had been discussing for months, with the planning becoming ever more obsessive after they decided on the blue-eyed, blonde haired Elyse as the perfect victim.
When a car drove nearby and distracted Elyse, per the LA Times, the boys took the opportunity to strike.
Delashmutt wrapped a belt around her neck, strangling her, and Casey held her arms, restraining her further, whilst Fiorella stabbed her with a 12-inch hunting knife in the neck repeatedly.
Delashmutt then took his turn, striking her with the knife in the back and neck, with Casey then doing the same four more times.
Elyse called for her mother and Jesus before Casey silenced her by stamping on her neck.
The three boys had planned to further violate her after killing her, but have denied they went through with it, instead hiding her in a remote section of the wooded area and covering her in leaves before fleeing the scene, as they went, they bragged to each other about what they had just done.
Delashmutt’s father was out looking for him, though he had no idea the cruel attack his son had just perpetrated with his friends. He picked the boys up and drove them home.
The following day, on July 23, Elyse’s parents realised she was gone and reported her missing. However, the police focussed on the theory that the teenager had simply run away.
“They never looked for her,” said Allen Hutkin, attorney for Elyse’s family, to the Courtroom Times. “They never really made an effort to find her.”
At first, Casey said in an extensive statement to the parole board in 2021, in which he admitted responsibility for the heinous crime and detailed his work towards rehabilitation whilst in prison, they celebrated their actions.
“We talked about how each of us would be rewarded by the Devil for what we had done,” the killer confessed about the trio’s band practices after the crime. “We talked about how Elyse had fit exactly the image of the perfect sacrifice described in the music we were obsessed with. We talked about Elyse being a trophy for the Devil, a girlfriend to add to his winnings.”
He also detailed the impact the death metal they listened to had on their actions, “These songs spoke of mass murderers, serial killers, war criminals, and executioners. They spoke of suicide, murder, satanic ritual and devil worship,” he explained about the music that bonded the angry teenagers along with an interest in illicit drugs, with Casey admitting he felt a strong sense of isolation in his adolescence.
However, as the months passed, Casey’s guilt grew. Every time he saw a missing person flyer with Elyse’s face printed on it, he became increasingly ashamed of what they had done and dreamt of confessing to his parents.
In the end, it was a pastor he had made friends with that he finally opened up to about the horrifying crime. “I had all this time to live my life as if nothing had happened, laughing, going to school, spending time with my friends and family — doing all the things Elyse could no longer do because of me,” he explained in his statement about his decision to come clean.
The pastor went to the police, and Casey led them to where they had left Elyse’s body, which had been so hauntingly close to her home in Arroyo Grande, California all that time.
After confessing, both Casey and Delashmutt pleaded no contest to the crime, and both were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, with Fiorella getting 26 years to life because he was also charged with having a deadly weapon.
Elyse’s parents tried to sue the band Slayer for the impact their music had on the boys, but it was unsuccessful, and for decades, both have struggled mentally with the aftermath of their daughter’s brutal murder.
Her father David has said he lost his home after the murder, with his family having to use food stamps to survive, because despite being once a successful contractor, he simply couldn’t cope in the three years after Elyse’s murder, and that he is filled with guilt he didn’t check on her that evening after she received the phone call and said she was heading to bed.
To every parole hearing for his daughter’s killers, he has brought a photograph of his daughter, and though after Casey’s detailed confession, he did not oppose his release, David said: Although they received prison sentences ranging from 25 years to life, it did little to ease the horror of what they’d done. The pain of losing my daughter and knowing she suffered will never leave me.”
Casey said the way Elyse’s father had spoken at his hearings had left a big impact on him. “Something that I remember hearing over time when Elyse’s dad has come, is that she has a face. And I try to remember every day, whatever decision I’m making or whatever I do, that the ongoing impact of what I did is present all the time.”
Delashmutt had, for many years, shirked responsibility for his part in the crime, but he too now accepts he was the “ringleader” and the impact he had on the Pahler family. “I want to acknowledge all of the pain and the trauma that I’ve caused,” he said at his parole hearing. “It is impossible for me to understand the magnitude of the crime, the impact that it’s had on the Pahler family.”
He also said, “I know that I am the most responsible for this crime. I had every opportunity to put a stop to it, and I didn’t. I was involved in the planning from the beginning, and I made this crime happen. Elyse Pahler was safe in her home that night when she received a phone call from me.”
Fiorella, the last of the murderers still in prison, has not taken part in his parole hearings and has tried for a long time to overturn his conviction. He is reported to have an IQ of 68 and is claimed to be mildly “developmentally disabled”.
However, the San Luis Obispo County district attorney’s office has said he is not ready to be released. “Mr. Fiorella, frankly, is a dangerous individual,” the spokesperson said. “He’s been dangerous since he was 15, and there’s no evidence to support a finding that he’s less dangerous now.”