A heinous crime in Bulgaria in August 2026 shocked the country and brought the metal scene into the spotlight, unfairly or justifiably: a group of teenagers lured a 37-year-old man to a park through the internet, beat him for hours and left him to die in hospital a few hours later. Early reports spoke of «satanists in black metal t-shirts», but the real story, as Wyatt’s Metal’s video explains in detail, is far more complicated.
What happened
On August 4, 2026, in Bulgaria’s second-largest city, ten teenagers aged 14 to 17 approached a 37-year-old man through social media, posing as a meeting with an underage girl. The man went to the meeting and was attacked there by the group: they beat him for more than two hours, stubbed cigarettes out on him, drew swastikas on his body, shaved him and filmed the whole thing on their phones, taking photos too. They took around 30 euros from him and then went and ate kebab. The man was taken to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Watch the video and then what follows:
Initially ten teenagers were detained, and in the end five — three boys and two girls — face charges for the murder. Some of the perpetrators wore metal band t-shirts (Pantera, Carcass, Mayhem), and the local media rushed to present the crime as «satanic» and to blame the music. The investigations, however, pointed in a different direction: the teenagers called themselves «pedophile hunters», influenced by far-right online networks that promote violent vigilantism — not by any musical subculture.
The controversial part of the case
The key question, which divides people even today, is whether the victim really was a pedophile or whether the teenagers claimed so to justify the attack. The perpetrators’ version says a 17-year-old girl posed as a 15-year-old online and lured the man into a meeting. On the other hand, people from the victim’s area describe him as a quiet man who lived with his sister, had a steady job and was simply looking for a partner — while the judge who saw all the material, including the chats and the video of the torture, wept as he drafted the indictment.
What isn’t disputed is that, whatever the victim’s history, no one has the right to take the place of the law and deliver justice this way. The «pedophile hunters» who act like this, without investigation and without evidence, have targeted innocent people in the past too — and when such groups take the law into their own hands, the result is tragedies like this.
More on the same side of metal: Manowar and Hellfest 2019: The cancellation that became a legend.
Metal has nothing to do with it
The most infuriating part of the story is the way the media tried to link the crime to metal music, because a few kids were wearing band t-shirts. The investigators were clear: the motive was far-right theories and the violent vigilantism of online networks, not the music. In that same period, in fact, in Bulgaria a man in a Sepultura t-shirt walking his dog was shot at by an elderly man with a crossbow — a telling example of the hysteria that was cultivated around the scene.
The metal community knows very well what it means to be unfairly blamed for the beliefs of people who have nothing to do with the music. That’s why, when incidents like this are discussed, it’s worth remembering the difference: metal is music. Violence is a choice made by people — and these teenagers made their choices, with tragic results.
If the topic interests you, see also our features on Carcass – Heartwork and Slayer – Reign In Blood, or the complete guide to Metal’s subgenres.
See also: The 10 dumbest lawsuits in rock history
