Did Death Metal Guitarist Foil Robbery, Kill Crackhead?

The internet is abuzz with rumors that Phil Fasciana, guitarist for death metal band Malevolent Creation, shot and killed a man during an attempted robbery in or around Fort Lauderdale. There are also counterrumors that the story is unverifiable and that Fasciana is a lying "douche turd."  The Juice attempts to get to the bottom of the story.

On the Fourth of July, the website Blabbermouth.net quoted Fasciano as saying that he went into a convenience store to buy chocolate milk and was assaulted by a man with a gun.

"I nearly shit myself," the website quotes him as saying, "because the dude looked wacked out of his mind and fired four shots directly at me and I went down to the ground because I thought I was surely shot. After about 30 seconds, I realized I was not hit at all and the shooter thought I was dead or injured and started attacking the store worker when I snuck up behind the burglar and talked [to] him and took the gun out of his hands and told him to get out of the store. He then reached in his sock and pulled another gun out and pointed it at me and that's when I fired two shots into his head, killing him instantly!"

He added, "Needless to say, all charges have been dropped and the store owner has offered me a lifetime of chocolate milk! Ha Ha!"

But the plot thickened when a competing website, RockRadio.co.uk, got in touch with a Fort Lauderdale detective, who says there have been no murders in July. (More after the jump) Confronted, Fasciana hit back with a follow-up comment to Blabbermouth, saying that the Fort Lauderdale police would have no record of the incident since it didn't happen within city limits but in a suburb. Following that, MetalSucks.net jumped on the story, finding fault with Fasciana's arguments and calling him "officially a douche turd."

The Juice knows from experience that each city's police department keeps its own records and that it can be difficult to track down incidents in the smaller municipalities. Property records show that a Philip Fasciana lives in Pompano Beach. That city's police services are handled by the Broward Sheriff's Office, which covers police duties in about a dozen cities and towns. 

BSO spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion says, "A homicide in a convenience store?! We would have definitely put out a press release. I can tell you it was not [our department]."  She says that if Fasciana was arrested and booked anywhere in the county, she'd have a record, but there is nothing recent for a Phil Fasciana. She says she'd be surprised if someone was let go without being arrested after killing someone, even if it was in self-defense, because "it would still require a police investigation."

The Juice has contacted police in several municipalities, as well as the medical examiner's office, but all are closed until Monday.

Requests for comment were conveyed to Fasciana through Malevolent Creation's MySpace page as well as through the band's booking agent, Dan Rozenblum.