Darby Crash

Birth Name:

Jan Paul Beahm

Birth Date:

September 26, 1958

Birth Place:

Los Angeles, California

Death Date:

December 7, 1980

Place of Death:

137 North Fuller Avenue, Hollywood, California

Age:

Cause of Death:

Suicide - intentional heroin overdose

Cemetery Name:

Holy Cross Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Music

Darby Crash was an American punk rock vocalist and songwriter who co-founded the seminal Los Angeles punk band the Germs. As the lead "singer" a typical show featuring Crash would consist of a wretched version of the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" (complete with Crash pouring sugar over the audience), food fights, a revolving door of untalented musicians, and a lead singer so loaded on smack he would smear the audience with blood from self-mutilation. All of this and more was beautifully captured in Penelope Spheeris's landmark 1981 film The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization.

Fun Fact

Even more appalling than his limited vocal range was his lack of timing. On December 7, 1980, Darby formed a suicide pact with his then girlfriend, Casey Cola Hopkins. They lay down together in her mother’s back room and injected themselves with the $400-worth of heroin they had bought with the last of their rent money. Crash died, Hopkins survived. Shortly after his drug-induced suicide in the garage of his mom’s home a deranged “fan” shot and killed John Lennon. Thus his death went completely under reported and unnoticed.

Casey Cola She later stated in an interview “there’s not a moment that I’m awake that I don’t wish that I had died that night.” Casey got her wish in 2013 when she died of a heroin overdose.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Holy Cross Cemetery

5835 West Slauson Avenue

Culver City, California, 90230

USA

North America

Map:

Map of Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Grave Location:

Section R, Tier 8, Grave 114

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery park at the intersection of Sections R, X and Z. Walk up the hill about 10-12 rows looking slightly to the right for the final resting place of Jan Paul Beahm.