Possessed frontman Jeff Becerra has walked for the first time since being paralysed from the chest down after being shot during a robbery in 1989.
The pioneering death metal vocalist/guitarist posted a video on Possessed’s social media channels with the caption: “I walked again for the first time in over 30 years with the help of some $275,000.00 robotic legs.”
In 1989, Becerra was robbed at gunpoint by two men and shot twice. He gave details of the horrifying incident in the October 2008 issue of Guitar World.
“The first bullet went into my chest about six inches above the nipple, went through the lung and stuck on the inside of my spine,” he revealed. “I put my hand up as I was going down, and the second bullet clipped the top of my ring finger off. But at least it didn't hit me in the head. So I was on the ground, and the first guy put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger, and the gun jammed — luckily for me, some criminals don't know how to clean their automatic weapons.”
Following his near death experience, Becerra battled drug and alcohol addiction issues for five years before pulling back from the abyss. He reformed Bay Area legends Possessed in 2007, fronting the band in a wheelchair, and the group released a third studio album, Revelations Of Oblivion, in 2019, the follow-up to their classic death metal records, 1985’s Seven Churches and 1986’s Beyond The Gates.
