The world lost a great guitarist on December 8, 2004, Dimebag was performing on stage with Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Ohio when Nathan Gale jumped on stage and shot Dimebag four times with two of those shots hitting him point blank in the head. At the time of his death he was 38 years old.

Three others were also killed, a concertgoer, Nathan Bray, Alrosa Villa employee, Erin Halk and Jeff Thompson, he was a Damageplan security guard. The bands’ tour manager Chris Paluska and the drum technician, John Brooks was also injured.

Police reports say that Nathan Gale fired about 15 shots and stopped to reload once. A security and other members of the audience tried to prevent Gale from reaching the stage they were shot at and were either injured or killed. As Gale reached the stage, there were several attempts to stop him but to no avail.

Nathan Gale took the bands drum technician John Brooks hostage and when Brooks moved the police too their shot and shot Gale in the face with a 12 gauge police shot gun. There was a nurse in the audience, she tried to give Darrell CPR but it was too late.

Darrell Abbott was buried in the Moore Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Texas. Many people attended Dimebags funeral. The family did not anticipate a lot of people; members of Darrell’s won family were removed from the funeral by security to make room for the more as they put it distinguished guests. Other family members walked out of the service because of the foul language being used.

The Abbott family has decided to sue the arena where Darrell was killed stating that due to poor security, their son would still be alive. Incidentally, Darrell Abbott was shot and killed on the 24th anniversary of the death of John Lennon who was also gunned down by a fan.