The brother of Grammy Award-winning country musician Billy Strings has been arrested for murder. Westworld reports that 45-year-old Patrick Lee Apostol — an elder half-sibling of Strings, real name William Lee Apostol — was recently arrested in connection to the death of musician Zackary Smith in Denver, Colorado. According to police, Smith was shot in the head on Sept. 10, 2020, while driving down a Denver alley.
According to Westworld, Apostol was identified as Strings’ brother through a 2022 federal case regarding weapons and drugs. Documents from the case indicated that the Apostol was a relative of Strings. The two share a father, Billy Apostol, who died from a heroin overdose in the mid-90s. Per the Denver District Court, Apostol is the same man charged with Smith’s murder. During a pretrial hearing, Federal Public Defender Mary Butterton even seemed to use Apostol’s familial connection in efforts to defend him.
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“Mr. Apostol mentioned to me…much of that is because Mr. Apostol’s younger brother is a Grammy Award-winning artist by the name of Billy Strings. Being not cool, I had to Google him. But it does appear that Billy Strings is, in fact, a Grammy Award-winning musician who is, you know, very wealthy,” Butterton said at trial, per Westworld. “And Mr. Apostol has traveled around with his brother on private jets, and his brother has, has been very generous with him. … So I just wanted to put that on the record as well, as Mr. Apostol just informed me of that.”
Strings is an accomplished musician who has released three full-length studio albums to date, the second of which, Home, earned him the Best Bluegrass Album award at the 2021 Grammys. His most recent, Renewal, was released in 2021. The following year, he sat down with Low Down and Dirty to discuss his career and how he first came to love bluegrass music.
“My dad would play around the house by himself,” Strings recalled. “When my parents had friends over, a lot of times they friends came with instruments. Even before I can remember – there used to be videotapes of it, which is how I know – my dad and his friends were sitting around having a few beers, just hanging out and playing and I was sitting in my high chair watching.”
Strings went on to share, “That was very much kind of the lifestyle that was my household growing up; some good weed, some beers and a lot of bluegrass music. Later on all that party stuff kind of got too intense, but when I was young, it was perfect. Everybody was in perfect vibration. It was a few beers and some music, not crazy hardcore drugs or anything. It was a beautiful childhood.”
