Taken from Traces of Death 2 (1994).

On December 23, 1985, James Vance, 20, and his friend Raymond Belknap, 18, attempted a double suicide at a playground next to a church in Sparks, Nevada, using a shotgun.
Belknap died instantly, but Vance survived because the gun slipped out of his hands, leaving him with a permanent facial deformity.

Vance and Belknap had been drinking and smoking marijuana while listening to Judas Priest’s 1978 album Stained Class, and according to both Vance and his family, the band had included subliminal messages in their music to drive them to commit suicide.
Consequently, they filed a lawsuit, which was based primarily on the song “Better by You, Better Than Me” (a cover of a Spooky Tooth track), which was said to contain hidden messages such as “do it,” “try suicide, and “let’s be dead.”
The case was dismissed by the judge.

James Vance did not live long enough to see how the trial unfolded.
He died following medical and surgical complications in November 1988, at the young age of 23, after falling into a coma. He had been struggling with chronic pain and substance abuse.

Singer Rob Halford pointed out that if the band were capable of inserting subliminal commands, it would have encoded messages telling fans to “buy more of our records” rather than to commit suicide.

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-12-14/when-judas-priest-were-accused-of-inducing-two-fans-to-kill-themselves-a-chronicle-of-the-most-infamous-trial-in-music-history.html?outputType=amp