Defense opening: Herring was the killer
By SUMMER WALLACE-MINGER, Staff writerWASHINGTON, Pa. - In his opening statement Monday in Judge John DiSalle's courtroom, Defense Attorney Kenneth J. Haber said his client Terrell Yarbrough wasn't the one who shot and killed two Franciscan University of Steubenville students May 31, 1999, and that it was his companion, Nathan "Boo" Herring.
"We are not here to assess the value of the victims in this case or to further sadden the families," said Haber. "Ten years later, we all feel grief for the families of the victims. We don't have to know them to know that they still grieve. ... You are here, first and foremost, to determine who shot and killed Brian and Aaron."
Yarbrough, 28, of Pittsburgh, is charged in Washington County Common Pleas Court with two counts of criminal homicide and two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal homicide in the deaths of Aaron Land, 20, of Philadelphia, and Brian Muha, 18, of Westerville, Ohio.
Haber said that, when Yarbrough and Herring carjacked Barbara Vey in Pittsburgh, following Land's and Muha's murders, Yarbrough stood between Herring and Vey and told Herring not to shoot Vey.
"He (Herring) took (the car keys) from her (Vey) in broad daylight at gunpoint," said Haber. "He held that gun 6 inches from her head, and she believed that the only reason that gun wasn't used on her, that she survived that last assault, was because he (Yarbrough) was there with him. She called him - Terrell - her protector. When 'Boo' waved a gun at her, Terrell got in between them and said repeatedly, 'don't shoot her, don't shoot her.' Perhaps he now knew what he (Herring) was capable of, that he had shot and killed two innocent people and was perhaps was going to kill another."
He urged the jury to "follow the evidence," alledging that Herring was the mastermind behind the crime. Haber said bullets similar to those used to kill the two men were found at Herring's home and a gun, missing the barrel and grip, similar to the one likely used in the crime, was found two years after the murders, wrapped in a towel and a copy of the search warrant issued for Herring's South Street, Steubenville address in a Huber Heights, Ohio home where one of Herring's relatives once lived.
Michael Lucas, Washington County assistant district attorney, told the jury that, whether or not Yarbrough pulled the trigger, if he assisted or aided in the murders, he also was guilty under the law.
"The fact that someone didn't commit the act that kills doesn't mean that they aren't responsible," he said.
Lucas outlined the case, telling the jury they would hear testimony on the kidnapping of Land and Muha from their shared apartment at 165 McDowell Ave. in Steubenville and the theft of Muha's black 1996 Chevrolet Blazer.
"As the days went on, hope that they (Land and Muha) would be found diminished," said Lucas.
He alledged that Yarbrough and Herring placed Land and Muha in the back of the Blazer and drove it to a hillside off U.S. Route 22 in Robinson Township, Pa., near the Bavington exit.
"It was a steep, rocky climb," said Lucas. "You will learn that they were taken up this hill, and they didn't come back."
Lucas said Land's and Muha's bodies were recovered June 4, 1999, and dental records were required to identify them.
He told the jury that premediated murder doesn't have to be well-planned or planned long before the crime. Lucas also told the jury not to discount circumstansial evidence.
"It's not bad evidence - it can be as powerful as eyewitness testimony," he said.
Several Steubenville police officers and Land and Muha's former roommate Andrew Doran testified, and the prosecution entered a diagram and more than 20 photos of the apartment at 165 McDowell Ave., where Doran, Muha and Land lived, along with a baseball cap that Yarbrough was wearing when he was arrested May 31, 1999.
Doran, who now works for the U.S. State Department, testified that he had rented the lower level of the duplex in January 1999, and Land had moved into the apartment in early May 1999, when another roommate moved out. Muha had moved in a few days before the murders. The three men were planning on attending Franciscan's summer semester.
On May 30, 1999, Doran testified that he had attended the 6 p.m. Mass at Holy Rosary Church, then briefly visited the apartment, where Land and Muha and several friends were "hanging out," around 8 p.m. before leaving for Pittsburgh. He returned around 1 a.m. or 1:30 a.m. May 31, 1999, saw Muha asleep on the couch in the family room and assumed that Land was sleeping in his bedroom, which opened up off the family room.
He said that he went to bed around 3:30 a.m. or 4 a.m., but was awakened by "a series of loud crashes," around 5 a.m. Doran said the noises came from the family room, and he approached his bedroom door, which also opened on the family room, but did not open it, then called out to his roommates, who did not answer. He heard someone moving around and "voices that weren't Brian and Aaron."
"I got the sense that something wasn't right," he said.
Doran exited through his bedroom window, then came around the house and through a split-level entryway back into the house.
"I poked my head around and said, 'are you guys okay?'" he testified. "And I remember that there were drops of blood on the carpet."
He then saw an African-American male of average height and slender build, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and a white handkerchief tied over his face, standing in Land's bedroom doorway. Doran said that the man said, "Aw, (expletive), we've got another one."
"Our eyes connected," Doran said. "And I ran back out, I ran - " Doran became visibly emotional.
He then testified he ran to a neighbor's house, called 911, then returned to the street outside of the duplex to wait for police.
Steubenville Police Patrolman Shawn Scott and Toronto Police Officer Charles Daniels, formerly a Steubenville patrolman, testified that they responded to a report of a burglary in progress and an assault. They arrived at McDowell Avenue, spoke briefly to Doran, then made an "emergency entrance" into the apartment and swept the rooms, looking for any occupants, but found none.
"He was screaming and yelling for help," Scott said of Doran. "He looked like he'd seen a ghost."
Scott said the apartment had been "ransacked," and that he had noticed several drops of blood in the family room.
Daniels said that he saw signs of a struggle, and they contacted then-Sgt. Joel Walker. "Several items were knocked over, there were objects lying on the floor," he said.
Walker, now a captain with the department, said when he did a walk-through of the apartment, early on the morning of May 31, 1999, he found a sleeping bag between the wall and the mattress that Land had been sleeping on.
"I picked it up and saw a large amount of blood on it, then I had everyone leave the residence and called the detectives," he said.
Steubenville Police Det. John Lelless testified that he arrived at the McDowell Avenue apartment at approximately 6 a.m.
During examination Monday, he identified several photographs of blood evidence found in the family room and in Land's bedroom, including photos of Land's bedclothes and the "saturated" sleeping bag.
Lelless testified that there were no signs of forced entry, and nothing was out of place in either Doran's bedroom or the kitchen. He added that photographs of the exterior and interior of the apartment were taken.
He contacted the university in order to obtain information on Land and Muha and photographs of the two men. Lelless added that the Steubenville Police also contacted the Cambridge, Ohio office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist with the investigation and had requested assistance from the Hancock and Brooke county sheriff's offices and the Weirton Police Department in searching the section of Route 22 crossing West Virginia, and those agencies enlisted the help of the West Virginia State Police and the Air National Guard.
The department also contacted the Pennsylvania State Police to enlist their aid in searching the Pennsylvania portion of Route 22, Lelless said.
Steubenville Patrolman Jason Hanlin testified that, at 6 p.m. May 31, 1999, while he and his partner, Patrolman Lance Bickerstaff, were doing a stationary observation of traffic in the 200 block of N. Seventh Street, they saw a vehicle matching the description of Muha's stolen Blazer.
The officers pulled into traffic to run the license plates, which came back as those on the stolen vehicle. The Blazer then pulled into the parking lot of Gaylord Towers, at the intersection of Seventh and Market streets. The officers engaged their emergency lights, and the Blazer's driver and passenger fled.
Hanlin said he pursued the driver, while Bickerstaff testified that he called dispatch to report the foot chase, then followed in the cruiser.
Hanlin testified that the driver ran south along Seventh Street until he reached an abandoned lot filled with waist-high weeds, where he hid briefly. Bickerstaff and Hanlin began searching the lot, and the driver then ran across the street and attempted to crawl under a fence. Hanlin went over the fence and was able to detain him.
Lelless also testified that he heard the radio traffic about the foot chase and organized patrol cars in an effort to "box" the suspects in. Once Yarbrough was apprehended, he responded to the scene.
The driver identified himself as Michael Poole, but, in the courtroom, both Bickerstaff and Hanlin identified Yarbrough as being the driver.
The officers transported Yarbrough to the Steubenville Police station, where he was booked under the name of Michael Poole. Around approximately 8 p.m., Bickerstaff responded to a report of a suspicious or abandoned vehicle on Spring Avenue, where he found Vey's BMW, which, after confirming it was a stolen vehicle, he inventoried and impounded.
Yarbrough and Herring both were found guilty of the kidnapping-slayings in Jefferson County, but their murder convictions were overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court, which found that the murders took place in Pennsylvania.
Yarbrough also was convicted of aggravated robbery, kidnapping, gross sexual imposition and theft and was sentenced to 59 years in prison in Jefferson County. The state supreme court allowed those charges to stand.
Herring was sentenced to life in prison for the murders, which was vacated, and 65 years for other charges, which also stood. His murder trial in Washington County is pending.
A Jefferson County jury sentenced Yarbrough to death, but the sentence was vacated with the conviction. If he is convicted in Washington County, the Washington County jury may either sentence him to death or life in prison without the possiblity of parole.
(Wallace-Minger can be contacted at swallace@pafocus.com)
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JamesT
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10-28-09 11:08 AM
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Does anyone know of any Hommie taking responsibility for a crime? Pull the race card and the liberal lwayers, judges, and media will spin it. What these two pices of human debris did to these innocent kids before they cowardly murdered them is unconscienable. I have noticed over the years and recently, these inner city parasites do this for enjoyment including against a mother and son this month. Unforttunately, the laws of kiddnapping is no longer a capital crime because The American Bar Association wasn't making money from these tough laws. Many support vigil antism since the legal system is as corrupt and evil as these sick people committing the crimes.
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