MEMORIES OF BRIAN
Roses some solace to family of student slain in '99
Published: Monday, May 31, 2004
NEWS 01D
By Jon Craig
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Lasting tribute
* About $120,000 has been raised through golf benefits for the Brian Muha/Aaron Land Scholarship Fund at Franciscan University.
* The fund's first two university scholarships, which totaled $10,000, went to George Hopkins of Steubenville.
* A fifth golf fund-raiser is planned for July 10.
* Another memorial project turned the home where Muha and Land were robbed and kidnapped into rent-free housing for needy students, including Nigerian priests studying for their master's degrees.
* A scholarship fund also was set up at St. Charles Preparatory School in Bexley, where Muha graduated in 1998, and $12,000 was donated to Christifideles School in Granville, where Rachel Muha once taught and where Brian attended seventh and eighth grades.
* For more information, e-mail BrianMuhaFoundation@ hotmail.com.
Memories are washing over the Muha family in a torrent this Memorial Day weekend.
Some are horrible thoughts of two random murders five years ago today. Others are joyful ones from Brian Muha's short but rich life.
The 18-year-old graduate of St. Charles Preparatory School was shot to death on May 31, 1999, after a robbery at his off-campus home near Franciscan University in Steubenville. He had moved into the rental just 10 hours earlier.
Muha's 20-year-old housemate, Aaron Land of Philadelphia, also was beaten, kidnapped and killed. Their bodies were dumped on a hillside along a Pennsylvania highway.
Today is the first time since that tragic Memorial Day that May 31 falls on the Monday holiday.
One of Muha's friends ripped a sprig off a rose bush growing on the hill. Transplanted to his mother's back yard in Westerville, it is a perennial reminder of Brian.
"Now it blooms every May,'' Rachel Muha said. "To us, it's such a sweet gift from Brian. We are so grateful to have that.''
Muha's killer, Terrell L. Yarbrough, 23, of Pittsburgh, has an appeal pending before the Ohio Supreme Court. His public defender has argued he should not be executed in Ohio for a murder that took place 12 miles away, across the Pennsylvania state line.
If the court agrees, Yarbrough would have to be retried in Pennsylvania. Regardless, he'll serve at least 56 years in prison on robbery, burglary and kidnapping counts.
Yarbrough's accomplice, Nathan "Boo'' Herring, 23, of Steubenville, is serving a life sentence without parole.
They marched Muha and Land to the top of the Pennsylvania hill before Yarbrough shot each of them once in the head.
The night before the murders, Brian had driven back to Steubenville for a monthlong summer session. He was studying to become a doctor and wanted to get married and "have lots of children,'' his mother said.
Excited to live in the Steubenville rental, he was spending his first night on the couch when the intruders awakened him about 4:30 a.m.
He and his housemate were pistol-whipped, while a third housemate escaped through a window. Brian's teeth were knocked out and his jaw broken.
"Brian couldn't have possibly imagined they were going to kill him,'' Mrs. Muha said. "He believed too much in the goodness of people.''
His mother anguishes over the dreams lost in a random, evil act.
"We were just living our life, like nothing would happen. You raise your kids in safe neighborhoods, and they go to safe schools. You think they're safe.
"You just get sad somebody is on Death Row because they did something so bad to your son and your brother. We're all so connected. The action of some stranger can have an effect on so many people. We can change somebody's life, or take somebody's life, in a second.''
Every day is different without Brian, his mother said.
"You live in extremes now instead of normalcy.''
The most difficult family holiday is Christmas, when Brian would decorate the tree, set up a Nativity scene and draw up "a list a mile long of what he wanted.''
"Brian was like a little kid,'' Mrs. Muha said. "That first Christmas and every Christmas is very hard.''
He loved the outdoors, and the summer before college had worked at Oakland Nursery.
A couple of days before Brian returned to college, he placed an order with a local florist.
About 9:15 a.m. that Memorial Day, white roses in a pink vase arrived for his mother.
The handwritten card said: "Just wanted to say hello even though I'm away. Love, Bri.''
"Neither of us had ever done anything like that before,'' said his older brother, Chris, 25.
About three hours after the flowers arrived, the family learned that Brian had been shot to death.
Four days later, he was found with Land, under a bush of white roses, in full bloom.
jcraig@dispatch.com