From Killer of FUS Students Gets Death Penalty Post Gazette, Sept. 28, 2000
The parents, relatives and friends of the slain students sat ashen-faced until Bruzzese's bailiff, Rita Bates, completed reading the verdicts. Then, they clutched or displayed photographs of Land and Muha while, one by one, they implored Yarbrough to look them in the eye and finally give some explanation of why the students had to die.
"I keep going over and over the sequence of events, how the burglary led to them being put in the car, to being shot. It'll never make sense," said Muha's father, Charlie Muha, in a choked voice. "It's forever changed my life and the lives of my family."
As she'd also told Herring last month, Muha's grandmother, Betty Ganim, told Yarbrough she believed he was possessed by Satan. Pausing to shake off tears, she said she did not believe him when earlier in the day he had made an unsworn statement telling jurors, the judge and onlookers that he was sorry and accepted responsibility for his crime. Under Ohio law, that statement was not subject to cross-examination.
Land's mother, Kathleen O'Hara, got no response when she begged Yarbrough to tell her what her son had said to him or to God before falling dead to the ground. O'Hara also sharply criticized Yarbrough's family and attorneys for attempting to mitigate his actions by depicting him as a retarded man who could not understand the consequences of his actions and who had suffered from being neglected and abused by drug-addicted parents as a child.
"I think you should go to confession," O'Hara told Yarbrough's attorney, Peter S. Olivito, after chiding him for invoking God's name in his closing arguments.
But as they did with Herring, O'Hara and Muha's mother, Rachel Muha, also spoke of redemption and forgiveness, telling Yarbrough they would pray for him to make his peace with God in prison. As they spoke, Yarbrough's eyes reddened and he again slumped in his seat, prompting both mothers to repeatedly demand: "Look at me, Terrell."
Like Jesus, Muha and Land died on a hilltop at the hands of men who first beat and abused them, Rachel Muha said. Now, she said, she believed her son and Land were in heaven, praying that Yarbrough will repent his sins and join them there one day.
"Choose heaven, Terrell," she begged through tears, clutching the edge of the podium with white-knuckled hands. "Almighty God is showing you kindness by giving you time to change, even on death row. You can have a happy life, even in prison. Turn to God, Terrell, and I will pray for you."