The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

W.Pa. man guilty in slaying of 2 Ohio students

Interfaith service  promotes peace
11/21/09
2 school bond issues: 1 passed, 1 rejected
11/21/09
Special meaning for a historic day
11/21/09
South Charleston man puts scrap to good use
11/21/09
Analysis shows east-west split in Northeastern vote
11/21/09
> More headlines

The Associated Press Updated 5:06 PM Tuesday, November 3, 2009

WASHINGTON, Pa. — A man was convicted for a second time for his role in the shooting deaths of two Ohio college students a decade ago.

A Washington County jury on Tuesday convicted Terrell Yarbrough, 29, formerly of Pittsburgh, of two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Franciscan University students Aaron Land and Brian Muha.

Land, 20, of Philadelphia, and Muha, 18, of Westerville, Ohio, were robbed and kidnapped at their apartment in Steubenville, Ohio, and shot 12 miles away along a western Pennsylvania highway. Their bodies were found June 4, 1999, several days after they disappeared.

Yarbrough and co-defendant Nathan Herring, formerly of Steubenville, were convicted and sentenced to death in Ohio, but the Ohio Supreme Court threw out the convictions in 2004, saying they should have been tried in Pennsylvania. Herring is awaiting his Pennsylvania trial.

The jury was to decide whether Yarbrough should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole in a hearing beginning Wednesday.

Yarbrough's attorney, Kenneth Haber, maintained that Herring was responsible and that Yarbrough was just a lookout.

Land's mother, Kathleen O'Hara, called the defense version a "fairy tale." Muha's mother, Rachel Muha, said it was difficult to hear again what her son went through, but that the correct verdict was reached.

Yarbrough and Herring already are serving time in Ohio on other convictions in the case including kidnapping, burglary and robbery.

Ohio law has since been changed to allow the prosecution of crimes beginning in Ohio but ending with an out-of-state slaying.

___

November 03, 2009 10:02 PM EST

Share this article