Parkersburg — ‘Relief that it’s over’

Residents of this suffering community said Tuesday they were relieved to put the Mark Becker murder trial behind them,

“‘Relief,' that's the word that comes to mind, relief that it's over,” Aplington-Parkersburg High School Principal Dave Meyer said Tuesday, after a jury found Mark Becker guilty of first-degree murder in the June 24 fatal shooting of the town's foremost citizen, legendary Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas.

Meyer said he was much less concerned about the actual verdict than in just having the trial end.

After the jury had deliberated for 26 hours, Meyer said he dreaded the prospect of a hung jury and a second trial that would have put some of the 20 or so student witnesses of the shooting back on the stand.

“We didn't want them to have to go through the agony of reliving their trauma yet again,” he said.

“It is a relief to have it over,” said the Rev. Dennis Quint, pastor of Holy Family Parish, which includes St. Patrick Catholic Church in Parkersburg.

Without reference to any specific verdict, Quint said he and his parishioners have been praying for strength and peace for all involved in the trial and “that God's will be done.”

The verdict, Meyer and others said, marks a milestone in the healing of a community flattened first on May 25, 2008, by an EF5 tornado that killed six residents and destroyed 300 homes and then again barely a year later by the murder of Thomas.

“It's a step in the right direction,” said City Clerk Chris Luhring, one of many Thomas proteges in the community.

Though the tornado recovery is nearly complete, the wounds left by Thomas' slaying may never fully heal, said Luhring, who was chief of the Parkersburg Police Department until Nov. 1.

Luhring said the impact of the Thomas slaying was multiplied by the many secondary victims, including all the student witnesses.

Bob Haylock, who served as mayor of Parkersburg during the tornado and the murder, said he thinks the verdict will help the community move beyond its pain and loss.

“I think most people feel it is a just verdict,” Haylock said.

Myrna Klueter, who lives across the street from the shooting scene, said she agreed with the verdict. “I thought he (Becker) knew what he was doing when he was going around asking people where the coach was,” she said.

Parkersburg resident William Hammar said he, too, thinks the jury made the right decision. “It will help provide some closure for the Thomas family,” he said.

Hammar said he hopes the end of the trial will extinguish the media spotlight that has seldom left Parkersburg since the tornado.

“Everybody just wants to be left alone,” he said. “We're getting a bit worn out with all the coverage.”