Michael Vasich, age 22
Statement for trial:
My brother Greg was someone who I was just starting to get to know. He was
always a great brother and friend to me, but the man who he was becoming was
just developing after he graduated college. I looked up to him immensely, and
regret more than anything the time we didn’t spend together when he was alive
and the impossibility of spending time together in the future. Greg was going to
move up to the Twin Cities where I live the fall after he died, and I looked
forward to it so much; a chance for us to really develop our relationship after
being apart the four and a half years he was at school. Together, I always felt
the two of us could go anywhere, or do anything; the two us were a great team,
and the four of us will never be complete again. I’ll always have three
brothers, and I know my younger brothers look up to him as I still do, as a
mentor and hero. I cannot express fully the emptiness and pain I felt in my life
after losing my older brother in this fashion, but I can say that I miss him and
love him more and more, and will continue to do so especially on days like my
wedding, the birth of my first child, my first real job, the death of my
parents, or any other situation where he was supposed to be there as my crutch,
as the older and wiser brother whose sound advice always got me through my
hardest times. I know the man responsible for my brother’s death could never
understand what he took from me and my family because he did not know Greg as we
did, but if he did I think the guilt he would feel would be overwhelming and
perhaps justice enough. I hope he shows the greatest remorse, and I almost feel
lucky that I never have to look him in the face. I hope that his sentence is
just even though I know that all the time he serves could never come close to
replacing the brother I lost.