X Firefighter Terrance Hough Jr. guilty of aggravated murder

X Firefighter Terrance Hough Jr. guilty of aggravated murder

Terrance Hough, Jr., 36 was found guilty of the murders he committed in July.


Hough was sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole for killing three people over late-night Fourth of July fireworks set off in his usually quiet neighborhood.


His neighbors were setting off fireworks in their front yard celebrating the 4th of July as most Americans do.

When without warning Terrance Hough, Jr. said he snapped. He grabbed a .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun and went on a killing spree.

Hough, Jr. killed Jacob Feichtner, 24, who lived next door, as well as Feichtner's friends Katherine Rosby, 26, and Bruce Anderson, 30.

During the attack Hough started to walk away, witnesses said, but then turned back and fired two more rounds, injuring Donny Walsh, 24, and his fiancée, Katherine Nicholas, 25.

Apparently over the years the Hough’s’ and Feichtner’s’ had several disputes. Hough's wife had called police several times between 2003 and 2005 complaining about loud noise, drugs, underage drinking and problems with neighbors, but the night of July 4th Terrance Hough, Jr. decided to take justice into his own hands.

The wounded man said Hough never complained about the noise.

"There was no warning," Donny Walsh said, "There was nothing at all. There was no dispute."

Walsh said Hough walked out of his home with a black gun and said, "I bet you guys won't be doing this (Sh$t) again" and opened fire.

An off-duty police officer who lived nearby heard gunshots and ran to the scene with his gun drawn. He found Hough sitting at his kitchen table with a handgun in a gun box. Hough told the officer that he just snapped, and he asked whether the victims were dead.


Roland Feichtner, Jacob Feichtners father.

Feichtner testified that Hough was a bully and was always used a forceful and antagonizing tone when ordering Feichtner to keep his sons quiet.

Hough routinely complained about basketball games in the Feichtner’s driveway. Hough called the police several times to complain and once even violently ended a game when the basketball went into his yard and he stabbed the ball with a knife.

Feichtner tried to comply with Hough’s request and even went as far to put some rules into effect for his children. They included car headlights had to be off before pulling into the driveway, radios had to be off before getting to the driveway to avoid any other conflict with Hough.

"I made the fatal mistake of taking into consideration that he was a fireman and a father, and I backed off," Feichtner said. "I told my kids to give him his privacy."
Feichtner told the jury that only recently could he bring himself to piece together what happened that July night, when he returned from work to find one son dead beneath a white sheet on the driveway and the other sobbing and wandering about the crowd of police and neighbors.

Feichtner has dealt with a lot of trauma over the years and dealing with the trauma has become more difficult over the years.

Feichtner testified he was one of 35 assigned to Hamburger Hill when his helicopter was shot down and many of his men were wounded.

"It happened on my watch," Feichtner said. "Just like this did."

Then in 1991, Feichtner and his wife, Debbie, were riding in a car headed south on Interstate 77 when a 26-year-old man - who had spent much of the day at neighborhood bars - threw a chunk of sandstone off the Fleet Avenue Bridge. The stone smashed through the windshield into Debbie Feichtner's lap, tearing her liver and breaking two ribs and her upper arm.

She bled to death, leaving behind three children under the age of 10.

"But all of that pales in comparison," Feichtner said, "to the aggravating circumstances surrounding Jacob's death. The 'Yeah! Yeah!' " he yelled, pounding the witness stand - emulating what witnesses said Terrance Hough bellowed with each bullet fired from his .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

Forensic experts testified that Hough shot Jacob Feichtner at such a close range that they found splatters of Feichtner's blood on Hough's T-shirt.



Hough’s wife testified that Hough muttered the somber confession in a state of shock moments after he stormed out of the house in rage and emptied his .40 caliber handgun. Hough said "I snapped."

During the proceedings Terrance Hough Jr. bent the stem of the witness stand microphone toward him, cleared his throat and a spoke a list of apologies.
To his family and friends... to his fellow firefighters... to the community he was sworn to protect. And to the families of the three people he killed and the two he wounded in a barrage of hollow-point bullets.

"During the trial, as I came face to face with those closer involved with the events surrounding July 5, 2007, I could see the anguish and pain caused by my actions," Hough said, as some of the victims' family members left the courtroom. "I could hear it in your voices and by the pained, angry expressions and the tears. It is as clearly evident a rock that has been thrown into a pond casting a large ripple that will continue for a long time."

Defendants in capital murder cases may read an unsworn statement without facing cross-examination by prosecutors. Hough said he understands that in the eyes of some of the victims' friends and family, "the only true apology would be death" for what he did.

Hough’s defense attorneys were focused on saving his life during trial. Hough never disputed he fired the shots.

The defense claimed that Hough had acted in a fit of temporary rage along the quiet street popular with Cleveland police officers and firefighters.

The defense went on to say "He was enraged, shooting at them," he said. "Did they deserve to die? No, they didn't. Terry Hough had no right to do what he did. And to say otherwise is totally wrong. . . . The question is did he do it with prior calculation and design?"

These comments to a jury that got to visit the scene of the crime. They were taken there and while looking around the scene of the crime was cautioned several times to be careful in this area or watch out for this. The jury got to see exactly where the victims were gunned down.



The jury deliberated for about seven hours over two days before convicting Hough of three counts of aggravated murder -- with specifications that make him eligible for the death penalty -- and two counts of attempted murder.

Before the trial began, the victims' families rejected the possibility of a plea agreement that could have landed Hough in prison for life without parole. For them, that punishment did not fit the crime.

"He deserves to die," Bruce Anderson's twin sister, Rachel Evans, said after the verdict was announced. "And we'll be here to fight for it."

"There was no question that he was guilty of murder," Hildebrand said in an interview after the verdict was read. "But the entire episode probably took about 20 to 30 seconds, and it's hard to imagine that someone could scheme to kill in that little time."

The defense team reported that an appeal is likely but would not state on what grounds they would appeal.

Defense lawyer Jack Hildebrand told the judge just before the sentence that Hough was remorseful while in the county jail. Hildebrand had told jurors that Hough was a dedicated firefighter and that the shootings were not indicative of the kind of person he is.

Most of the family members of Hough and the murder victims quickly left court without comment after the sentencing. Some victims' family members had harshly criticized Hough in earlier in statements to the jury.

"Something is wrong here," said Rebecca Pfeiffer, Anderson's mother.

"Honestly, I can't even come up with the words to tell you how I feel," she said calmly. "Did Bruce not mean anything to society? He was a good boy who was just enjoying firecrackers, you know? All the firecrackers were done before Terrance Hough came out with that gun. They weren't doing anything but cleaning up."