Jury Finds Bulichi Guilty In Deaths -- Two Killed In Dispute Over Loud Music

EVERETT - The trial is over, and the defendant was found guilty, but family members will never fully recover from the slaying of Brian Beebe and his friend Robyn Glover.

The two 23-year-olds were murdered Aug. 3, 1993, by a neighbor, Martin Bulichi, because they were playing music too loudly in a Mill Creek-area house.

Yesterday, after the verdict was announced, members of the Beebe family cried and held each other outside a Snohomish County courtroom.

Family members were pleased Bulichi was convicted on two counts of aggravated first-degree murder, but putting their lives back together will not be easy.

"It's over, and justice has been served, thank God," said Lorrine Silva, Beebe's aunt.

Silva, who lives in Renton, found out about the murders on television when she saw the bodies being carried out of the home she had helped Beebe and his roommate move into only a few days earlier.

"From that day on it's been pure hell. . . . We'll never forget this as long as we live," Silva said.

Beebe's mother, Valine Beebe, attended the weeklong trial in a wheelchair. She suffers from multiple sclerosis, which is aggravated by stress. Since the murder of her son, the disease has dramatically progressed, forcing her into the wheelchair, Silva said.

The Superior Court jury reached its verdict after 5 1/2 hours of deliberation, which began Wednesday. The conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, and Bulichi is scheduled to be formally sentenced Nov. 4.

He showed no emotion over the verdict and calmly left the courtroom.

However, his attorney, Mark Mestel, said he will try to get the two aggravated aspects of the verdict removed before sentencing. Mestel will argue that the jury's logic was inconsistent when it determined Bulichi murdered the two to eliminate witnesses, a circumstance necessary to convict Bulichi of aggravated murder.

"I'm looking to minimize my client's exposure to punishment," Mestel said.

Although Bulichi pleaded not guilty to the charges, both the prosecution and the defense agreed that Bulichi killed Beebe and Glover. But Mestel argued that Bulichi was mentally ill and periodically suffered from paranoia.

When he killed Beebe and Glover, Bulichi saw two floating heads with evil grins that looked like the Serbs that had persecuted his Muslim family when he lived in Yugoslavia, according to Mestel. But Beebe's grandmother dismissed the insanity defense as "a bunch of malarkey."

After the killings, Bulichi remained a fugitive until he surrendered to Everett police Oct. 30.