They want to turn slain rocker's home into a haven for music and a place of peace. Jan. 6, 2006

Harvey house

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(Crime Library) RICHMOND, VA  Photographs of the children, Stella and Ruby, taken in happier times, swayed gently in a mild January breeze outside the Harvey family's stolid brick home. Beneath them, not far from where the family's beloved walnut tree once stood, Care Bears and candles, left by friends, ringed the edge of what had been their yard, the children's sanctuary.

And above it all, bright yellow police tape, still taut five days after hell had intruded on the place, kept its own vigil.

A police van idled outside, as a few investigators silently milled around the house. From time to time, a neighbor would wander by, or a stranger drawn to the tight-knit neighborhood by curiosity or compassion would cruise past the place. But mostly there was silence.

It has been five days since Stella, 9, and Ruby 4, were slaughtered in their home, along with their parents, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey. Authorities have said all four were found bound, their throats slit. The killer or killers then torched the home in what authorities believe was a bid to cover the crime. While authorities would not officially confirm it, there have been reports that at least one of the victims may have suffered other injuries as well, perhaps indication that there had been a struggle. Police also believe, according to published reports, that the killer or killers used weapons they found in the home, including blunt objects and at least one knife.

For now, the case remains a mystery. Police have insisted that they have identified no suspects and are proceeding, they say, in a slow and methodical way. They declined to formally confirm reports that they have sought DNA from members of the Harvey's extended family, but a police spokeswoman acknowledged that such testing was routine in such cases, and is a crucial tool not just to identify potential suspects, but to exclude them as well.

Authorities have investigated several leads, among them persistent reports from friends about the strained relations between the victims and the former boyfriend of one of their relatives. Friends have told Crime Library that the boyfriend, who has not been named as a suspect and may have served earlier in the military, spent Thanksgiving with the Harvey family. "It got ugly," one friend told Crime Library, and a day before the slaying, Bryan Harvey, who was known for his compassion and hospitality, complained to at least one friend about the man. Uncharacteristically, his friends say, Bryan said he never wanted the man in his home again.

Investigators have also refocused their efforts on friends and close associates of the slain rocker and his family. For instance, investigators confronted one of Harvey's longtime musical partners about a lyric in a song that Harvey had written over a decade ago. In the song, he refers to a knife and a woman slain in a basement. Friends insist that the lyric, though chilling, was "just Bryan doing his Southern Gothic thing," and that it offers no help in solving the case.

And while the investigation continues, close friends of the Harvey family say they are hoping to establish a permanent memorial to the musician who was such a prominent figure on the Richmond music scene and his family.

Longtime friend and fellow musician Bob Rupe, who lives less than two blocks from the Harvey house, said that members of the community are hoping to raise money to buy the Harvey house where the makeshift memorial now stands. "We're going to buy that property and we're going to level that house and we're going to put a park there," Rupe told Crime Library. "The only thing we want to do is put their walnut tree back...they loved that walnut tree...and they lost it last year when (Hurricane) Isabelle came through. We're going to give it to them."

Bryan and Kathryn Harvey

It is, Rupe says, absolutely essential that the house, now a monument to murder, be replaced with a memorial to the virtues of the people who lived and died there. "I know that it would break their hearts to think that house was a monument to their misery and suffering...we want it to go away, not for us, we want it to go away for them," Rupe said. "That piece of property needs to be what it was before. There need to be children there, there needs to be music there, and there needs to be peace there."

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