CLEVELAND, Ohio — Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah had urged family and friends on social media to pack the Hampton, Va. Circuit courthouse on Monday for the sentencing of his older brother Joshua’s murderer. They came out in full force, packing the gallery and an overflow courtroom next door, Wavy.com reported.
The murderer, Ronald Ivan Scott, is a cousin of the Owusu-Koramoahs who had been staying at Joshua’s place in Hampton while trying to get back on his feet. Jeremiah and Joshua’s mom, Beverly Mabson, testified that Joshua had given Scott money and his own bed, sleeping on an air mattress himself.
On Monday, Scott was sentenced to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, as well as a combined 55 years in suspended sentences for arson, grand larceny and animal cruelty charges, Wavy.com reported. Scott pled guilty, telling the court he wanted accountability.
Jeremiah testified that his brother, just one year older and his best friend, was “a beacon of light and righteousness.” He noted that Scott was “one who would come to our house, who taught us the streets, he changed Josh’s diapers.”
A former linebacker at William & Mary, Joshua was found dead inside his burned residence in April of 2022. He had earned his degree in chemistry in 2020, and was a science teacher at Hampton Christian Academy. Jeremiah was in Ghana conducting youth football camps at the time of his brother’s death, and flew home.
“I don’t know of anyone who would be closer than those two,” a former high school teammate of Joshua’s, Drew Barker told the Associated Press at the time. “And if Josh wasn’t at (a Browns game), he was watching it on TV or sending in prayers before the game and talking to him after the game.’’ The brothers played football and other sports together at Bethel High.
“When we were kids, if you ever saw Josh, you would turn your head 360 and you would see Jeremiah somewhere — they were always together,’’ Barker said. “They were never not sticking together. They always played every sport together. (With) basketball, they were like a dynamic duo on the court. And then you had them on the football field: One on one side and one on the other.
“They were literally thick as thieves in the sense of sticking together and having each other’s back. They were best friends as well.” Mabson explained how her son had talked over 40 people out of suicide, and how he had befriended an elderly woman who had fallen while trying to get off of a bus. When she had her leg amputated, he went to her house to help clean the wound. “He wanted to preach, write a book, have kids,” she said.
Their older brother, Jerry Brooks, told the court that Joshua would preach the gospel to everyone he met. “He was an honest friend, an honest confidant; faithful, dedicated,” Brooks said, via Wavy.com. “When you look at the people whose lives he saved, he’s nothing less than a saint.”
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