Man gets life for murder

Sentence includes no possibility of parole for Willoughby man’s death

“I’ll see you all in hell,” Herbert Beard said Sept. 13 walking out of the courtroom, looking at the gallery where Sam Pizzuto’s family, friends and Willoughby police officers were sitting. Beard had just been sentenced by Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. O’Donnell to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Pizzuto’s murder. Beard previously pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and seconddegree felony burglary. Pizzuto was described by friends and family as a kind-hearted man who opened his doors to others. That’s something Pizzuto continued to do even after it had previously caused him “misery,” as O’Donnell described it. Beard, 24, and his girlfriend, 26-year-old Miriah Provitt, would be his last guests, however.

Pizzuto was found dead July 9, 2018, in his Arlington Drive home in Willoughby. It was the day before his 59th birthday when Willoughby police responded to a welfare check after he had not been seen or heard from in more than a week.

Beard and Provitt had lived with Pizzuto for a few weeks prior to his murder. The couple did not have a fixed address and relied on family and friends for places to stay, Assistant Prosecutor Rocco DiPierro Jr. said at a prior court hearing.

Assistant Lake County Prosecutor Lisa Neroda said Provitt’s cousin had a fiveyear relationship with Pizzuto and asked him if Provitt, Beard and Provitt’s children could stay with him for a few days while they found a more permanent place to live.

A few days turned into a few weeks and on June 28, 2018, they were asked to leave. Beard, Provitt and her children left the following day, but they still had some items left at Pizzuto’s home.

Prosecutors said that on the same day they left Pizzuto’s home, Beard began advertising that he had a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan and title for sale for $600.

DiPierro said text message records indicate that Provitt had stolen the title, but they didn’t have the keys. The couple used the fact that they still had items in the home as an excuse to return.

Beard said that it wasn’t his intention to kill Pizzuto when he hit him with a baseball bat, only to knock him unconscious. Beard’s first attempt did not knock him unconscious. O’Donnell said Pizzuto was still standing after two of the blows. The judge said Beard struck Pizzuto with the bat at least four times.

“I’m also going to find (Pizzuto) suffered psychological harm because he’s standing there, gets hit by a bat, gets hit by a bat again and again and again and I can only imagine what’s going through his mind as he was repeatedly battered,” the judge said.

O’Donnell said he can’t imagine a much worse way to die.

“You know it’s happening,” he said. “Certainly after the first blow if he wasn’t knocked unconscious, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except wait for the next one. I can’t imagine anything worse.”

Beard said when he pleaded guilty in August that he didn’t know if Pizzuto was unconscious or dead when he and Provitt left the home with the minivan keys.

Beard said he intended to knock Pizzuto unconscious so that he wouldn’t chase them after they stole the keys.

The Caravan was sold a short time after the attack at a gas station in Cleveland for $440. Beard, Provitt and her children then bought bus tickets to Columbus. The couple was arrested in that city on July 12, 2018 following a Willoughby police investigation.

A victim’s advocate read letters to the court on behalf of Pizzuto’s sister and niece. His niece asked O’Donnell to give Beard the maximum sentence because of the suffering he has caused family and friends and because he took the life of a man “who was more full of life of anyone I know and simply not ready to live this Earth.”

The sentence handed down by O’Donnell was the maximum. Beard can appeal his sentence to the 11th District Court of Appeals.

Provitt was previously sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole in 23 years by Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge Vincent A. Culotta after previously pleading guilty to complicity to murder and second-degree felony burglary.

Beard