Possible renaming of Moon Area's Hyde Elementary being met by 'uproar'

Fern Hollow Elementary School Principal Richard Hyde and his wife, Donna, were brutally slain in Moon in December 1977, leaving their two young daughters without parents.

The killer was never found, but the school was renamed Richard J. Hyde Elementary School to memorialize the principal.

The Moon Area School Board is considering renaming the school, which is being repurposed after this school year to house a preschool, remedial classes for high school students and other programs.

“We're trying to transition the building. We thought maybe a new name would have been appropriate as a phoenix of sorts,” school board President A. Michael Olszewski said.

But some current and former school district residents say renaming the building anything that doesn't include the name Hyde would dishonor the educator's legacy and the community's wishes set forth almost 40 years ago.

The Hydes' younger daughter agrees.

“I think it's crazy. Honestly, I think the board of whoever they are, they just woke a sleeping giant because they're going to get an uproar over this change, the name,” Karri Hyde Griffith, 41, a Crescent resident, told the Tribune-Review.

She was just 4 years old when her father, 34, was fatally shot in the stomach at home. Her mother, 34, was found in a wooded area a few miles from the Hyde home on Shafer Road, dead from blows to the head.

The board voted to repurpose Hyde Elementary as the Fern Hollow Learning Center by the start of the 2015-16 school year. Over recent weeks, however, current and former Moon residents voiced or emailed their displeasure over the possible name change to district officials, leading the board to reconsider, Olszewski said.

At a meeting Monday, Olszewski appointed board member Jeffrey Bussard, a resident of the neighborhood around the Hyde school, to chair a committee of up to six community members that will come up with three options for honoring Richard Hyde. That could include anything from leaving the building in the Hyde name, naming the library after him or beyond, Olszewski said.

“And whatever their recommendations are, that's what we'll abide by,” he said.

School board members Jerry Testa and Michael Hauser objected to forming a committee, and said the community's will already has been followed.

“And to see the renaming of Hyde — the prospective renaming of Hyde — away from recognizing and honoring and appropriately memorializing Richard J. Hyde is something I just feel I have to speak strongly against,” Hauser said.

Lance Malone, 46, a resident of Pittsburgh's Brighton Heights who attended Fern Hollow Elementary School while Richard Hyde was the principal, has sent letters to Moon Area officials campaigning to keep Hyde in the name.

“Memorials are supposed to last ... If they're going to keep the building and turn it into a learning center, why not call it the Richard J. Hyde Learning Center?” he asked.

A shaken community

The murders of the Hydes occurred during a time when the community was on edge from a string of unsolved murders. The killings of Richard and Donna Hyde were the 26th and 27th unsolved murders in Western Pennsylvania over 20 months, authorities said.

“A double murder in a quiet suburban community dramatically shook up our residents,” Moon police Chief Leo McCarthy recalled.

McCarthy was a 23-year-old patrol officer directing traffic at a huge fire at an abandoned house on Narrows Run Road the night of the Hyde murders, Dec. 3, 1977, he said.

He remembers getting off duty at 7 a.m. and seeing day shift officers quickly respond to the murder scene.

Moon Police Department had recently started its own detective unit, but because of its limited resources and little experience with homicide cases, it turned over the case to the Allegheny County Police Homicide Unit, McCarthy said.

McCarthy said authorities believe serial killer Edward Surratt, 73, is responsible for the Hydes' murders but has not been charged.

A former Aliquippa truck driver who is serving two life sentences in Florida, Surratt is suspected of a serial killing spree involving some 18 people in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In 2007, he admitted to five unsolved area homicides while in prison in Florida.

McCarthy said he believes today's forensic science could have played a major role in solving the Hydes' deaths, he said.

“Today, our department has a highly skilled detective unit who routinely collect DNA samples from criminal suspects and from crime scenes. We also have a computer forensics lab and finger print lab in our police station,” he said.

Griffith's sister, Crafton resident Kelli Hyde Kirsch, 46, was 9 at the time of the killings. Kirsch declined to comment.

After the slayings of their parents, the sisters were raised by their aunt and uncle in Kennedy, Griffith said. They lived “a basic kid's life,” with camping trips and vacations.

Griffth said she's a stay-at-home, married mother who focuses on her two children, who attended Moon Area's Bon Meade Elementary School and now are enrolled in Moon Middle School.

“I live in the moment. I take tons of pictures,” she said.

Tory N. Parrish is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-380-5662 or tparrish@tribweb.com.