The way Veishea is celebrated today was profoundly affected by an event that happened seven years ago.

In the early morning of April 20, 1997, Harold “Uri” Sellers was murdered on the front lawn of the Adelante fraternity house, 318 Welch Ave., a tragedy that brought many changes to Iowa State’s signature event, including the banning of alcohol the following year.

It was a Saturday night when two men from Fort Dodge, Michael Runyan and Luke Abrams, were in Ames for the Veishea celebration. They saw some people at an Adelante party, including Sellers, a DMACC student from Monroe, and got into an argument when Sellers and other people at the party wouldn’t let Runyan and Abrams into the party.

Runyan and Abrams had been drinking at the bars that evening, and Sellers had been drinking at the party.

A jury would later be told Runyan went back to the front lawn of Adelante to find a friend but ran into Sellers again. Runyan stabbed Sellers once in the chest, and then fled the scene.

Sellers was taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center, where he died at 4:06 a.m. from shock and blood loss. The knife had punctured his right lung, the sac around his heart and his aorta.

Abrams and Runyan turned themselves in separately April 25 in Fort Dodge.

Runyan testified in court he felt threatened by Sellers and other men at the party, so he got a knife. Runyan admitted to stabbing Sellers and was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He went to the Iowa State Penitentiary in Anamosa on Sept. 17, 2001, and remains there today, serving his life sentence.

Abrams was found guilty of being armed with intent and being an accessory to a felony. He was sentenced to seven years in the state penitentiary in Anamosa. He was released on parole in March 2000.

Abrams violated his parole two months later in May by leaving the state of Iowa. The violation was discovered when he was arrested in Yankton, S.D., for drunk driving and possession of a controlled substance.

Dave Hunhoff, Yankton, S.D., Sheriff, said Abrams originally pleaded not guilty to drug charges. Later Abrams plead guilty to possession of cocaine and LSD.

He was released into his mother’s custody in September 2000 to be transferred back to Iowa for inpatient treatment, and returned to South Dakota later that month to serve eight years in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. Hunhoff said five years of the sentence were suspended so Abrams would be released in about three years. He was taken to the penitentiary in November 2000 and released in May 2003.

A judge from Idaho requested Abrams’s pre-sentence investigation information March 23. No Idaho records regarding Abrams could be located by the Daily.

William Sellers, Harold Sellers’ father, tried to sue the Adelante Corp. and Theta Chi Fraternity, but the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning Sellers could not try to file the same kind of lawsuit again.

William Sellers declined comment for this article. He said he has done enough interviews and is finished talking about his son’s murder.

Former ISU president Martin Jischke officially made Veishea an alcohol-free celebration in October 1997 in response to the riots and Sellers’ murder.