WICHITA, Kansas, May 13, 2008 – The music has stopped for promising cellist David Reader, who was murdered this weekend in Augusta, Georgia.

At 26, David Reader had just completed his first season as principle cellist for the Augusta Symphony; a dream he’d been working toward ever since he sat down at the family piano when he was five years old.

"As a true pleasure to listen to play music, he was one of those rare people who could make you cry when he played music,” said David’s father, Whitney Reader.

Although David’s father is a prominent Wichita Cardiologist, the large family including David’s seven brothers and sisters are all about music, faith and family.

"We cry together and we think about David and think about the fact that he's not going to come walking through the door anymore,” Whitney Reader said. “We can't have him with us, but we're glad to be together."

Reader was born in Wichita where he also went to high school. He did some graduate work at Wichita State University before heading to Georgia to complete his degree and then start his career as a musician.

He had just finished his final performance of his first season. He was still wearing his tuxedo and had his cello in his car when deputies say he ventured into an Augusta, GA neighborhood looking for drugs. David’s father was told his son was trying to buy $10 worth of marijuana. That’s when two men came up to his car, tried to rob him and then shot him twice.

"It was an officer that came to our door on Sunday morning, Mother’s Day, at 4:30 in the morning,” Whitney Reader said. “This happened at midnight.”

It’s news that could shake anyone’s faith, but the Reader family would only look again to music and the family organ. There, written in German, are the words “He who trusts in you has done well and will live eternally. Hallelujah.”       

"My wife and I do have that comfort that David had trusted Christ as his savior and for that reason we know that he's in heaven and we'll have that opportunity to see him again,” Reader said. 

Law enforcement in Georgia has arrested one person for the crime and is looking for another known suspect. Meanwhile, David’s family is making plans to bury him in Wichita. The funeral is scheduled for Saturday morning.