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After around four hours of deliberations, Travis Reinking, a man who shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018, has been found guilty.
Reinking, 33, was found guilty on all 16 counts, which included premeditated murder, according to WTVF, and four counts of first-degree murder, The Tennessean reported.
Reinking went to a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee, on the morning of April 22, 2018, shot and killed four people, and injured several more, according to The Tennessean. He used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the shooting which he believed he was directed by God to do.
"That sounds crazy, because it is crazy," defense attorney Paul Bruno said in closing arguments Friday, The Tennessean reported.
Reinking pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but admits he was the shooter, The Tennessean reported. Reinking was previously diagnosed with severe paranoid schizophrenia. The jury will have to deliberate again to decide whether Reinking will get a life sentence with or without parole, according to Main Street Nashville.
The jury started deliberating at 12:09 p.m. Friday, Main Street Nashville reported, before reaching a verdict just after 4 p.m. The jurors were tasked with deciding if Reinking was sane enough at the time of the shooting to be found guilty of murder, according to The Tennessean. The trial lasted five days.
Reinking killed Taurean Sanderlin, 29; Joey Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21, the AP reported.
"It would be wrong not to convict Travis Reinking on all 16 counts," said Deputy District Attorney Roger Moore in the closing argument Friday, according to The Tennessean. "The one word, which ties back to moral certainty and the foundation of criminal law is that this was an evil act. Evil."
The defense said Reinking was overwhelmed by delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking from his disease, The Tennessean reported.
Davidson County Assistant District Attorney General Ronald Dowdy said the shooting was done out of revenge, according to the AP. Dowdy mentioned that days before the shooting, Reinking stole a BMW from a dealership. In a journal, Reinking wrote about places to drive to in Colorado and have a life there.
Police took the BMW back the next day, the AP reported. After, Reinking wrote, "This time I would have to punish them by taking something they couldn't take back, some of their own lives."
"He got upset, and so he drove to that Waffle House angry because he wanted to exact the same kind of pain and suffering that he felt on others," Dowdy said in closing arguments, according to the AP.
"He's got a mental illness, but that's not why he did this," Dowdy said, the AP reported.
