A Los Angeles woman returned home one evening back in 2021 to an absolute horror scene: her mother and four children shot to death.
Investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriffβs Department responded to a call reporting a deadly shooting at a Lancaster home the night of Nov. 28, 2021. Neighbors reported hearing commotion outside, seeing a woman yelling outside her front yard: βMy babies are gone! Theyβre all dead!β
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Deputies found the bodies of an 11-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy, a 2-year-old boy and a 1-year-old boy. They also found the body of 51-year-old Erika England, the grandmother of the four children.
The police investigation came to a close after the suspected shooter turned himself in: 32-year-old Germarcus David, the childrenβs father. Within seconds of entering the home asΒ England babysat the children, he opened fire, police say.
Davis was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder.
Read more from Los Angeles Daily News:
The Lancaster jury also found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, along with finding David guilty of three counts of assault on a child causing death involving his three youngest children.
Superior Court Judge Denise McLaughlin-Bennett ordered the life prison terms without the possibility of parole to run consecutively, saying, βEach victim deserves this.β
The judge said she believed the killings were a βdeliberate and intentional actβ intended on hurting the childrenβs mother.
βThis was not based on a lapse of judgment. This was not based on losing it,β she said, noting that there was what appeared to be a βlack of remorseβ by the defendant.
All the defense could argue on behalf of their client is that he was in an βemotional stateβ during the shooting because he believed his wife was cheating on him. Attorneys argued that his βbrain was still in pause,β even during the sentencing hearing.
Obviously the jury didnβt go for that and neither did his estranged wife.
βI hope you get whatever God has in store for you because you deserve it,β she said during testimony.
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