A former nursing student pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday in connection to a 2019 synagogue shooting in a San Diego suburb. Part of the plea agreement spares him from receiving the death penalty.
John T. Earnest, 22, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. The plea was accepted after the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office spoke to the victims’ families.
Earnest walked into a Poway synagogue with an AR-15 assault-style rifle on the last day of Passover and killed 60-year-old Lobri Gilbert Kaye. Kaye was at Chabad of Poway to honor her late mother. He also injured three other people in the shooting, including the rabbi and an 8-year-old girl.
“Earnest admitted that he committed those crimes because of his bias and hatred of Jews,” the DA’s office said in a statement. Furthermore, he admitted to setting a mosque on fire over his hatred of Muslims before the synagogue shooting.
The judge scheduled his sentencing hearing for September 30.
Additionally, Earnest is facing more than a hundred federal charges in connection to the shooting. Included in those charges are 54 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and bodily injury and involving the attempt to kill, one count for every person inside the synagogue.
