The gunman who killed five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis in 2018 will be sentenced to prison on Tuesday after a Maryland jury found him criminally responsible for the massacre in July.
Jarrod Ramos, 41, faces the prospect of life in prison for one of the deadliest attacks on a U.S. media outlet.
Ramos pleaded guilty in Oct. 2019 to 23 felony counts, including five counts of first-degree murder, but argued that he was not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. The jury rejected his insanity defense after just a few hours of deliberation.
The mass shooting took place on June 28, 2018, when Ramos walked into the Gazette’s Annapolis newsroom and killed the newspaper’s assistant editor, Rob Hiaasen, 59; journalists Wendi Winters, 65, Gerald Fischman, 61, and John McNamara, 56, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith, 34.
Ramos had waged a long legal battle with the paper over a column it published about him, and his lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
