Jury returns all guilty verdicts for Waffle House shooter who killed four people
By Jennifer Henderson, CNN
A jury found Travis Reinking guilty of all 16 counts in the April 2018 shooting at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee, that left four people dead, according to a live video feed provided by CNN affiliate WSMV.
Among the charges were four counts of premeditated first-degree murder and four first-degree felony murder counts.
A sentencing hearing will be held Saturday at 9 a.m. local time, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Mark Fishburn said after the jury read the verdict.
Reinking arrived at a Waffle House in Antioch, southeast of Nashville, on April 22, 2018, wearing nothing but a green jacket, according to Metro Nashville Police.
He got out of his pickup, wielding an “assault-type rifle,” and fatally shot two people outside the Waffle House, police said. Reinking then went into the diner and continued firing, killing two more people, police said.
The shooting ended when customer James Shaw Jr., who had been sitting with a friend at the restaurant counter, wrestled the weapon away from the gunman, who fled on foot.
Police launched a manhunt shortly after Reinking fled the restaurant naked. He was taken into custody about 35 hours later when a woman at a construction site in Antioch spotted him in the woods.
Reinking was initially held on $2 million bond, but angry calls flooded the district attorney general’s and judge’s offices. His bond was later revoked by a Tennessee judge.
The four people who were killed were all under 30 years old.
The two fatally shot outside the restaurant were Waffle House employee Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29, and customer Joe R. Perez, 20.
Inside, the gunman killed two more people: 23-year-old Akilah DaSilva, a student pursuing a musical engineering career and 21-year-old DeEbony Groves, a college senior majoring in social work who had been out with her sorority sisters that night.
CNN has reached out to the Office of the District Attorney General/Nashville-Davidson County and Reinking’s attorney, Paul Bruno, for comment but has not immediately heard back.
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CNN’s Giovanna Van Leeuwen contributed to this report.
