Waffle House shooter gets life without parole for killing 4 in Tennessee restaurant
The Tennessee man who murdered four people at a Waffle House in 2018 was sentenced to life in prison without parole Saturday.
Travis Reinking, 33, was convicted Friday on four counts of first-degree murder and 12 other counts for the April 2018 rampage inside the Nashville restaurant.
In the early morning hours of April 22, 2018, Reinking approached the Waffle House in south Nashville wearing only a green jacket. He fatally shot two people outside and two people inside before stopping to reload. In that moment, James Shaw Jr. tackled Reinking and wrestled the gun away from him; Shaw was hailed as a hero.
Reinking fled and evaded police for about two days before he was captured.
Taurean Sanderlin, 29; Joey Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21, were killed in the shooting. Their families and friends gave victim impact statements Saturday at Reinking’s sentencing hearing.
No one spoke in Reinking’s defense aside from his lawyers. They argued, as they did at trial, that Reinking was mentally ill. He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, a defense that the jury rejected.
The lightest sentence Reinking could have received was life with the possibility of parole in 51 years. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
Reinking was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He claimed that God had spoken directly to him and told him to attack the Waffle House.
Prosecutors provided evidence that the shooting was more thought-out than that, saying that Reinking journaled about “revenge” after police recaptured a BMW that he’d stolen days earlier. They also referenced his calm demeanor during his arrest, when he responded to police commands, and his recognition that his actions “felt evil.”
Because of Reinking’s mental health issues, authorities in Illinois revoked his firearms license years earlier while he lived in that state. But Illinois laws only required him to give his guns to a licensed person. In Reinking’s case, that was his father, who later gave his son the guns back. Jeffrey Reinking was criminally charged in Illinois with unlawful delivery of a firearm, and he’s also been sued by multiple people in civil court.
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