Man Convicted of Murdering 4 in School Siege
Eric Houston was convicted Thursday of murdering four people and wounding 10 others in an armed siege at his former high school near Marysville.
Houston sat motionless at the defense table as the jury’s verdicts were read in court. Relatives of some of his victims gasped and sobbed.
Houston held 85 people hostage at Lindhurst High School in Olivehurst on May 1, 1992. During the siege, he shot and killed one of his former teachers, Robert Brens, and three students--19-year-old Jason White, Judy Davis, 17, and Beamon Hill.
Houston could be sentenced to die if the jury finds that he was sane at the time of the incident. The sanity phase of the trial is expected to be held next week.
The trial was moved to Napa because of extensive publicity about the crime in Yuba County.
Prosecutors contended that Houston carefully planned his assault on the campus in revenge for a failing grade from Brens that kept him from graduating.
Defense lawyers said Houston suffers from organic brain damage, probably stemming from a childhood brush with meningitis or beatings from his parents.
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