Guilty plea in shooting

A former nursing student pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court on Tuesday to shooting congregants at a Poway synagogue on the last day of Passover in 2019, killing one person and injuring three others, including a child.

John T. Earnest, now 22, admitted charges of murder and attempted murder in a plea deal that spares him a potential death sentence. He pleaded guilty to all the charges he faced, including an arson charge for setting fire to an Escondido mosque a month before the attack on the synagogue, and he admitted that both acts were hate crimes. As a result of his plea, Earnest will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 121 years to life and another 16 years.