Jury deciding sentence of church shooter

A Tennessee man convicted of murder in a 2017 Nashville church shooting will spend at least 51 years in prison, but a jury was deciding on Tuesday whether he should have the possibility of parole.

During the sentencing phase of Emanuel Kidega Samson’s trial, a psychiatrist testified he suffered from severe mental illness. That evidence had been suppressed during the guilt phase of the trial because it did not meet the criteria for an insanity defense

Forensic psychiatrist Stephen Montgomery found Samson’s illness did not make him unable to premediate his actions or stop him from appreciating their wrongfulness.

According to earlier testimony, on Sept. 24, 2017, Samson left his motor running as he stepped into the parking lot of the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ wearing a motorcycle-style clown mask and a tactical vest.

He shot and killed Melanie Crow as she walked to her car for a cough drop, scattering her Bible and her notes from church. Samson then followed up with a blaze of bullets inside the church that he once attended, injuring another seven people.