BEL AIR, Md. (AP) - A Maryland man who showed up for work at a countertop company three years ago and shot five of his co-workers, killing three, has been found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and other charges.
The Harford County jury of nine women and three men took about three and a half hours Wednesday to reach the verdict in the trial of Radee Labeeb Prince, The Baltimore Sun reported. The case was turned over to the jury on Tuesday.
Prince also was found guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of using a firearm in a crime of violence and one count of possessing a regulated firearm after being disqualified from owning one.
Authorities identified the victims as Bayarsaikhan Tudev, 53, of Virginia; Jose Hidalgo Romero, 34, of Aberdeen, Maryland; and Enis Mrvoljak, 48, of Dundalk, Maryland.
Prince had pleaded not criminally responsible, which is Maryland’s version of an insanity defense. After the jury returned its verdict, Judge Yolanda Curtin asked Prince if he wanted to have the next phase of the trial heard by the court or the jury. Prince said he would rather the jury determine whether he was criminally responsible for the shooting.
Police said Prince went to work at Advanced Granite Solutions in Edgewood, Maryland, on Oct. 18, 2017. After shooting five co-workers, he drove to a used car lot about 55 miles (90 kilometers) away in Wilmington, Delaware, and opened fire on a man with whom he had “beefs” in the past, wounding him, police said.
Prince was “apprehended in Delaware by ATF and allied law enforcement agencies,” the Harford County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland said at the time in a tweet.
Prince’s defense attorneys argued their client feared for his life the day of the workplace shootings because his co-workers had been playing pranks on him, deliberately startling him. That course of behavior, and a threatening phone conversation Prince’s attorneys said he heard, motivated him to bring a pistol into the granite shop.
Prosecution made the case that Prince purposefully set out to kill his co-workers and that he was using mental illness as a smoke screen to avoid responsibility for his actions. They based their case in part on a video of the incident that showed Prince gathering his co-workers together before pulling out a gun and shooting five in the head, as well as a note prosecutors say he wrote before the shooting, which read, “If I don’t make it home, please know that I tried.”
In May 2018, Prince was convicted of attempted manslaughter and sentenced to serve 40 years in prison for the Delaware shooting.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.