BOULDER, Colo. (AP) u A mentally ill man who killed 10 people at
a Colorado supermarket was convicted Monday of murder by a jury
that rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not
guilty by reason of insanity.

VictimsA relatives recounted in pained testimony the lives
gunman Ahmad Alissa destroyed in the 2021 attack in the college
town of Boulder.

Nikolena Stanisic, whose only sibling, Neven, was killed,
recalled going out to ice cream with her brother the night
before he was shot and how he would sometimes help her with her
bills. She told the court that their household u once filled
with talk and laughter u is now mostly silent.

oTo the person thatAs done this, we hope that you suffer for the
rest of your life. You are a coward,o Stanisic said. oI hope
this haunts the defendant until the end of time. The defendant
deserves the absolute worse.o

Defense attorneys did not dispute that Alissa, who has
schizophrenia, fatally shot 10 people including a police
officer. But the defense argued he was insane at the time of the
attack and couldnAt tell right from wrong.

In addition to 10 counts of first-degree murder, the jury found
Alissa guilty on 38 charges of attempted murder, one count of
assault, and six counts of possessing illegal, large-capacity
magazines.

First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in
Colorado, and the sentencing hearing immediately followed the
verdict on Monday.

Alissa did not visibly react as the judge began reciting the
guilty verdicts against him. He sat at a table with his
attorneys and appeared to trade notes with members of the
defense team, speaking quietly at times with one of his
attorneys.

Judge Ingrid Bakke had warned against any outbursts. There were
some tears and restrained crying on the victimsA side of the
courtroom as the murder convictions were read.

The courtroom was packed largely with victimsA families and
police officers, including those who were shot at by Alissa.
Several members of AlissaAs family sat just behind him.

Alissa started shooting immediately after getting out of his car
in a King Soopers store parking lot in March 2021. He killed
most of the victims in just over a minute and surrendered after
an officer shot him in the leg.

Erika Mahoney was in California, six months pregnant, when she
found out about the attack in which her father was killed. She
was so upset she thought she was going to lose the baby, Mahoney
told the court.

Mahoney said she wanted an apology or remorse from the gunman or
his family but has not gotten any.

oThe door is still open,o she said. oUntil then, I will start:
IAm sorry for your suffering, past, present and futureaI wish
you would have gotten more love.o

Until the trial, Mahoney said, she prayed that her fatherAs
final moments were painless and that he didnAt know he was going
to die. However, video from the attack showed there was a chase
and Kevin Mahoney tried to get away but found nowhere to take
cover, Erika Mahoney said.

Alissa at times looked toward the victimsA relatives as they
spoke. For much of the time he sat hunched over, talking to his
attorney or writing.

Prosecutors had to prove Alissa was sane. They argued he didnAt
fire randomly and showed an ability to make decisions by
pursuing people who were running and trying to hide from him. He
twice passed by a 91-year-old man who continued to shop, unaware
of the shooting.

He came armed with steel-piercing bullets and illegal magazines
that can hold 30 rounds of ammunition, which prosecutors said
showed he took deliberate steps to make the attack as deadly as
possible.

Several members of AlissaAs family, who immigrated to the United
States from Syria, testified that he had become withdrawn and
spoke less a few years before the shooting. He later began
acting paranoid and showed signs of hearing voices, they said,
and his condition worsened after he got COVID-19 in late 2020.

Alissa was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack and
experts said the behaviors described by relatives are consistent
with the onset of the disease.

State forensic psychologists who evaluated Alissa concluded he
was sane during the shooting. The defense did not have to
provide any evidence in the case and did not present any experts
to say that Alissa was insane.

Despite the fact that he heard voices, the state psychologists
said, Alissa did not experience delusions. They said his fear
that he could be jailed or killed by police revealed Alissa knew
his actions were wrong.

Alissa repeatedly told the psychologists that he heard voices,
including okilling voiceso right before the shooting. But Alissa
failed during about six hours of interviews to provide more
details about the voices or whether they were saying anything
specific, forensic psychologist B. Thomas Gray testified.

Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity. Colorado law
defines insanity as having a mental disease so severe that itAs
impossible for a person to tell right from wrong.

Family members of the victims attended the two-week trial and
watched graphic surveillance and police body camera video.
Survivors testified about how they fled and in some cases helped
others to safety.

Prosecutors did not offer any motive for the shooting. Alissa
initially searched online for public places to attack in
Boulder, including bars and restaurants, then a day before the
shooting focused his research on large stores.

On the day of the attack, he drove from his home in the Denver
suburb of Arvada and pulled into the first supermarket in
Boulder that he encountered. He shot three victims in the
parking lot before entering the store.

An emergency room doctor said she crawled onto a shelf and hid
among bags of potato chips. A pharmacist who took cover
testified that she heard Alissa say oThis is funo at least three
times as he went through the store firing his semi-automatic
pistol that resembled an AR-15 rifle.

AlissaAs mother told the court that she thought her son was
osick.o His father testified that he thought Alissa was
possessed by a djin, or evil spirit, but did not seek any
treatment for his son because it would have been shameful for
the family.

Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement after the verdict that
justice had been served, yet it wouldnAt heal the pain or bring
back those killed. oLoved ones, friends, and neighbors were
taken from us far too soon by an act of pure evil,o he said.

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