Four years after a man opened fire at a Nashville Waffle House, his trial ends with a life sentence

A man who shot and killed four people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018 has received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The jury rejected 33-year-old Travis Reinking’s defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, instead finding him guilty Friday on four counts of first-degree murder.

Then, on Saturday, they handed down the sentence, after hearing emotional testimony from family members of the four people killed.

The jury’s decision brings some closure to a crime that rattled the city in April 2018. The shooting overnight at a Waffle House in Antioch was followed by a manhunt that lasted more than a day.

The victims’ families later filed lawsuits against the city and the gunman’s father. The man who wrestled the gun away from the shooter became known as a hometown hero.

On Saturday, District Attorney Glenn Funk said the life sentence for 33-year-old Travis Reinking can’t bring the victims back to life or erase the families’ grief, but he believes the conviction and life sentence will deter future shootings.

The outcome, he said, will “make sure that even in this tragedy there is some longterm good” for Nashville.

Speaking to reporters after the sentencing, Funk said that the legal case was particularly difficult to build, because Reinking was claiming insanity as a defense.

“This was a situation where Mr. Reinking has a severe mental health issue, no doubt,” Funk said. “But it was not so severe that he did not appreciate the wrongfulness of what he was doing at the time.”

In Tennessee, in order to be not guilty by reason of insanity, defense attorneys have to show the defendant was mentally ill at the time of the crime and that they couldn’t understand right from wrong.