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DEDHAM -- John C. Salvi III, an aspiring hairdresser who envisioned himself a warrior fighting conspiracies against Catholics, was convicted yesterday of murdering two women at Boston-area abortion clinics.
In a trial closing that brought tears to all sides in the case, the jury rejected Mr. Salvi's insanity defense and found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of armed assault with intent to murder for wounding of five other people.
The drama was extended as victims and their relatives read statements after the verdicts.
"You were a little man with a big gun," Ruth Ann Nichols, the mother of one victim, said as she stared at Mr. Salvi. "I hope you have sheer misery for every day of your life."
"No punishment can make reparation for Shannon's murder," said Liam Lowney, younger brother of Shannon Lowney, 25, the Fairfield, Conn., native who was Mr. Salvi's first victim.
Mr. Salvi, 24, who had repeatedly disrupted early hearings with demands to air his conspiracy notions, showed little reaction when the verdict was announced, but he addressed the court after the victim statements.
"As you know, I haven't pled guilty, though I am against abortion," he said. He also asked to "speak to the populace" by television from prison, but the judge said that would be up to prison officials and cut Mr. Salvi off from further comments.
He was sentenced to the mandatory term of life in prison without parole for the first-degree murder convictions. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty. First-degree murder convictions are automatically appealed to the state's Supreme Judicial Court.
Four of the six women on the jury, including the forewoman, cried as the verdicts were read, as did friends and families of the victims, and Mr. Salvi's mother.
A bailiff steadied the jury forewoman as she said "Guilty" seven times, and Mr. Salvi's father came to his wife's aid as she doubled over in her seat.
"Just leave me alone," she said to her husband as he rubbed her back and as her only child was led away under a phalanx of guards.
Mr. Salvi had faced the possibility of federal charges, which could have brought the death penalty, but U.S. Attorney Donald Stern said after the trial that he would not pursue the federal case.
Mr. Salvi was the third man to be convicted of murdering abortion clinic workers. Paul Hill awaits execution for killing a doctor and an escort in 1994 outside a clinic in Pensacola, Fla. Earlier that year, Michael Griffin was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a doctor outside another Pensacola clinic.
Mr. Salvi's lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., had said his client was innocent by reason of insanity, and he repeatedly asked Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara to declare his client incompetent to stand trial. Prosecutor John Kivlan argued that Mr. Salvi deliberately planned his crime.
After the verdict, Mr. Carney declined to say whether an appeal was planned but said his client remained in his own world.
"We represented a young man who had no idea what was going on in this trial," Mr. Carney said outside the courthouse. "The trial swirled around him, and even right now, in speaking with him upstairs, he has no idea what happened."
The jurors, who heard 111 witnesses over 21 days, deliberated nine hours over two days before reaching the verdict, and their emotions showed it was a difficult decision.
Mr. Salvi walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic in the Boston suburb of Brookline on the morning of Dec. 30, 1994, pulled out a .22-caliber rifle and opened fire. Ms. Lowney, a receptionist, was killed and three other people in the waiting room were wounded.
Then, he drove his blue Toyota pickup about two miles to the Preterm Health Services clinic and opened fire again, killing receptionist Lee Ann Nichols, 38, and injuring two others.
"This is what you get! You should pray the rosary," Mr. Salvi screamed as he pumped 10 bullets into Ms. Nichols, witnesses testified.
Mr. Salvi was arrested the day after the killings when he fired at least 23 shots at the windows and doors of a Norfolk, Va., abortion clinic.
Authorities who searched Mr. Salvi's unkempt Hampton, N.H., apartment found empty gun boxes, anti-abortion literature and laminated photos of aborted fetuses.
Mr. Kivlan argued Mr. Salvi had set out deliberately to target the abortion clinics, noting that he bought 1,000 deadly hollow-point bullets.
The defense did not rebut the facts of Mr. Salvi's shooting rampage or the charges of murder. They contended he was driven by his paranoid belief in a conspiracy against Catholics led by Freemasons, and that his crime was triggered by a news report about the murders of four Catholic priests in Algeria on Dec. 27, 1994.
Mr. Salvi's 50-year-old father testified his son was an "average, healthy boy" who ran track and was on the swimming and wrestling teams during high school in Naples, Fla., where his family moved when he was 12.
But as a senior, Mr. Salvi closeted himself in his bedroom reading the Bible and became increasingly strange in his behavior.
He moved to Massachusetts in 1993, and later began working at a New Hampshire beauty salon, hoping to be trained to cut hair. He was fired after getting into an altercation with a customer.
Witnesses at the trial said Mr. Salvi disrupted a Christmas Eve Mass in New Hampshire prior to the shootings, spouting his conspiracy theories.
A defense psychiatrist, Dr. Phillip Resnick, testified that Mr. Salvi is a paranoid schizophrenic. He said Mr. Salvi told him that he thought priests armed with M-16 rifles and pistols should lead a Catholic militia.
The chief psychologist at Bridgewater State Hospital, Dr. Joel Haycock, said Mr. Salvi knew what he was doing, though he conceded under cross-examination that some of Mr. Salvi's actions were consistent with paranoid schizophrenia.
The president of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts said she believed the verdict would do more than just put Mr. Salvi away.
"I think it will help to de-escalate the climate of fear and violence that has surrounded the services that we provide," said Nicki Nichols Gamble.
An already wrenching trial experience for the families of the victims was drawn out yesterday when, according to law, victim impact statements were read after the verdicts.
Jurors said their deliberations were intense and draining.
"Mr. Salvi knew what he was doing," said juror Dennis Aylward. "It was just a very difficult decision to make, I think, for anybody. I think all the jurors felt that way."
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