It took a Florida jury less than two hours to convict a mother for shooting and killing her two teenage kids with a .38-caliber handgun in January 2011.
Julie Schenecker was found guilty on Thursday for the first-degree murders of 13-year-old Beau Schenecker and 16-year-old Calyx Schenecker. Defense attorney's claim the former military linguist was insane when she loaded the gun and shot her children in the head, the Associated Press reported. But the jury sided with prosecutors who argued Julie Schenecker carefully planned to murder her children.
Julie made a tearful statement to the Tampa court after two mandatory life sentences were delivered.
"I apologize. I apologize to everybody in this courtroom...the lives I have destroyed," said Julie, who struggled for years with bipolar disorder, the Tampa Bay Times reported. "I take responsibility. I was there. I know...I know I shot my son and daughter. I don't know why."
Several witnesses including a psychologist testified that Julie was mentally ill. The psychologist, Dr. Eldra Solomon, said the defendant was depressed because she was unable to kill herself after shooting her kids in the minivan.
"She said she was very angry at herself because she failed," Solomon said according to the AP. "She was very upset because she didn't succeed at killing herself."
Prosecutor Jay Pruner said Julie pre-meditated the killings, purchasing the gun days before the murders and writing about it in a journal. The former Army wife killed her children because she was upset with her husband for leaving her in a rehab center and because he wanted to stop her drinking, the AP reported.
"I could have done this anytime," Julie wrote to her husband, Peter Schenecker, who was deployed overseas at the time of the murders. "But luckily you weren't here. I might have taken you out too. That would have been a crying shame."
Before the defendant was cuffed and taken away, Julie apologized to anyone who had known her children, but did not specifically address her ex-husband. A wrongful death lawsuit Peter filed against his ex-wife remains open.
Peter said the jury's decision is a "great sense of relief" for his family, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
