A man convicted of fatally shooting two Black shoppers at a Kentucky grocery was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison.
Gregory Bush, 53, pleaded guilty but unsound in Jefferson Circuit Court to 2 counts of murder, criminal attempted murder and wanton endangerment in reference to the shooting at the Kroger in suburban Louisville in 2018, news outlets reported.
A judge sentenced him to 2 life terms to be served concurrently without the likelihood of parole.
Pleading guilty but unsound means the Kentucky Department of Corrections must provide Bush with treatment and drugs during his term, consistent with Jeff Cooke, a spokesman for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office.
Under a plea agreement, Bush also was set to plead guilty to federal hate crime charges in February. Federal prosecutors alleged the shooting of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Jones, 67, was racially motivated, though Attorney General William Barr agreed to not seek the execution .
Police said Bush first stopped at a historically Black church nearby before heading together with his handgun to the busy grocery
Bush then walked into the shop , pulled a gun from his waist and shot a person within the back of the top , then kept shooting him multiple times, consistent with an arrest report. The report said Bush reholstered his gun, walked outside and killed a lady within the parking zone . Each victim died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Investigators said the 2 victims had never met Bush.
Angela Elleman, a lawyer for Bush, released a press release arguing that on the day of the shooting, the defendant was affected by schizophrenia and wasn’t medicated.
“He acted out of his psychosis and his illness, while at the exact same time his elderly parents were downtown seeking a mental inquest warrant to hospitalize him for everyone’s safety,” WDRB-TV reported, citing the statement.
Bush was initially found incompetent to face trial in 2019 but was later deemed competent after undergoing weeks of treatment at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center.
Follow us on Twitter: @oyogist
