Jury: Man guilty of 1st-degree murder in 4 shotgun rampage death

BELLEVILLE -- After a few minutes of deliberations, a St. Clair County jury determined a man found guilty Wednesday of the shotgun deaths of his girlfriend, her infant son and two others is eligible for the death penalty.

The jury deliberated roughly three hours before convicting Jason Smith in what a prosecutor called a "slaughter" that occurred more than two years ago.

Now that the jury has determined Smith is eligible for the death penalty, it will determine whether Smith should be put to death for the deaths of Nicole Willyard, 19; her 9-week-old son who was named after Smith; and Willyard's friends, Brandon Lovell, 23, and Mary Cawvey, 19.

The jury will begin deliberations Thursday. All 12 jurors must vote to impose the death penalty.

During closing arguments earlier Wednesday, prosecutor Joe Christ described Smith as a "man on a mission" of destruction on Oct. 5, 2005, when he broke out a window of a basement apartment in this city about 25 miles east of St. Louis and opened fire.

Attorneys said Smith knew well before the shootings that the baby boy was not his, though prosecutors said the motive for the killings remained unclear.

Each victim was shot once in the head, authorities said. The women were hit twice, Lovell three times.

Smith fired at least eight shots, apparently reloading three times, authorities said.

He later was arrested at another ex-girlfriend's house in nearby Red Bud, where police found a shotgun that a firearms expert later linked to the killings.

During his closing arguments, defense attorney Cory Easton called the case against his client "careless," the crime scene investigator's work "sloppy" and scientific testing "sparse."

Prosecutor Lisa Porter called Easton's claims "sound and fury."

"This isn't a perfect world," she told jurors. "In a perfect world, friends aren't slaughtered at their friends' apartments. In a perfect world, 9-week-old babies aren't slaughtered at their mother's feet."