Barbara Howard: A Cape Cod jury has found Adrian Loya guilty of first degree murder after about 14 hours of deliberations. The jury convicted Loya, a former Coast Guardsman, who was charged with killing a fellow Coast Guard officer, Lisa Trubnikova, at her home in Bourne, on Cape Cod, back in 2015. He was also convicted on counts related to the shooting of Trubnikova’s wife and a responding Bourne police officer. Both were injured, but survived. Loya took steps to impede emergency workers responding to the scene, including the placement of incendiary devices. He also intentionally set his car on fire. Following the jury's decision today, Loya was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. WGBH contributor Patrick Flannery has been following the trial. He's with us on the line to talk about the case. Thanks for joining us, Patrick.
Patrick Flannery: Thank you, Barbara.
Barbara Howard: So some background first. Adrian Loya, apparently he'd been planning this murder for months, isn’t that right?
Patrick Flannery: For the better part of two years, as a matter of fact … He admitted as much. The evidence that was brought to the jury [was] a series of interviews with investigators just a couple of hours after his arrest in 2015. ... Adrian Loya opened up and talked very openly about how for the past year and seven months or so, he had been planning an attack of vengeance that stemmed to an incident that happened in 2012 in which Loya claimed that Lisa Trubnikova had sexually assaulted him. He classified it later as mental rape. He took that to the chain of command, and the Coast Guard filed a complaint. That backfired. Instead, he was found [to have] been abusing his position to get closer to Trubnikova. And that is where his angry tirade began, and that's when the planning essentially began.
Barbara Howard: Sounds like he was kind of stalking her. So Loya’s defense tried to convince the jury that Loya was mentally ill, not responsible. Can you talk about that?
Patrick Flannery: Yes. It was their decision ultimately to find out whether he was able to determine right from wrong when he committed this act. Three psychiatrists for the Commonwealth as well as one for the defense testified last week. None of them could really agree on which mental disorder that Adrian Loya suffered from. They each had four diagnoses. That didn't matter — the consensus being he still acted with premeditation and with extreme cruelty in the eyes of the jury.
Barbara Howard: Well prior to leaving the courtroom to deliberate, Loya mouthed something to the jury, right?
Patrick Flannery: This happened Friday afternoon just moments before the jury was dismissed to deliberate. He audibly said the word guilty.
Barbara Howard: OK. Well Lisa Trubnikova’s family spoke today following Loya’s conviction. What did they have to say?
Patrick Flannery: Her surviving spouse, Anna, asked the judge in a brief speech before sentencing to not spare him — to give him the maximum penalty, and that's exactly what her parents had asked for as well.
Barbara Howard: Loya has now been convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The judge reached his sentencing decision really really quickly. Usually a sentence is handed down months after a conviction. What happened?
Patrick Flannery: It's case by case we're told. In this particular trial, where we had 30 counts being weighed by the jury, and the fact that they had come to this decision knowing that his mental disorder did not come into play, the judge determined today was the day to go ahead and make that ruling.
Barbara Howard: OK. So it's life in prison without the possibility of parole. Again, thanks for joining us, Patrick.
Patrick Flannery: Barbara thanks so much.
Barbara Howard: That's WGBH contributor Patrick Flannery. He has been following the case of Adrian Loya, the former Coast Guardsman convicted today for the 2015 murder of fellow Coast Guard officer Lisa Trubnikova at her home in Bourne on Cape Cod. He's been sentenced to life in prison.