NORTHAMPTON -- A former Westfield State College student was convicted of murder yesterday in the shooting death of his longtime friend.
Bryan Johnston's lawyers had argued that he was insane when he shot David Sullivan, a senior at the University of Massachusetts, in December 2004.
But prosecutors said Johnston, a onetime criminal justice major, was clear-minded at the time and behaved erratically only when he was mixing drugs, alcohol, and steroids.
Johnston faces a sentence of life without parole.
Defense lawyer Alex Nappan said Johnston became convinced that Sullivan wanted to harm him, and began collecting guns to protect himself. Throughout the four-week trial in Northampton Superior Court, Nappan tried to paint Johnston as an ordinary college student who began to unravel in the grips of mental illness. Friends of Johnston testified that he would seem unstable when he drank, which they said he did often.
But a forensic psychologist who evaluated Johnston at Bridgewater State Hospital testified that the defendant did not seem delusional after the killing.
After Johnston shot Sullivan in Amherst, he stashed the murder weapon in a tree by the Connecticut River in Hadley. Police said Johnston later called his parents and admitted he had killed Sullivan.
''This is a person who was extremely clear at the time of the killing and extremely clear during the time after the killing," prosecutor Renee Steese said during her closing argument.