Gebrah Noonan received a measure of closure Tuesday when the man accused of slaying the soldier two years ago at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, was convicted of premeditated murder.
Neftaly Platero, 34, faces an automatic sentence of life in prison for killing Noonan and a bunkmate and shooting another roommate in their bedroom in September 2010, but the jury must decide whether he will ever be eligible for parole.
Platero was found guilty of two counts of premeditated murder and one count of attempted premeditated murder by a five-member jury of Army officers and noncomissioned officers.
The court-martial verdict, reached after 90 minutes of deliberation, closes a brutal chapter in the life of Noonan's family and friends, who recently mourned his slaying for the second Memorial Day.
In Iraq, he spent a lot of time lifting weights with his fellow soldiers and having long conversations about religion, fellow soldiers recalled in a video filmed at the on-base ceremony held after the attack.
Only weeks earlier, President Barack Obama had downgraded American military operations in Iraq from "war" to "peace-keeping."
[...] no U.S. serviceman had been killed.
One soldier who served alongside Noonan and Carrillo cried on the witness stand as he described the memorial service held for his two colleagues in Iraq.
[...] the officer in charge of the base where the killings occurred said his troops remained on edge throughout the rest of their deployment.
The sentencing phase of the trial began Tuesday afternoon with prosecutors calling the victims' loved ones and Army colleagues to testify about how they had been devastated by the killings.
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