David Malcom Strickland Convicted In 2012 Shooting Of Mollie Olgin And Kristene Chapa In South Texas

More than four years after a horrific attack on a teenage lesbian couple in South Texas, a jury on Wednesday found 30-year-old David Malcom Stickland guilty of capital murder and aggravated sexual assault in connection with the crime.Â

The attack on Mollie Olgin, 19, and Kristene Chapa, then 18, which many suspected to be an anti-gay hate crime, made national news and led to LGBT vigils around the country.

Following an eight-day trial, Stickland was convicted Wednesday of sexually assaultingÂ Olgin and Chapa, before shooting them in the head execution style, at a park in Portland, Texas, in June 2012. Bird-watchers discovered the young women stacked on top of each other the next morning. Olgin died from her injuries, but Chapa somehow survived and has undergone a painstaking recovery that allowed her to begin college last year. Chapa, now 22,Â took the stand Friday to testify against Strickland, who will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Â

Strickland, who lived near the park at the time, went to a vigil for Olgin a few days after the attack, asking mourners for details about the investigation and searching the grass in the area where the couple had been found. However, Strickland wasn’t arrested until 2014 after his girlfriend delivered a letter to Chapa’s father that included details of the crime that hadn’t previously been made public. The letter was written from the perspective of a hitman who claimed he’d been hired by Strickland’s former roommate to kill the lone survivor, Chapa. However, authorities concluded the letter was written by Strickland, who later confessed to the crime before recanting.Â

Prosecutors didn’t treat the case as an anti-gay hate crime, but they did present evidence that suggests Chapa and Olgin were targeted due to their sexual orientation. For example, the letter stated that Chapa and Olgin deserved to die because their sexual orientation made them “less than human.”Â

Chivas Sandage, who’s writing a book about the case, told MSNBC in 2014 that the attack “had the earmarks of being targeted.”Â

“Was this a hate crime? We may never know,” Savage said. “I’m not an attorney. I’m not an expert on hate crimes, but from everything that I’m seeing, I believe this is a very real possibility.”