A Watts gang member was sentenced to death Thursday morning for murdering six people, including five victims at a Long Beach homeless encampment more than nine years ago in what became one of the city’s worst mass killings.

David Ponce, 38, stayed silent during his hearing, only looking over at his family and saying “Love you guys,” as he was led into the courtroom.

As she handed down the sentence, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo said Ponce’s embrace of a gang lifestyle led him down a perilous, and ultimately deadly, path.

“All the people you murdered, regardless of their station in life, had hopes, dreams, loves and family,” she said.

During trial, Olmedo heard Ponce describe the killings in his own words when prosecutors played recordings of him and a co-defendant bragging about the murders behind bars.

On Thursday, Olmedo referenced those tapes, telling Ponce that his crimes were horrific.

“And your glee in the number and manner of each victim’s demise is distorted and shocking,” Olmedo said.

In September, jurors convicted Ponce and 32-year-old Max Rafael of murdering 44-year-old Lorenzo Villicana, 24-year-old Katherine Verdun, 34-year-old Vanessa Malaepule, 53-year-old Frederick Neumeier and 41-year-old Hamid “Sammy” Shraifat in Long Beach on Nov. 1, 2008.

On that night, Ponce and Rafael, who were both members of the Nuthood Watts gang, were looking specifically for Villicana at the encampment, which was tucked into the brush near Santa Fe Avenue and the 405 Freeway, authorities said.

After executing Villicana, the gang members killed the four others simply because they witnessed what happened, Deputy District Attorney Cyndi Barnes said.

Ponce was also convicted of a sixth murder.

“Because five was not enough he decided he needed to kill again,” Barnes said as trial began in September.

Jurors found him guilty of executing 18-year-old Tony Bledsoe around the Lancaster area in March 2009.

Prosecutors said Bledsoe had been selling marijuana for Ponce but when he missed a payment, Ponce kidnapped him and shot him in the desert where he left his body.

The recordings of Ponce and Rafael behind bars ended up being key evidence at their trial.

Investigators had a jailhouse informant begin making the recordings after the two men were arrested in 2010 on charges unrelated to the killings, authorities said.

In one of the tapes, Ponce says they went to the homeless encampment in 2008 because Villicana had “turned state’s evidence against his homie,” according to prosecutors.

In another recording, one of the defendants describes how he shot someone that night.

“I hit his ass like six times, fool,” a voice on the tape says. “I emptied a whole clip out. I had an 18-shot clip, 17 shot.”

At trial, Ponce’s attorney argued he was lying in the recordings. Ponce was falsely bragging to try to gain status behind bars, according to defense attorney Robert Schwartz.

The informant also plied Ponce with pruno, a jailhouse-brewed alcohol, Schwartz argued.

Prosecutors countered this by saying Ponce described the killings accurately and in detail.

In Bledsoe’s case, Ponce said he made the 18-year-old get into a praying position before shooting him in the back of the head, prosecutors said.

The damage authorities found in Bledsoe’s skull matched Ponce’s description of the wounds, according to Barnes.

After hearing the evidence and convicting both men, a jury recommended Ponce receive the death penalty.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty for Rafael, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in January.

There are only two other times in Long Beach’s history that as many as five people have been killed during a single crime, according to police:

• On Dec. 4, 1985, five people died in a blaze set at an apartment complex in the 1300 block of Peterson Avenue. Police determined it was arson, but who started the fire remains unsolved.

• On Oct. 28, 1993, five people were shot and killed during a robbery at a home in the 200 block of E. 68th Street, according to police. Police took the suspected gunman into custody the next year.