MILPITAS — A San Jose man who deliberately shot a 19-year-old stranger because he thought the young man insulted him via an innocuous gesture in a parking lot faces 50 years to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder.

After deliberating for less than an hour, a Santa Clara County jury Friday found Loyce Weaver, 28, guilty of killing Jesus Granados in early January 2014 in the parking lot of an Executive Inn.

“It’s one of the most senseless first-degree murder cases I’ve ever seen,” deputy district attorney Angela Bernhard said Tuesday.

Bernhard said the slaying was “similar to road rage.” Weaver was in the front passenger seat of a stolen car he was trying to sell to the driver when the car apparently turned a corner in the lot and almost hit Granados and three of his friends. They had been at a party at the motel.

Granados threw up his hands and may have tapped the back-seat window and uttered an expletive, Bernhard said. The car then drove 20-40 feet more and stopped. Weaver got out, took aim across the hood of the car and fired four shots from a Taurus 9 mm handgun at the group of four friends, hitting Granados in the back of the neck. He died instantly.

A witness said that as he drove away, Weaver said, “He shouldn’t have looked at me that way,” Bernhard said.

Weaver was a drug dealer, but was not in a gang and had no history of violence, Bernhard said. He testified during the trial that he acted in self-defense, but the jury did not believe him. He is set to be sentenced Feb. 26.

Police were able to identify Weaver as the suspect about two months after the Jan. 14, 2014, incident through an informant who made contact with a witness who was in the car, according to Bernhard.

During the trial the same witness said, “There was no reason for him to die … he had no reason to come out and shoot, there was no threat … nothing for this individual to die that day.”

The handgun was found during a September 2014 arrest in Oakland and traced back to a person who knew Weaver, Bernhard said.

The shell casings found at the murder scene matched the firearm found in Oakland, according to Bernhard. The weapon was one of two firearms that were stolen a day before the murder, she said.

Weaver also had a felony conviction in 2006 for possession of narcotics for sale in San Jose.

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.