(NECN: Alysha Palumbo - Woburn, MA) - "Charging this defendant John Odgren with murder in the first degree, what say you - is the defendant guilty or not guilt?" asked the court clerk.
"Guilty," said the forewoman.
"Guilty of what ma'am?" asked the clerk.
She said, "Guilty of pre-meditated malice of forethought and extreme atrocity and cruelty."
After a two and a half week trial and three days of deliberations, a jury of five men and seven women found 19-year-old John Odgren guilty of first degree murder in the stabbing death of 15-year-old James Alenson in a Lincoln-Sudbury High School bathroom.
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As the news that he will be spending the rest of his life in prison seemed to sink in, Odgren dropped down into his chair in shock, as across the aisle James Alenson's mother began sobbing uncontrollably.
Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone said, "No parent should have to bury their child prematurely as the Alenson's did."
Defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro put three mental health experts on the stand to try to prove Odgren was delusional and psychotic at the time of the crime and thus not guilty by reason of insanity.
The jury instead found that Odgren deliberately premeditated the murder of Alenson, the honor roll clarinet player who had dreams of one day being a sportswriter.
Leone said, "James' world was invaded by this defendant and we're all now familiar with this defendant's world - an obsessed world where dark and gruesome violence were the norm."
Leone says while the school district was not criminally responsible, he believes there were many red flags and predictors that school officials missed throughout John's childhood that could have prevented his murder.
"We send our kids to school every single day expecting that that's a safe haven," said Leone.
John Odgren said on jail audio tape, "It's so funny they were searching for all that crap, like I had the teddy bear next to the shotgun. I did that as a joke and they all took it seriously. They're not the brightest of people."
It was this last piece of evidence in the case - jail house audio tapes between Odgren and his family - that prosecutor Daniel Bennett says was the key to proving Odgren was not insane.
"He clearly thought he was smarter than me, he clearly thought he was smarter than his psychiatrists, he thought he was smarter than the police," said Bennett, "and the real James Odgren is on those tapes."
John Odgren will be sentenced Friday morning at 9am.
The conviction of first degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
