Guilty verdict for Bay in Landstown case

VIRGINIA BEACH

Philip Bay could spend the rest of his life in prison for plotting an attack on Landstown High School with sawed-off shotguns and homemade explosives.

A jury deliberated for about two hours Monday afternoon before rejecting the defense's contention that Bay was not guilty by reason of insanity and returning guilty verdicts on each of the 18 felony charges he faced.

His convictions are for offenses including manufacturing or possessing an explosive device with intent to cause harm, possessing or using a sawed-off shotgun, and soliciting or recruiting for an act of terrorism.

Bay displayed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were read one by one. When his mother entered the courtroom moments later, he shook his head and looked downward.

Bay, who came to court clean-shaven and wearing dress shirts and sweater vests each day, showed virtually no reaction during the trial. His lawyer, James Broccoletti, attributed that to the 19-year-old defendant's mental illness and heavy medication.

Bay's prison time will be up to a judge rather than the jury because Bay was a juvenile, 17, at the time of the offenses.

He will be sentenced Feb. 23. He is jailed in the meantime.

Insanity findings are rare, with only a handful of cases in South Hampton Roads since 2007. If jurors had found Bay not guilty by reason of insanity, he would have been evaluated to determine whether he was fit to return to society, needed treatment or required detention.

A trio of attorneys sat on both sides of the courtroom throughout the six-day trial. Neither the prosecution nor the defense disputed Bay's intent to kill at least 30 people April 20, 2009, at the high school he professed to hate.

But the defense urged jurors to return a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity based on testimony from three mental health experts and the hundreds of pages of journal entries and hours of video Bay made in the past two years.

One video was a how-to on making pipe bombs. He displayed his weaponry in another - shotguns and explosives spread neatly across his living room floor. And in a journal entry from September 2007, Bay wrote: "It's like everyone I lay eyes on I want to kill.... I tell you this will be a massacre for the ages."

Broccoletti referred to those exhibits as "the face of insanity, the voice of insanity."

During the trial, three mental health experts testified Bay suffered from untreated mental illness, a dysfunctional family life and years of bullying in school. They said Bay believed he was an agent of God whose purpose was to bring justice to the bullied and mistreated.

Prosecutors said Bay was calculating, manipulative and bent on revenge for the time he spent in juvenile detention for bringing a hoax explosive device to school in April 2007.

"I think it's clear this is a very troubled, troubled young man," Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant said during the prosecution's closing argument. "Does he need some counseling? He certainly does. Does he need some thought restructuring? Yes, he does. Did he know the nature and consequences of his actions? Yes, he did. Did he know it was wrong? He knew all of this was wrong."

Further, prosecutors argued, Bay had already planned an insanity defense should his suicide mission fail: One of the documents collected from his home stated the importance of keeping journals and emphasizing insanity.

"This wasn't a plan... this wasn't a fake," Broccoletti countered during closing. " He'd been in psychiatric and psychological counseling since he was 7 years old."

After the verdict, Broccoletti said he thought jurors could not accept insanity when faced with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, plans and a hit list, all of which were found among Bay's possessions.

"We never believed Philip Bay was insane," Bryant told reporters after the verdict. "We always had confidence the jury would understand what was going on."

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com