Photo by AlbinoFlea

The five men charged with killing five people along South Capitol Street in 2010 were found guilty by a jury this afternoon. According to the Post, four of the five men were found guilty of first-degree murder; a fifth man was convicted of several counts of second-degree murder, conspiracy and assault.

The prosecution’s case against the five—Orlando Carter, 22; Sanquan Carter, 21; Jeffrey D. Best, 23; Robert Bost, 23, and Lamar Williams, 23—was strengthened by Nathaniel Simms, the sixth shooter, who testified against his once-friends:

Simms was initially charged with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to five counts of second-degree murder in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors and testifying during the trial.

Simms, the prosecution’s star witness, detailed the roles his neighborhood friends played in the shootings. He never wavered from his story despite dozens of questions from defense attorneys, who portrayed him as a vengeful, disgruntled confessed murderer who fabricated the narrative.

Simms gave an emotional account of how he aimed an AK-47-style assault rifle out the passenger-side rear window of a rented minivan and fired blindly into a crowd of people, many of them teenagers who had attended a funeral that day.

The 2010 killing, sparked by a feud over a bracelet, stands as the single worst massacre in the city’s history. It prompted the passage of a landmark bill by the D.C. Council increasing attention on youth mental health and truancy.