An Ohio man faces the death penalty for killing his boss and a retired Pennsylvania state trooper last year after he found out he was going to be fired.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours Thursday before convicting Calvin Neyland Jr., 44, of two counts of aggravated murder in Wood County Common Pleas Court in northwest Ohio.
Neyland, of Findlay, was accused of fatally shooting Liberty Transportation manager Doug Smith, 44, of Toledo, and Thomas Lazar, 58, of Rostraver, after they fired him in August 2007.
Lazar was security chief for the trucking company, which is based in New Alexandria. He worked as a patrol trooper, criminal investigator and public relations officer during his years with the state police.
The penalty phase of the trial, before Judge Robert Pollex, begins Tuesday morning.
Lazar's sister, Anita Smith, of Blairsville declined to talk about Neyland's sentencing, but praised authorities and the jury.
"It was hard to listen to a lot of the evidence, but the prosecutors and the police did a terrific job with the case," she said Friday.
She said the jury was "very intent and listened to all the evidence. I know they came up with the right decision, and I thank them for that."
Lazar's mother, Ann Lazar, of Blairsville said the shooting has changed her forever.
"My life has not been a life since that happened," she said yesterday. "I've been crying every day, and I just can't put it out of my mind."
Smith's fiancee testified during the trial that Smith was nervous before he was to meet with Neyland, and another man said Smith feared he was going to "get beat up or worse."
Prosecutors said Neyland planned to kill his boss after finding out he was going to be fired. Neyland's attorneys did not dispute that he killed the men, but they tried to show that he had not planned the shootings.
Neyland had worked at the trucking company for just over a year and had been warned that he was one violation away from being let go. He then had a traffic accident a week before the shootings that sealed his firing, assistant Wood County prosecutor Heather Baker told jurors during opening statements of the trial.
Neyland went to the trucking office and first shot Lazar, Baker said. Neyland then shot Smith, who was sitting by himself in a second-floor office, she said.
Neyland was arrested about three hours after the slayings in a motel parking lot in Temperance, Mich., about 15 miles north of where the shooting took place.
His motel room was stocked with weapons, and police found a handgun and a will in his truck, Baker said. Tests showed that bullets from the gun matched those found at the trucking company, she said.
Reporter Chris Foreman contributed to this story
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