Waffle House Shooter Believed God Instructed Him To Kill, Pleads Not Guilty By Insanity

The man who was charged for fatally shooting four people inside a Tennessee Waffle House in 2018 has pleaded not guilty by insanity. 32-year-old Travis Reinking appeared in court Monday on trial, charged with first-degree murder stemming from the fatal shooting that happened at the restaurant on April 22, 2018.

Reinking's defense lawyer, Luke Evans, said that his client suffered from schizophrenia and lived with several delusions. Reinking claimed that he had been communicating with God directly and God instructed to kill the victims who were government agents, the lawyer told the court, as reported by New York Post.

"He believed regular people walking around were out to hurt him and had been hurting him. Mr. Reinking believed he was commanded by God to go to the Waffle House in defense of himself and other people. The people at Waffle House were, in his mind, government agents," Evans told the court.

The defense lawyer claimed that Reinking was driven by delusions and experienced both paranoid thinking and auditory hallucinations that he battled for several years. Reinking also had delusions that made him believe he was Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and that she had sexually assaulted him, the lawyer told the court, as reported by Law & Crime.

The defense is trying to get a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, by proving Reinking was mentally ill and could not distinguish between right and wrong during the incident.

Meanwhile, Assistant District Attorney General Jan Norman argued in court that the suspect had made several conscious choices in the killings. Norman pointed out that Reinking bought extra magazines the day before the shooting and chose his most powerful weapon on the day of the shooting. He also brought to the court's attention that Reinking went to the restaurant at a time when it was especially busy.

"The proof, in this case, is that Travis Reinking made a choice," Norman told the court. "He made several choices that led to the shooting," he added.

Reinking faces first-degree murder charges for the death of Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29, Joe R. Perez, 20, Akilah Dasilva, 23, and DeEbony Groves, 21. In addition to the first-degree murder charges, Reinking also faces several counts of attempted first-degree murder.