PEKIN, Ill. – An Illinois man, who was convicted last May of illegally giving an assault-style rifle to his son that was later used to shoot and kill four people at a Tennessee Waffle House in 2018, received his sentence almost a year after being found guilty.
Taurean Sanderlin, 29; Joey Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21 were killed in the April 22, 2018 shooting.
Jeffrey Reinking, 59, was convicted in May 2022 after a trial for the illegal delivery of a firearm to a person who had been treated for mental illness within the past five years, according to (Peoria) Journal Star.
Prosecutors during the trial argued that Reinking knew his son, Travis Reinking, went through treatment for mental health in 2016.
The Associated Press reported that in May 2016, police and fire crews were called out to a parking lot of a pharmacy in Morton, Illinois. Travis Reinking told officers that he thought Taylor Swift was stalking him and had hacked his phone. First responders took him to a hospital for an evaluation.
Reinking’s attorney, Kevin Sullivan, said that his client had no idea that Travis Reinking was treated for mental health issues when he was at the hospital, according to the AP.
Man in 2018 Waffle House shooting in Tennessee sentenced to life without parole
Travis Reinking had his firearm owner’s identification card revoked by Illinois State Police after he moved out of state, (Peoria) Journal Star reported.
This meant that he could not legally have guns within the state of Illinois and had surrendered his guns to his father. His father, however, returned them to him prior to the Nashville Waffle House shooting, prosecutors said, according to the AP.
The gun that was used to kill four people at the Waffle House was an AR-15 assault-style rifle which was one of the guns that Travis Reinking’s father gave him back, according to the AP.
Last year, in Feb. 2022, CNN reported that Travis Reinking was convicted on 16 counts, four of which were first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
