Man guilty of 5 murders in 2013 killing-arson spree

A 27-year-old Nevada man has been convicted of five capital murders during a killing spree east of Reno two years ago.

A state court jury in Yerington found Jeremiah Bean guilty Tuesday on five counts of first-degree murder. He also was convicted of arson, burglary, robbery and larceny charges.

Bean faces the death penalty at his sentencing hearing beginning Aug. 4.

The convicted felon initially agreed to a plea deal that would have spared him from possible execution. But he changed his mind and pleaded not guilty in November 2013 to all charges tied to the killings the previous Mother’s Day weekend.

Prosecutors say Bean fatally shot two couples in two homes in rural Fernley and a newspaper deliveryman 30 miles away at an I-80 exit east of Reno near the Mustang Ranch brothel.