Ex-Dallas Officer Who Killed Neighbor In Upstairs Apartment Is Found Guilty Of Murder

A Dallas jury has found former police Officer Amber Guyger guilty of murder for fatally shooting a neighbor who lived in the apartment directly above hers last year. She had testified that she entered Botham Jean's unit after a long day at work, thinking it was her own home and that he was an intruder.

The jury took five hours to decide Guyger had committed murder, rather than a lesser charge of manslaughter. Jurors will begin considering sentencing options Tuesday afternoon. Guyger faces a possible penalty of up to 99 years in prison.

She is the first Dallas police officer to be convicted of murder since the 1970s.

Prosecutors maintained that Guyger, who is white, committed murder when she overlooked signs that the apartment she entered wasn't her own — the wrong floor, the smell of marijuana coming from the apartment, a bright red doormat — and shot Jean, a 26-year-old black accountant who was sitting in his living room eating ice cream when Guyger killed him last September.