The Silver Spring man convicted of killing his friend Mark Waugh was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.
In March, a jury convicted Rahul Gupta, 25, of first-degree murder in the killing of the 23-year-old Georgetown University law student.
At the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Montgomery County prosecutors laid out the details of the case: Gupta stabbed Waugh 11 times, once in the jugular vein, around 3:30 a.m. at Gupta's Silver Spring apartment after the two friends along with Gupta's then-girlfriend had celebrated Gupta’s birthday at a bar.
Gupta sat at the defendant’s table quietly in a green jumpsuit. Behind him sat members of his family and a few friends. Across the aisle, Waugh’s family members were seated behind the prosecutors.
Gupta told the court that he wouldn’t share his thoughts and feelings about the case. Then he launched into a speech about the kind of man he believed Mark Waugh was. The two became friends while at Langley High School in McLean, Va. The two remained friends while Gupta was working on a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at George Washington University and Waugh was studying at Georgetown.
“I’ll forever remember my time with Mark as a time of happy, simple intimacy,” Gupta said. He added that his “greatest regret” will be not being able to spend time with his family. He ended his speech, in which he was careful to not admit any wrongdoing, by saying, “Words cannot describe how terribly sorry I am about what happened.”
Bill Waugh, Mark’s father, also read a statement during the hearing. He said it was the “most horrific” thing that could happen to a parent.
“This has thrown us into poverty… a poverty of hope, sadness and longing,” Waugh said. He described how every morning he wakes up and thinks about the final minutes of his son’s life—how Mark was alive for several minutes after being stabbed nearly a dozen times, according to the Medical Examiner’s autopsy.
“I cannot imagine what he thought during that time,” Waugh said.
No motive for the killing was presented at the trial by either side. During the trial Gupta’s attorneys argued that Gupta’s then-girlfriend, who was in the apartment at the time, carried out the killing. She testified during the trial that she was too drunk to remember what happened.
Another theory also emerged—one widely disseminated on local TV news sites, even just before Gupta’s sentencing—that Gupta killed Waugh over a love triangle and that Gupta’s girlfriend was cheating on him with Waugh. Prosecutors and the judge in the case, Richard Jordan, said Gupta had recanted statements about unfaithfulness and that these allegations were only damaging the reputations of Waugh and Gupta’s former girlfriend.
Judge Jordan in delivering his sentencing, said, “Mr. Gupta, the jury did not believe you. I do not believe you.”
Jordan said he found it “stunning” that Gupta talked about Mark Waugh in his statements before sentencing and called it the “continuation of the lie” he presented during the trial.
Jordan said that despite pleas from the defense to be lenient in sentencing, he saw no reason to do so.
“I don’t hear regret and I don’t think we’ve heard the truth yet,” Jordan said shortly before sentencing Gupta to life in prison.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated Gupta and Waugh lived together, that was incorrect, it was Gupta's apartment where Waugh was killed.
