she suffered 18 injuries most of which were blunt force traumas. we were in the courtroom. and we have more. >> reporter: well, the jury got the case at 3:30. at 4:21 the jurors were back and said they were recommending life in prison without parole. the state has been pushing for the death penalty saying the murder of huggins-jones was cruel and it was brutal but the defense said there were extent waiting circumstances and that smith ought to be locked up for the rest of his natural life. >> she's down on the bed and she can't do a thing to help herself. and they kept on. they kept beating her, they kept stabbing her. they didn't stop. >> when we talk about the worst of the worst we don't mean simply the worst of the worst crimes. we are talking about

and that's just not travion smith, the worst of the worst those who have killed before, those whose history and everything else shows if they're not giving the ultimate again. >> smith portrayed in two different ways. >> the defense tried to blame someone else in this phase of the trial i submit to you mother and his father. >> meanwhile his lawyers i am employered the jury to spare him and let him stay in jail for his natural life. >> in other words, there is always a role for the mitigating circumstances, and there is always room for the mitigating circumstances to urge mercy in a case. >> reporter: after the verdict

left with other family members. she did say that she offered condolences to the family of huggins-jones and was glad that her brother's life was spared. >> following the recommendations several people spoke to the courtroom including the mother of melissa huggins-jones >> all lives matter to someone including yours, your life matters to your family and friends. no child should have to grow up in the manner that you did. but at some point you learned the difference between right and wrong. a number of people in your life encouraged you to follow the right path. but on may 13th and 14 you choose to do wrong. and now we all have to live with the choices thaw made. .

charged in this case, one has accepted a plea deal and is currently serving a life sentence and the alleged get away driver is still awaiting trial. for the family of a murdered student it's been a 20-year search for closure but today that process finally started with jury selection thanks to advances in processing evidence 41-year old lawing faces a murder charge. he was in a relationship with mcqueen at the time. and we were then their when the man accused of shooting a toddler at a day care in durham made his first court appearance today. laney fired ten shots into an at home day care last wednesday afternoon. police say two bullets hit a toddler who was inside at the time of the toddler has been treated and released from the hospital. police say the shooting was not random but he wasn't targeting the kids.

today. >> and i just heard pow, several shots they were in a car they were literally leaning out of a car. i have home day care and i have three-day care kids here. >> he was appointed a public defender and is due back in court on march 14th. four cyclists recovering, are two still in intensive care after they were hit from behind by a driver in johnston county this weekend. we talked to one of the riders and has the story. >> why she hit us, i don't know. >> reporter: it's a road they travel all the tile >> we were just going up the hill and in an instant everything happened. >> he spoke to us open on skype from his home where he's nursing very minor injuries after a car plowed into the back of him and 3 others riding their bikes. a

pelvis the other two still in icu in critical condition. riding companion says all four were wearing safety vests and very experienced riders. >> hardly any traffic, it's just hard to believe that this happened. >> the driver's daughter told wncn her mom was coming up over the hill and didn't see them. she claims a car was passing in the other direction and panicked. >> when she got to the top of the hill. >> but he says he never remembers a car coming the other way. >> she probably hit all four of us before she realize that had she hit anybody. >> i wasn't in her shoes but it just seems completely ridiculous that that was her only choice was to hit four people. >> troopers say they're still consulting prosecutors about what kind of charges to file against the driver. >> troopers say they're still

texting or using her phone but say alcohol and speed were not factors. we have new information on this weekend's deadly crash on i-40. troopers have identified a 39-year old as the man she say drove in reverse on i-40 westbound. a 28-year old was his passenger. the driver and passenger in the other car not from the area. the crash happened around 3 a.m. and troopers say alcohol was indeed a factor. raleigh police looking for a man incomes to a series of break ins in a north raleigh neighborhood. they happened back on february 13th. police say multiple cars were broken into and several items were stolen. so take a good look at your screen right now. police say at one point this man was captured on a surveillance camera breaking into a car inside a garage. if you recognize this man please call crime stoppers with any information. and turning to the weather we hear the rain over the

continue through tomorrow and it could get severe by mid-week. we have the first look at your weather forecast. >> good evening to you. big changes since or warm ask dry weekend. hopefully you enjoyed that. today it was cooler and wet and as you can see we've got some heavy downpour but the showers going to continue for the next couple of hours and for overnight because as we widen things out and you look down the road a little all of this is going to move through. gone the 60s and 70s we had over the weekend and we had 50s for highs today and many of us right now in the 40s and 50s, and those showers will continue through tonight. so three 8:00 rain likely as we hold about 47, 46 at midnight and 44 tomorrow morning, still with some rain. now, tomorrow's rain not too stormy but that will change on wednesday i'll talk about

then in just a few minutes. north carolina senator tom tillis is endorsing marco rubio for president. >> he says in a statement he has the unique capability of drawing new people into the party which is important in a swing state like north carolina. other politics have endorsed rubio includes speaker and representative john bell and speaking of rubio a new poll has the candidate third in our state for republicans. he's behind donald trump and ted cruz. on the democrat side hillary clinton leads bernie sanders by ten points but that is a much smaller lead that she had in november and as for the general election the poll shows both sanders and clinton beating trump however clinton would tie with cruz and lose to rubio while sanders would lose to rubio but beat ted cruz. well the battle over who represents you in congress is

a new map was created of the state's congressional districts after being ordered to do so but today some want that new map torn up. >> reporter: this is the map legislators spent most of last week talking about. they had to change it. but critics of the new map say it doesn't fix the problem. the north carolina naacp is planning to ask the judges overseeing this case to throw out this new map. instead they want the judges to draw the map themselves. it's been an issue that republicans have said that they did not draw this map along racial lines, however, members of the naacp say this is an issue that needs to be addressed soon. >> they did not have to draw maps that we have not seen since the 19th century. they didn't have to do that.

reinterject race into these election maps for the purpose of electing democrats and no other purpose. what happens here ultimately vote. two primaries will be held this year because of what's going on over the battle with the map. the second primary in june is just for the an attorney is going to ask a judge to issue an expedited ruling. coming up at 7 the whole situation has frustrated a lot of voters and we'll hear from them about what they'd like to see changed. well, there really is nothing like college basketball season in the triangle. >> that's right last week it was all duke unc, this week the tar heels take on the wolf pack. we'll hear about wednesday's night's match up in raleigh. >> good thing these games going on inside because we've got some

i'll take you through

plus a deadly shooting uber's cooperating with law

drivers stands accused of shooting and killing six people this weekend in michigan. >> police were called more than an authorities say the same driver began shooting at random. the 45-year old and a husband and father of two made his first court appearance this afternoon. prosecutors say he conducted a killing spree over about six hours saturday night while continuing to give rides to passengers. >> this was not a -- just a this was not just a crime, there was nothing there is video tapes of these incidentses. he walked up on these people and shot them. >> he passed a background check and police say he has no prior criminal record. so wncn investigates looks to what it takes to be an uber driver. >> just a few weeks ago the company settled two class action lawsuits for more than $28 million related to background checks. drivers must go through a screening performed

drivers required to give their full names, social security number, a copy of their driver's license as well as proof of insurance among other items. a trace is then run for the past 7 years and those certain convictions can't be drivers, critics say 7 years is not enough. in addition to all of this a check is run through a sex offender registry. >> well, uber's terms and conditions make it clear you ride quote at your own risk, and attorneys say the company's fine print absolves them of injury, accidents or a dangerous driver. the back and forth between apple and the justice department continues with the director of the fbi making his first public comments on in case. he defends the justice department's request that apple help the fbi hack into the iphone. well senior apple investigator executives calling the order a dangerous

>> it's just one phone now but if you build that pathway others will come looking for it and you can not control who those people and whether they're going to use it for good purposes. >> the litigation isn't go trying to set a precedent, it is about the victim's unjustice. a project to save a disappearing beach is one permit closer to becoming a reality. it's approved a special use permit to pump sand along an area to protect highway 123 from flooding. the currently eroding beach would receive sand. now, the project only needs a permit from the corps of engineers. we're going to be wishing we were at the beach. yesterday it was in the 70s.

seeing some scattered showers and heavy downpour rolling through. light to moderate rain showers will continue to move through from west to east. right now the heaviest of showers mainly northeastern part of wake county. so we might get a break at times tonight but remember there's more coming overnight, more tomorrow, and on wednesday. so settle in for a soggy couple of days and of course it's not as warm as it was over the weekend but temperatures all over the place. it's 49 in raleigh, warmer as usually to the south in fayetteville but also warmer up in roanoke rapids and warmer up in the mountains but mainly 40 and the 50s and everyone's cooler than where we are yesterday. and tonight we're going to keep the clouds around, we're going to keep the rain around on and off and then we're going to hold temperatures. we're not going to get too much cooler. so hour by hour 47 by

through the overnight hours and the rain will be around for tomorrow morning's commute as temperatures will start off about 44 degrees. and that's one thing i guess i should mention it is still winter and we had snow and ice a week and a half ago. there's none of that in this week's forecast but there is possibly some severe storms. so the coal front has moved through and it's going to stall and hang out for a couple days and riding along that front will be some instability and that's going to help bring all this moisture into the form of a thunderstorm eventually and then high pressure kind of up to our north is going to continue to give us a little cool air but even that's going to be off and on. let's talk about the rain first of all. tonight at midnight as you can see most of the state still getting scattered rain showers. there might be some breaks toward the morning time but i would plan on a lot of us having rain for the morning commute and a little bit of dry time before another round of showers rolls through, another round of dry time in the afternoon before more rain

late tomorrow night and then a lot of rain back to the west as we head into the overnight hours and wednesday morning we'll have more rain for the morning commute but went is when some that have rain could turn severe especially as the cold front approaches. so we might have some dry time but there will be a couple lines of storms coming through including early wednesday afternoon and later wednesday afternoon and wednesday evening and it's those lines that could produce some stronger storms. the front is through and we start to dry out late wednesday and we've got a dry back half of the week but i am concerned about wednesday from morning through afternoon. we are already in a slight risk of severe weather, that's the second category. we're not normally in this so we'll have to watch out for some damaging wind and an isolated tornado. that is your 7-day forecast. 50 for a high tomorrow, 64 wednesday and then back down to 54 thursday, 50 on friday, guys, 40s and 50s this weekend. so

all over the place. watch out for the rain our three degree high for tomorrow is 50, today we made it up to 57. meaning another $100 for our friends at the american heart association. we're up to $2,000 for the month. don't forget all month long not only is the american heart association our charity but it's also american heart month of the make sure you're finding ways to take care of your heart either exercise or

unc looking to north carolina and nc state will meet for the second time this season when the tar heels travel to raleigh on wednesday. unc won the first contest and the heels will be looking to keep a hold for the win. a win over the tar heels would can accomplish that on wednesday. >> i think our guys confident in whoever we play. i think our guys have great confidence in themselves. our team has played really well most of the times we just don't have a lot of wins to show for it. >> tar heels and wolf pack tip off is set for 8:00 on wednesday. >> it's going to be a big game. all right so we want to take

will soon be the new home for cbs programming including the ncaa tournament. >> you'll be able to watch ncis, right here on wncn. you can find much more information right now online at wncn.com. >> we look forward to it. is depression more than sadness? it's a tangle of multiple symptoms. brintellix (vortioxetine) is a prescription medicine for depression. brintellix may start to untangle or help improve the multiple symptoms of depression. "for me, brintellix made a difference." tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens, or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. brintellix has not been studied in children. do not take with maois.

your medications, including migraine, psychiatric and depression medications, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. increased risk of bleeding or bruising may occur, especially if taken with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners. manic episodes or vision problems may occur in some people. may cause low sodium levels. the most common side effects are nausea, constipation and vomiting. brintellix did not have significant impact on weight. ask your doctor if brintellix could

here's a guest from out of this world some students welcomed a special guest to black history assembly today, nasa astronaut speaks to students. >> in 2013 he was selected as one of the 8 members of the 21st class. he's also a u.s. navy lieutenant commander. always cool to see a real live astronaut in person. right now it's just rain but it going to continue for tonight and the overnight hours. nothing severe just yet. that

good chance of rain tomorrow but

could also breaking news. tonight an uber driver is charged with murder, and prosecutors say he admitted he's the gunman who went on a vicious rampage killing people in between picking up frightened passengers. breaking news in the race for president.

the ted cruz campaign. a top aide fired. tonight is donald p unstoppable? cosby's wife forced to testify as her husband's accusers take him to court. what did she know? cancer risk. from floors in so many homes across the country. the cdc says the toxic danger is worse than was first reported. and 106 years old with moves better than most teens. tonight we talked to the woman so excited at the white house she broke out her dance moves with the president. "nightly news" begins right now." >> announcer: from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this the "nbc nightly news" with lester holt. good evening. uber says tonight there were no red flags, no warnings about the michigan driver who was formally charged this while he was on the job in the kalamazoo area on saturday night.