The perpetrator of a deadly antisemitic attack near San Diego in 2019 was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, without the possibility of parole.

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John Earnest, 22, a former nursing student, pleaded guilty for the shooting attack on the Chabad Synagogue in Poway.

A 60-year-old member of the congregation, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed and three others were wounded in the attack, including the rabbi, who was shot in the hand and lost an index finger.

Several dozen people were inside the synagogue at that time.

"I'm just trying to defend my nation from the Jewish people," Earnest said, according to court documents.

Earnest also pleaded guilty to setting a mosque on fire in March 2019, an act he described in a racist and anti-Semitic pamphlet posted online hours before the attack on the synagogue.

Earnest faced the death penalty, which, while still in force in California, has been suspended until further notice since 2006.

The attack, on the last day of Passover celebrations, came exactly six months after an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018 that left 11 people dead.

Earnest was inspired by the massacre, and purchased a semi-automatic rifle the day before the shooting, a federal affidavit said.

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John T. Earnest, 19, also told a San Diego Sheriff's detective that he was inspired by Adolf Hitler and the suspected gunman in the New Zealand mosque shooting last March.

The search warrant, which was unsealed in a hate crimes case against Earnest, offered a few new details about the attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue on the last day of Passover, including when Earnest became drawn to anti-Semitism and hatred of Islam.

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San Diego police found a helmet with a video camera on it in Earnest's car when the San Diego man was arrested almost immediately after the April 27 shooting, which killed 60-year-old Lori Kaye and injured three others. He had an AR-15 rifle in his vehicle. Earnest said on the 8chan website that he planned to stream the attack live on Facebook. He never did.

"At that time, Earnest did not appear to be under the influence of a controlled substance but did appear to have a 'flat affect' as though he was detached or unaffected by his actions," the warrant states in recounting an interview that he gave to a San Diego police detective immediately after being detained.

Earnest has pleaded not guilty to a 113-count federal indictment and faces charges of murder and attempted murder in state court, both of which may make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. He also pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges of trying to burn a mosque in the nearby city of Escondido.

Court documents said Earnest dialed 911 after fleeing the synagogue in his car and said: "I just shot up a synagogue." He went on to tell the dispatcher that he did it "because Jewish people are destroying the white race," according to the affidavit.

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